Making new friends in a new city as a couple is not easy, but neither is it for a single person. Being a couple has some pros and cons when it comes to making new friends.
Being a couple at least makes you not as desperate because you already have someone you can spend time with, while if you are single, it is very lonely until you get to meet new people.
That being said, there are some activities that a single person can engage in easier than a couple and vice-versa. So you have to know your strengths to take full advantage of them. I will talk about those later.
But until I get to the topic itself, I want to let you know that My wife and I changed the city together when we were 27 and 28 years old, so we have some experience with making new friends in another city.
We lived in one city for nine years, college years, and a few years of work after that, and we had all our friends and acquaintances there, check my about page for more details. However, one year after moving to the new city, we had more friends than in the city we had lived for nine years, but this is because we prioritized our social life and we’ve made an intentional effort to meet new people.
What is important when making new friends as a couple?
The most important thing when making new friends, especially in your late 20s or early 30s, is to be intentional about it and have the initiative since those are years when people prioritize anything but making friends. In our 20s, we tend to prioritize careers more than making or keeping friends, so it is pretty hard to make new friends if you don’t do it on purpose. People usually don’t refuse to hang out with friends or things like this, but they don’t have the initiative and don’t prioritize this enough in those years.
So you and your partner have to be on the same page and really want to make new friends since it will be quite hard if you don’t understand that it can be quite a big effort sometimes.
You have to pay attention to people you meet and really be a good listener to see if they might be the kind of people you want around you. When you are a couple is nice that you can see different things and talk about those when you get home. So you get to know people better and faster compared to a single person if you are working together.
When making new friends as a couple, you have the advantage that you can talk with everyone, no matter their gender, without being misunderstood or anything like that, or at least you have lower chances since being a couple is not a guarantee that you are not flirting.
Also, one extra advantage is that if you invite someone to your home(which is more acceptable if you are a couple) or you want to hang out with them another time. It is clear to all of you that you are looking for new friends so they can decide if they want new friends or not, but at least there is no confusion.
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6 Ways to make friends in a new city as a couple
Here are a few ways to make new friends in a new city as a couple, we used all of them, some with more success than others, but they might work differently in your circumstances, so I will list them all.
1. Start from who you know
Start with checking your social media friends to see if you have someone you know in the new city you moved in. You might not know them very well, but at least you have a reason to contact them since you moved to their city and you would like to know the city better and make new friends.
Of course, if you have someone you know better in mind, you shouldn’t hesitate to contact them even if you might think that they would not be your best friends, you can meet many people through other people.
This was our best way of making friends, we started with a few people we knew in the city and openly talked to them about our intention of meeting new people. We were lucky that they introduced us to their group of friends, but it wouldn’t happen without us saying that we wanted to meet new people. We started with two couples we knew, and for our birthday, two years later, we had 20 guests at our home, so it is possible if you really want it.
2. Ask for recommendations from your best friends
If you don’t know anyone in the new city, you can talk with your best friends or at least close friends if they can recommend someone they know in the city to help you know the city better. Having someone to present you with the city and maybe taking lunch together will get you at least an acquaintance in that city, you can offer to pay for their lunch since they’ve made an effort to show you the city.
3. Check Facebook groups
If the city is big enough, there should be many groups that are related to the city. The ones that we are active in are the city group and the mothers’ group. We have no children yet, but the mothers’ group is not only for the mother but for couples as well that have questions about pregnancy and so on.
The thing with this group is that it is not limited to parent-related topics, and people ask for a lot of recommendations and other stuff like dentists, things to do in the city, and so on. Moms tend to be more emphatic and willing to help other people, so for us it is a nice group to get to know other people in the city, and you are almost guaranteed that they are couples.
We didn’t use the group as much since we were lucky to meet enough new people through the people we knew, but my wife has a few girls that are friends on social media and keep in touch from time to time, from that group, so it can work.
If the city is even bigger, there should be a group for different social activities like board games, sports and so on.
4. City activities, especially where you can socialize
If there is any activity in the city that will be a good place to socialize, you should do your best to participate since they are awesome ways to meet new people.
Activities like planting trees, fun games, or anything the city organizes might work wonderfully.
5. Hobbies and sports
What better way to create new friendships than the ones you have a passion or an interest in common. So if you have a hobby or a sport you do, you should do your best to find some specific groups that are open to new members.
I played a lot of football but not competitive level, just casual, and I found a group called football in “name of the city”, so you might find those types of groups as well. I played with new people once or twice a week, it was a lot, but I enjoyed it and met a lot of new friends while doing that. Of course, I haven’t stayed in touch with many of them outside of the football field, but with a few of them, I did.
6. Organize parties and events
This works only if you already know a few people, but it can really boost the group of people you know.
We organized a Halloween party, luckily for us in Romania, not many people celebrate Halloween, so they weren’t busy at the time, and you can’t refuse a nice party where you can be whoever you want for a night. It is much easier to tell someone to get new people to an organized party or event compared to a random hangout. So by organizing an event or a party you might end up with new friends, of course, there might be downsides of ending up with new people at your house so do it carefully.
This year we expect even more people at our Halloween party compared to last year because they’ve seen that the first one was a success because we’ve done our best to be a nice party with a lot of spooky kinds of stuff, pumpkins, and lights.
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Conclusion
Making new friends in another city as a couple is challenging but possible. Make sure you work together on this; otherwise, it will be really hard because while all sounds so good in our case, there were moments when we were really discouraged and debated if it was a good idea to change the city even if not the friends were the reason for our move.
