The rise of friend making events combating the loneliness epidemic

Loneliness has been described as a global epidemic, contributing to almost 100 deaths per hour. With 25- to 34-year-old Kiwis most affected by it, several in-person friend-making initiatives have launched in New Zealand this year in efforts to move the needle on loneliness. Dylan Jones went along to some of them to find out more.

I'm in my final year of belonging to the group most likely to identify as lonely in New Zealand and I can tell you: the struggle is real, with work commitments, tiredness and seemingly less in-person opportunities all contributing to it. Plus, much to my chagrin, my social battery isn't what it used to be 10 years ago.

Instagram must have picked up on that because in the space of a couple of weeks I was served up four different ads for in-person friend-making events, most of them new developments.

One online questionnaire and a $20 ticket later, I'd registered with meetup service Kin Connect to have coffee with five strangers at a café on Sunday morning.

There was a false start when I received an email saying Kin's algorithm hadn't been able to place me with a suitable group, which teleported me back to my high school insecurities of struggling to make friends.

But a week later I was matched and sitting outside a café with the same feeling of anticipation as a blind date. Multiply that by the four people that would be joining, then divide in half because we were all looking for friends and not fiancées.

In this particular meetup I was the only one born in New Zealand, and part of our chat went into the challenges of building social circles in a new country. Services like Kin made a huge difference for my new acquaintances, three of whom were from European countries and one from India.

If it felt like a lull in conversation was approaching, someone always had a question to carry us into new discussions. One of my favourites was the many enquiries we had for Dmitri about his job as a parachute maker, something that felt like the beginnings of a great sitcom.

We sat for almost two hours, weaving between shared experiences and moments of enlightenment on our differences. Several of us go to the same gym, so we're arranging to go to some classes together.

None of us were particularly keen to delve into political chat, but we did spend some time on the topic of technology – including how we felt about AI as a daily companion and algorithms sorting us into meetups like the one we had found ourselves in.

While we had a range of opinions on how much we should be relying on AI for friendship and life advice, there was consensus on algorithmic coffee organising. It was helpful for making sure we were all roughly the same age and had a good gender balance.

But beyond that we felt it should be fairly hands off, because part of the desire to make new friends is also to meet people outside of one's normal circles, not simply a carbon copy of what we already have.

Alessia Briano from the Kin team said that's their hope for the service.

"We have people that are locals, others that are expats but really what makes them connect is the love for coffee and trying to break out of the usual groups and meet new people," said Briano.

Every gathering of strangers is going to be different, and part of the friend making journey is acknowledging not every group will gel. Luckily for me, I landed a good bunch, with opportunities naturally forming to connect again.

Digging into the psychology behind it, I spoke with Matt Hammond, a researcher at Victoria University. He said the difference between feeling lonely and small-scale socialising is huge.

"When we can look at statistics across the world, loneliness has the same increase in mortality risk as smoking cigarettes does," he said.

"Building new connections, even close-ish connections, can be really beneficial for health."

He stressed that for those feeling extremely lonely, the best course of action was to talk with a therapist or loved one, seeking support and talking about it as a first step.

So, are friend making events making a difference for young adults in New Zealand?

Kin attendee Anahita Oei thought so, especially when faced with the challenges of young adulthood.

"A lot of my friends have moved overseas, or you've just naturally drifted apart," said Oei.

"Working five days a week, a lot of my colleagues have family responsibilities, so it's quite hard to socialise."

She was feeling optimistic after her first coffee meetup.

"Definitely from this one, there are some really cool people I'd love to meet again," said Oei.

Another Sunday event, Time & Place, saw around 70 people and almost as many homemade cakes show up at Auckland's Victoria Park.

It evolved from Melinda Wong organising a dinner party with five friends.

"I thought to myself: wouldn't it be great to create spaces where it would be like more of these fulfilling relationships in life, like help facilitate those," said Wong.

If this Sunday afternoon was anything to go by, Wong had succeeded in creating such a space.

Ultimately the proof was in the pudding. Two women who I assumed were friends had actually only met five minutes earlier.

"I said, 'you like this cake?' And she's like 'yeah', and then we started talking," said one.

"No more loneliness, no more," said the other.