Finding friendship can be difficult. New York can be difficult. Finding friendships in New York? Ouch. Whether its the sea of busy faces that never seems to wane off in intensity or speed, or the fact that all your old high school friends keep promising to come see you, but never do, it takes some outside the box thinking to find a squad to stick to in good times and bad. Here are 5 places to start looking (with a recommendation on the best way to do so.)
- A bookstore. I would most recommend the strand, around the outside racks where you find 48 cent pulp fiction novels. Every now and then, interesting people stop by. If they look close to your age, if they’ve got a sense of fashion you like, or hate, start up a conversation by pointing out a book on the shelf. You never know, it just might work.
- The gym. Specifically? At 6 in the morning. You hit Palladium at opening times for three months in a row, you become one of us. We acknowledge you, respect you, we watch the weights you lift get heavier and heavier, bigger and bigger. Eventually, we take you in as one of ours. Just come by and say something, we’ve probably wanted to talk to you too.
- A club you only have mild interest in. Specifically one you have only a mild interest in. Everyone says “join a club you are passionate about” but that takes so much investment and risk. What if the photography club here at NYU is pretentious and they don’t like me? What if the other basketball kids don’t like the Wizards like I do? Join a club you are curious about, but one that you might enjoy. A small club where there is a tightly knit community, and they’re looking for new blood. Who knows, maybe NYU’s golf team becomes your home away from home?
- A museum. One you care about, obviously. But also one that is a little more lowkey. If you go to the Museum of Sex looking for friendship, you’ll probably run into more tourists looking for a free place to stay the night rather than future groomsmen at your wedding. I recommend local art galleries and exhibits, the National Geographic is currently running a cool exhibit just south of Washington Square Park. The botanical gardens in Brooklyn are also awesome for this. Go check it out, wait for a guy wearing a leather jacket or a girl with a New York Times tote bag to go in and strike up a conversation. You might strike gold!
- Finally, I would recommend a park. I know it feels more like a pick up artist strategy than a real way to make meaningful friendships, but you never know, it could be both. Sit somewhere near a street performer and throw in a comment about it to the people next to you. Sometimes, all a good conversation needs to get fired up and going is a little spark. Parks are places where people relax. They aren’t usually going to be in a rush if they’re standing around looking at something. Get a couple phone numbers, ruin your instagram follower ratio, and start making friends.
By Victor Galov. Victor is a Sophomore Student at NYU passionate about self-help, self-discovery, and the self regulation of not eating too many unhealthy snacks. He is easily spotted in the wild, usually sporting a red jacket and skipping to whatever classic rock band his ears are crushing on that week with headphones in. He will most likely have tinnitus by 40, but doesn’t worry about it too much, because he knows humanity will live on in robots and computer simulations by then, anyway. He also hopes to have published his novel by then, though at the rate he is going, he will totally delete it through revisions before getting even close to finishing the first chapter.
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