Will You Come to My Birthday Party: Making Friends Through Facebook
It dawned on me a couple weeks ago that I have no one to invite to my birthday party. I know that sounds childish but on November 21st I’ll be turning 22 and the thought of having no one to celebrate with depresses me. For the record, I do have friends; just none that are within a 3000 mile radius of me. This past September I moved to London from New York in pursuit of my Masters of Journalism at UAL, a decision I definitely don’t regret. However, one thing I didn’t think about was the fact that I didn’t know a single person who actually lived in London.
In order to avoid completely falling into the abyss of loneliness and to feed my determination of having people to party with on my birthday I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and start putting myself out there, as suggested in a WikiHow article with step by step instructions on how to make friends in your 20s. I started by opening up all the dating apps on my phone and began swiping. Those are great apps for just making “friends,” right?
A couple of Hinge dates later, I quickly realized dating apps weren’t the most sustainable way for finding any sort of relationship so I went back to the drawing board. That’s when a TikTok for a Facebook group called “The London Lonely Girls Club” miraculously came across my For You Page. The group, started by a couple of Americans who moved to London a few years ago, was built to help women meet other women who were also in search of new friends. I immediately opened Facebook and requested to join the group of over 50,000 members, filled out a short questionnaire required to join, then spent an hour waiting to be accepted.
Once my acceptance came, it was time to introduce myself to the thousands of other members. Dear God, this whole process was worse than making a dating profile. At least compiling a Hinge profile only required choosing six of the best pictures of myself with somewhat entertaining responses to stupid prompts. This introduction was a whole other beast — having to convince girls to be my friend felt like sorority recruitment all over again. After careful deliberation of what to write, I went with:
Hey everyone! I’m Charlotte and just moved from NY to LDN a couple weeks ago for my Masters at UAL. I’m currently living in East London and would love some friends who are looking to go out for drinks or simply want to explore the city :) My insta is @charlottemaracina
To my surprise, immediately after joining I got added to an Instagram group that included 15 girls, mainly from the US, all now living in London. One night several of us got together and went out for drinks at The Prince in Fulham. The night was ecstatic; we laughed, danced and drank. It couldn’t have gone better! Four days later, the girls I went out with all left for a six month trip to Spain. Needless to say I was disappointed. At least they made sure to say “Visit us in Barcelona if you’re ever around!” To which I replied “Will do!!” and haven’t talked to them since.
Okay, back to square one, I thought. Although that whole situation may have been a bust, if dating apps have taught me anything, it’s to never give up. I scrolled through the whole Facebook group and began dming different girls like a guy at a bar desperately looking for someone to go home with. Every message began with “Hey girl!” and included several unnecessary exclamation marks so people would think I was super fun, friendly and approachable.
Over the course of the next few weeks I went out to coffee or drinks with a handful of girls from different countries who one way or another ended up in London. Most of the coffee dates involved obsessing over our favorite bands as well as talking about our hometowns and how we’re settling into London so far. Somehow our conversations typically ended with talking about how awful the dating scene in London is.
So far I’ve made one solid friend from the Facebook group, since we met a couple weeks ago we’ve explored bars around London and cheered on West Ham against Crystal Palace; romantic, I know. However, not every friendship “date” ended in a connection, if that’s what you’d call it. Some ended with “We’ll have to do this again sometime” with no follow up while others left me wondering how you’re supposed to tell someone you’re not interested in pursuing a friendship with them. Overall, this whole friendship dating thing is proving to be way more complicated than actual dating.
Successful and unsuccessful friendship attempts aside, meeting others through the London Lonely Girls Club reinforced that I’m not alone in struggling to navigate all the challenges that come along with moving to a new city. Everyone I’ve had the pleasure to meet has the common goal of trying to find a community and make meaningful connections while living abroad. People are a lot more willing to put themselves out there than you think, you just have to be willing to put yourself out there in return.
I’m now four days out from my 22nd birthday and, no, I haven’t reserved a club to party with my extensive VIP list of friends just yet, but I finally feel like I’m starting to establish a life here in London for myself. I feel myself being more outgoing not just because I need to, but because I want to. I’m sure if I continue to manically DM more girls on Instagram and follow the 14 steps to making friends in your 20s as written out in the WikiHow article, I’ll have my VIP list set in no time.
