When the cost of community is inconvenience
About four years ago, I remember crying at the foot of my mum’s bed.
“This is so hard,” I said, voice thick and vision blurry with tears. “I feel like I’m putting in effort but getting nowhere. I have, like, two friends. Why is it like this?”
My mum perched at her dresser, looking at me with a combination of bemusement and pity. “You’ll find your people,” she reassured. “Just give it time.”
The year was 2020. I’d been living back in my hometown for 6 months. I was fresh out of living in the Czech Republic, where I had the joy of a small group of friends who I saw most days and were like family to me. Now I was back in the small town where I grew up, where I had a lot of history but, funnily enough, very few connections. It didn’t help that there was also a global event going on at the time.
Friendships: quality over quantity
I’ve always had an insecurity about making friends. I was a lonely kid. Growing up, I’d somehow internalised that having lots of friends wasn’t ‘safe’. Instead, I deliberately kept a close clutch of friends who had similar interests, who were kind and sensitive and authentic, who I’d subconsciously categorised as safe by whatever definition child-me had.
As I got older, my confidence grew, and so did my social circle and my willingness to take social risks. But to this day, I always retained that close group - a psychological ‘village’ of soul friends scattered all over the world (well, Europe). Even if I go years without physically seeing them, they never feel far away.
My mum was right. After 3 or 4 years in Jersey, I started to find my feet. With time, I expanded my network naturally and added a few new members to my ‘village’, which made me feel much more settled. As you get older, you realise friends truly do see you through the ups and downs of life. You value them differently, whether they be for a season or for a lifetime. After all, your relationships - and your health - are the most important things at the end of the day.
But beyond this, I still sense something broader is missing. Using my hometown as an example, I have wonderful friends, but I feel like we’re all planets orbiting around each other, with little to hold our lives together than the gravitational pull of friendship and a fortnightly (much appreciated) catch up.
We’re missing something broader, a wider context, that subtle fabric that really binds us all together.
Convenience is killing community
We’re more connected, and yet more disconnected, than ever before.
People are busy. Long gone are the days of all the neighbourhood women being at home while then men go off to work and return sometime later via the pub. We all work now. Some of us work multiple jobs. When we come home, tired and depleted. We don’t go to a so-called ‘third space’ to relax and socialise - we escape into screens.
A third space is a social environment distinct from your home (the ‘first space’) and your work (the ‘second space’) where people congregate casually for community, relaxation, and conversation. These spaces are neutral and accessible (i.e. free), allowing us to be social in a way that doesn’t require a lot of organisation. Think churches, youth clubs, and formerly pubs and bars.
Third spaces are on the out. Even the pub, where my grandad used to spend many an evening with his friends, is prohibitively expensive now.
Nowadays if you want to spontaneously hang out, you can’t turn up somewhere and expect someone you know to just… be there. Socialising is no longer baked into our everyday. You have to schedule it in. Sometimes doing so costs more money and energy than you feel you have to give.
Social media, meanwhile, is convenient and free. You can tuck up on the couch and access an endless font of information, entertainment and dopamine, all without having to deal with the friction of other people or the pain of spending £5 on a pint of very average beer. When your bandwidth is low, that often feels like the preferable option.
Attitudes have changed
Introversion is very socially acceptable now. Even things like anxiety and depression - things I buried so deeply as a teenager - are worn on people’s sleeves.
Social media is a great platform for discussion, and as a result, has helped normalise many real issues and alleviate a lot of shame. There’s certainly much less stigma around mental health. This in itself is great.
And yet, social media does just as much to fuel mental health issues. It’s a breeding ground for cynicism, resentment and hopelessness. We’re flooded with polarised viewpoints, fear-mongering headlines about war, economic crises, climate disasters - not to mention other people’s Instagram highlight reels - every single day. Our brains aren’t built for that kind of relentless input. It trips our threat system constantly, putting us in fight or flight like we’re being stalked by a tiger rather than sitting in the comfort of our own living rooms.
No wonder people seem more anxious and depressed than ever. But, on the flip-side, things like anxiety and depression are now so normalised that they may be somewhat over-diagnosed.
Let’s be honest - mental health can be a silver bullet to get you out of things you don’t really want to do. The rise of therapy speak like ‘boundaries’, ‘self care’ and ‘standards’ also encourages us to focus intensely on self rather than others, rendering us less tolerant of inconvenience and discomfort that comes with living in community with other people.
The result of all of this: we’re becoming islands.
We all want a village. How much do we want to be a villager?
While our lifestyles have massively evolved towards individualism, our brains have not. We’re social creatures. Community and relationships remain essential for good mental health and wellbeing.
But the fact is, building community is hard.
It used to be easier, I think, back when kids played in the streets and adults hung out at the pub and everyone went to church on Sundays. Now we’ve become so atomised that everything needs to be so much more intentional.
Building community takes lots of small actions that add up to a big picture. Turning up at a run club in your town. Going to a mother and baby group. Posting on the community Facebook page. Texting your friend a meme. Organising a barbecue.
But it’s also turning up at that run club when it’s raining and you really don’t feel like it. Or looking after your friend’s kid at late notice because they had an emergency. Or listening to your other friend cry on the phone at 2am even when you have work in the morning. The sting of texting first and getting no response (we all know that one).
Community these days is a constant dance of showing up, giving space, negotiating expectations and, yes, rejection. It’s not easy and it’s not always fun, especially when you feel like your efforts aren’t being reciprocated in the ways you would like.
But I want to show up. I want to pitch in. The desire to be part of something bigger than myself is greater than the inconvenience and friction that comes with it.
Practising patience
Building community is rewarding, but tiring, work. It’s playing the long game. It’s showing up and making effort, even when you don’t feel like it, when the reward isn’t always tangible.
Despite the impression I may have given earlier, I do think boundaries are important to keep showing up in a sustainable way. In order to parse out what you have to give, you could ask yourself some of these questions:
How much time do you have to give to your friends right now? (Of course, this fluctuates)
What skills or resources do you have, and how can you be of service to others?
Who or what gives you energy, and what drains it?
What’s your tolerance for frustration? (For example, initiating plans 3 times in a row without reciprocation before turning your energy elsewhere)
We’re all dealing with stuff. We can’t be friend of the year to everyone all the time, and that’s okay, too. The point is to keep trying, to keep showing up, and to keep being as honest and authentic as possible along the way.
Building community in a new city
Building community in Lisbon is going surprisingly well. I made a commitment to myself to pour as much energy and time into it as I could - I’ve joined friend-making apps, made plans with new people and attended every meet-up and event I said I was going to. I’ve really put myself out there, and I’m proud of myself for that.
Let’s be honest though - I wouldn’t have the bandwidth for this if I had a full-time, stressful job on top. I also know a part of this success is down to Lisbon being a very transient, international city, full of dynamic people who are also keen to build community.
I’m aware that the amount of energy I’m putting into my social life right now isn’t sustainable in the long-term, but yet I’m enjoying the process and finding it rewarding, even if the results are often subtle.
I’ve learnt that being part of a community isn’t always ‘fun’. It’s hard, but it’s essential. Sometimes the hard things are the things most worth doing.
Until next time,
Rose :)