The Stay-at-Home Mom’s Guide to Meeting Friends in a New Town

Disclaimer: this isn’t a cohesive guide. I’m still navigating how to figure out this one, and I’m definitely not ready to write the book. Just the blog post. 😉

Back in Houston, my friend Kellie (who has a blog about running and yoga and is a Houston transplant) once mentioned that meeting friends in a new city is a lot like dating. Now that I’m going about the effort myself, I couldn’t agree more: I put on makeup and dress smart-casual, worry over what we’ll talk about beforehand, obsess over “should I have said that?” afterward, along with “does she like me?” and “when should I call her to hang out again?”It’s an overly self-conscious matter, and for someone like me, who was very traditional in dating, it’s much more of a challenge than dating ever was. The fact that I don’t work outside of the home is just another obstacle in meeting people.

The house has been coming along, the weather has been warming up, and I’m finally putting myself out there more than ever. I’ve gone on a few “first dates,” so I thought I’d share a few ways I’ve met people in my new town.

Play dates

My son found us our first friends here in Connecticut. There’s another boy in his class who loves science and art as much as he does, and it didn’t take long to learn that they ride the same bus to school and live on the same street! They quickly became self -professed “besties”-secret handshake and all. We lucked out beyond measure in this instance, and have spent a lot of time with his family.

The Bus Stop

The moms at Tobias’ old school were truly irreplaceable. In the three years that he was a student, I walked up and waited outside the doors for him alongside many like-minded moms from different backgrounds. We bonded so much over the years, it was hard to leave them all behind.

I’m not quite there yet with the new parents, and surely one of these days I’ll ask one out for coffee. In the meantime, they make great company twice a day, M-F, and we actually have several things in common.

Facebook Graph Search

I don’t think I’ve used that phrase since the feature came out, but something simple I did once we discovered we were moving to Connecticut was plug in Facebook’s search box, “friends who live in Connecticut” and “friends who live in New York City.” Though I only shared one class and several mutual friends in high school (a decade ago, mind you) with the single person I was Facebook friends with, I did reach out and we had a great lunch date that I’ll be sure to follow up with.

Realtor

My first lunch was with my Realtor. She’s one of the only parents I’ve met in my age range (which is between my age + 8 years, I have my reasons) . Not only is she great company that could lead to a good friendship, she’s also a great resource for finding out things to know about the city, other people who are new to the area, and places to meet people!

Spouse’s job

This past weekend, M invited over a coworker of his, his wife, and their kids. It was such a blast! Your spouse is sure to have at least a few people in the office that they get along great with, so I highly recommend doing the same.

Instagram

When MySpace was a thing, I had a friend that was meeting people off of there a lot. It wasn’t my thing. I was never single when all of this Tindr business started going on, and I’ve never online dated. But I lurk on the hashtag/geotag for my town, and I’m meeting a second girl for coffee this week.

Guilty confession: this is my favorite way to meet someone, because you already have such a good idea of what their interests are and what to expect.

Creative Hobbies

I toyed with the idea of taking some daytime painting classes or the like, but realized shortly after that there wasn’t that high of a likelihood I’d find someone my age to stay up with drinking wine on a Friday night at a place like that. This upcoming weekend, I’m spending all of Saturday and Sunday at Monarch Workshop. I read basically all of the blog posts I could find on their past events, and there was a unanimous good review of the event that hosts a bunch of bloggers, makers, movers and shakers. I’m really crossing my fingers on this one!

Fitness Hobbies

This one, I have the most work to do. Run, Bike, Swim, except for race day, triathlon and endurance racing are pretty solitary sports. I tried out several group classes at the Y, but I feel silly, self conscious being surrounded by thinner/prettier women in front of a mirror for an hour, and I figured there wouldn’t be a time in which I’d just walk up to one and say, “So, where you headed after this?” or something equally creepy.

Any tips on this one?

Any other ideas on how to meet friends in a new town? I’m open to all suggestions! Leave them below in the comments 🙂