Two years ago, I stood outside the door of an exercise club with the adrenaline levels of an animal being hunted for sport. Was I in danger? Was I being stalked across an Arctic tundra? No, I was merely 24 and being faced with the feat of speaking to people I didn’t know. I could hear my millennial counterparts scoffing at my nerves. I could hear my baby boomer mother imploring me to ‘get on with it’. In fact, I could feel every generation before me gawking with confusion at the spectacle on Camden High Street: one Gen Z vs. one new social activity.
New data from Hinge says 65% of Gen Z want to meet people in real life, and 85% of Gen Z Brits say they feel lonely. Like so many others my age, I was desperate for in-person connections outside of my work and existing group. I’d moved to North London, and I wanted an activity where I could meet new people in my community. Yet my own awkwardness, my inbuilt Gen Z cringe-ometer, made the task feel insurmountable.
I wasn’t alone in this feeling. According to Hinge, 70% of my generation say they feel anxious about meeting people in real life, and 52% say mental health challenges often prevent them from attending social events. These ‘newcomer nerves’ are acting as a barrier for lots of us to forge the in-person connections we want, despite the fun being there for the taking. We’re stood in the corner at the party, unable to just reach out and touch. On A-Level results day, it was reported that schools were having to give pupils lessons in phone calls, to help them manage the anxiety of speaking to university admissions officers to fight their cases before clearing.
Every adjective you can think of can be found gleefully suffixed onto the end of Gen Z headlines; Gen Lazy, Gen Celibate, Gen Total F***ing Losers. I’ve always thought lazy felt debatable, and celibate depends who you ask. But Gen Lonely? This, for me, rings all too true. I think everyone I know, no matter who they are, has felt the slow creep of isolation that comes from opening Instagram and seeing the sprawl of every happy person that’s ever lived. We all know the stomach lurch that accompanies a lonely night spent in a big city, or the feeling of being unable to reach out. Loneliness, for the modern generation, is a great leveller.
The general perception of my generation is as lazy, celibate Labubu-for-brains aliens who would trade gainful employment for iPad time
How did we become this way? The general perception of my generation seems pretty negative; that our way of living is our own fault. If you fed a large language model everything ever written about Gen Z, along with a few workplace testimonials and culturally held beliefs, it would spit back a description of us as Labubu-for-brains aliens who’d trade gainful employment for iPad time.
But our behaviour, that to other generations seems so abnormal, is a result of being raised in abnormal circumstances. We’ve grown up hyperconnected online, losing shared moments for individual pursuits and ‘side hustle culture’. We’ve experienced a decline in traditional institutions that would have promoted belonging, and we’ve lost third spaces. For many like me, our socially formative years, such as at school or university, were spent in various Covid tiers and lockdowns. Our parents’ generation knew what was going on in the lives of only a handful of friends; we’ve grown up drip-fed every single branch of the fig tree.
Holly Cooke, the founder of Lonely Girls Club, thinks our loneliness can also be attributed to remote working and “transient” lifestyles.
“Remote and hybrid working gives us flexibility like never before, but also means that many people are at home for days on end only seeing family, housemates or partners, and not having a large social circle or community around them for support, friendship or just those 3pm tea break laughs. Thanks to social media we're so much more connected than ever, but often those people aren't in close proximity to share both the best and worst moments of life.”
Out of this desire for in-person connections has grown a movement of social clubs and groups that focus on community and life beyond our screens. Often they are based around activities, creating a distraction so that friendship feels like a happy byproduct rather than a pressurised goal. Run clubs are a popular option, with Strava’s 2024 end of year report showing a 59% rise in running clubs on the app. Gen Z users polled said one in five of them went on a date with someone they met through working out, and were four times more likely to want to meet people exercising than at a bar.
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If running isn’t your bag, Gen Zers are setting up clubs and events centered around any activity you can think of; crochet, swimming, cooking, karaoke and reading, to name but a few. Ella, 24, set up the group In It Together, which is a community for ‘anxious girlies who want to make new friends and try new things’.
“I started the group because I knew how difficult it was to make friends as an adult, especially if you feel quite anxious.”
“No one wants to admit that you feel lonely, but once you start speaking about it, you realise there are so many other people out there who feel exactly the same. The community is about showing that it’s quite normal to struggle with friendships, and that we all feel lonely at some point in our lives but there are things we can do to change that.”
Holly, whose Lonely Girls Club is now a nationwide community, stresses how these groups can benefit everyone.
We all know the stomach lurch that accompanies a lonely night spent in a big city. Loneliness, for the modern generation, is a great leveller.
“Often, it's not that our members don't have friends or loved ones, it's that those people don't live nearby, or have the same schedules or priorities as them. That's where communities like ours can make such a difference in connecting women with people who are at the same life stage as them, to do life together.”
But while so many like-minded people have set up groups to foster community, 47% of us cite anxiety and nervousness about socialising as a major obstacle to joining them. Moe Ari Brown, Hinge’s Love and Connection Expert and licensed therapist, says the key to tackling the nerves comes from setting small, achievable goals, and getting familiar with the group or event beforehand.
“Set goals. Set simple, digestible, measurable goals when trying something for the first time. Whether it’s showing up, complimenting someone’s outfit, or sparking a conversation. You could even aim to exchange phone numbers or meet at least two people. Setting these intentions beforehand allows you to celebrate each moment you put yourself out there, no matter how small.”
Moe also believes that prepping conversation starters, dressing for confidence and using positive affirmations can help alleviate the nerves. If the thought of going alone is too much of a reach, try bringing a friend for the first time.
I didn’t bring a friend to that community gym class. Instead, stood on that high street, I dug deep and channeled my now favourite phrase: feel the fear and do it anyway. And so I did, and have a bunch of new local friends (and muscles) to show for it. That’s the annoying thing about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone; it literally always works.
