How to Meet People in a New City as an Adult

When I moved to Boston in the early aughts, I didn’t know anyone other than my brother. I also had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. 

I’d been a swimmer all my life, but I’d barely swum a stroke since my last college meet in March 2000. At 23, I figured I was OK with leaving swimming behind. It was just something I used to do. 

Fast-forward two years. I was still in something of a quarter-life crisis, working a job I didn’t love, starting grad school in the evenings, and struggling to make friends along the way. It was bleak. 

Research suggests that my social life was lacking because my swimming life was nonexistent. Once a swimmer, always a swimmer, and to borrow a phrase from a dear friend I met through swimming, I was “drowning on dry land.”

Adulthood isn’t designed to support the kind of friendships many of us grew accustomed to making so easily in the highly social context of our school years. And to start over in a new city with no anchoring community to connect with can be especially isolating for anyone. 

Building a healthy social life requires deliberate effort for many adults, but U.S. Masters Swimming and the instant community of like-minded folks it gives you access to can supercharge your quest to build a social network in real life. 

There are a few key reasons why exercise-based groups, and swimming in particular, seem so well suited to fostering social connections. One of the most important is the consistency of contact such groups foster. 

Research has suggested that repeated participation in shared interests is a stronger way of making friends as an adult than through one-off networking events or random encounters. Also called the “repeated exposure” effect, seeing the same folks multiple times a week in the context of a fitness class or pool workout provides a perfect framework for building social connection and friendships. 

The structure of a typical Masters workout also helps in fostering connection. Consider this: You roll in, often early in the morning, a bit bleary-eyed and wearing sweats or pajamas. There’s little pressure to look your best and not much room for pretense. Come as you are and get in the pool, the clock is ticking. 

Then you settle into the workout, which provides an endorphin boost through physical activity and simply being in the water. Between sets, you might sneak in a little small talk, but you’re focused on achieving the goal of completing the workout—together. There’s a lot to be said for good lane dynamics and lanemates who look out for each other during workouts. 

But it’s in the locker room after the swim when the deeper friendships are really forged. In that communal setting—where everyone is just getting on with the tasks of moving on to the next part of the day—it’s inevitable to swap stories that elucidate our lives and where they bump up against each other. This is where you find the common ground and the shared values you need to build lasting relationships. 

What’s more, Masters swimming, which caters to such a broad range of ages, can be especially helpful in forging deep friendships across generations while also bridging walks of life that you might otherwise never come into contact with. 

For example, I work from home as a freelance journalist. I can go days without a direct, face-to-face interaction with another person besides my husband. But through Masters swimming, I’m right up close to dozens of people, swimming in sync side-by-side and following along with my teammates for several hours each week. 

This routine offers constant reconnection and a shared journey. I would be hard pressed to cross paths with some of these lawyers, teachers, homemakers, engineers, consultants, financiers, artists, caregivers, and so many other folks ranging from 18 to 90 years of age in any other context. 

Again, it’s the repeated, regular, and consistent basis of that contact that has enabled us to bond despite differences in our home and work lives, political and religious beliefs, and cultural and social selves. At Masters, we’re just friends who all love to swim together. 

The occasional coffee run or group breakfast afterward also helps solidify the community as a cohesive unit with lots of interconnected friends who each bring something shiny and unique to the community.

Organized events offer another means of connecting closely with others: volunteering. Someone has to put their hand up to host the meet or serve as the race director for the open water swim, and they’ll need helpers to plan and run the event. That requires repeated communication and working together in a way that’s very different from a day job. Volunteering also offers a way to give back and further strengthen the community you’re part of. 

Joining U.S. Masters Swimming offers plenty of opportunities to volunteer, not just for swimming events but to get involved in other community activities via the network of friends you’ll build in the water. 

I didn’t realize that when I started doing Masters swimming. But I eventually worked up the nerve to turn up at a Masters workout. It was humbling, jumping back in after five years on dry land, but I hung in there. Within a month, my fitness had improved considerably, as had my overall mental health and social well-being. 

I suddenly had friends who wanted to see me, who genuinely wanted to know how my day had been, who expected me to turn up at the pool at a certain time. People who asked me to train with them for races and folks who suggested we get dinner after an evening workout just because they had a little free time and wanted to share a meal and chat some more. 

It didn’t take long for the Masters swimming family to do what it does best: adopt me as one of its own. I felt welcome, included, and never at a loss for someone to talk to. To me, this is what it means to have a true community. And it’s been those swimming-related friends who've been there through all of the marvelous and tragic ups and downs this one life offers. 

No man is an island, after all, and neither should any swimmer ever swim alone. So if you find yourself in a new city and feeling a little lonely, why not look for the nearest Masters swimming group? Your next best friend might be waiting for you to lead the lane right now.