How to meet people when you move

Meeting people is only the first step

Most "where to meet people" lists stop at the meeting. That is the easy half. A new city is full of places to meet someone once; the hard part is seeing them often enough that a stranger becomes a friend. If you only ever meet new people at a different event each week, you collect first conversations and never get past them.

There is a number behind this. Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas found it takes roughly 50 hours together to turn an acquaintance into a casual friend, and around 200 hours to become close, with shared leisure time counting for more than time at work (Hall, 2018). You cannot build 50 hours with someone you meet once. You can build them two hours at a time with a group you see every week.

So when you judge a place to meet people, ask one question: can I come back next week and find some of the same faces? If yes, it counts. If no, it is a nice evening and nothing more. The list below is ordered by that test.

Where to meet people in a new place

These are ranked by how reliably they put you back with the same people. The spots at the top build friendships almost on their own; the ones near the bottom are worth it only if something about them repeats.

1. A small recurring dinner or supper club. Hard to beat when you are new: a fixed night, a small table, and everyone there to meet people. Small means you actually talk to each person, and a weekly table means you see them again. The conversation is the point, so there is nothing to be good at first.
2. A term-length class or course. Pottery, a language, improv, dance. Booking a term commits you to the same room and the same people for weeks, which does the repetition for you. Pick by what you would happily do for ten weeks rather than by what sounds impressive.
3. A run club or parkrun. parkrun is a free, timed 5k on Saturday mornings in parks across the UK and beyond (parkrun). Run clubs meet on a set evening and often go for a drink after, so the social half is built in and nobody minds how fast you are.
4. A sports team, league or climbing gym. Five-a-side, netball, bouldering, a weekly quiz team. Turning up is the whole commitment and the group expects you back, so you do not have to engineer the next meeting.
5. A regular volunteering shift. A set weekly shift at a food bank, community garden or charity shop gives you a fixed day, a shared task and people who are easy to talk to because you are doing something side by side.
6. Your workplace, neighbours and one-off events. Useful, but only when you make them repeat. Say yes to the team lunch twice, learn the names of the people on your street, and treat a good one-off night as a lead worth following up.

Turn the people you meet into friends

Once you have a place or two that repeat, the work is small and specific. Go back three times before you decide a group is not for you; first impressions of a room full of strangers are unreliable, and by the third visit someone usually knows your name. Each time, leave with one person's number or handle and send a short message the next day: "good to meet you, see you next week" is enough.

That steady contact is doing more than you think while you wait for the hours to add up. Even brief, routine exchanges with the same people lift mood and a sense of belonging (Sandstrom and Dunn, 2014), so the regular spots are good for you long before anyone becomes a close friend. One real follow-up a week is around a dozen warm contacts in three months, which is how a new place stops feeling empty.

If you have moved to London

London is where Siena runs, so here you can skip the search for a regular spot and start with one. A Siena dinner is a small table of about six people who all came to meet people, at a restaurant we choose, so the repetition and the small-group part are handled for you.

• When. Every Thursday at 7:30pm. A dinner lasts about two hours.
• Who. About six people a table (tables of five to eight), grouped by age and matched on language and a few personality questions, with a gender balance at every table. You are never seated again with someone from one of your past tables.
• Cost. £12.99 for the seat. You pay the restaurant for your own food and drinks.
• Booking. Book at sign up. Booking for a Thursday closes on Tuesday at 23:59, and we send the restaurant name on Wednesday. You get a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours before.

It passes the test at the top of this page: you can come back next Thursday and the format repeats. Go three weeks in a row and follow up with one person each time. To weigh it against supper clubs, apps and other dinners first, use the London Social Dining Finder, or read how to make friends in London for a four-week plan built around your area.

Questions people ask