Essay: Woman at the Jello-Wrestling Party

A practical guide to making friends

Before I forget, I’m offering a writing workshop coming up!

How to Break a Heart: Creating Emotional Resonance in Your Writing

Tuesday | March 11th | 5pm PDT

In this 90 minute workshop, we’ll learn how to make a reader deeply connect with our writing. We’ll explore the transformative techniques that unlock heartbreak, joy, and shared empathy in our readers. There are over 170 people registered so far.

Recently, my friend invited my to a jello wrestling party. You read that right— my buddy, Rodney, filled a heated kiddie pool with jello and invited 100+ people to come over and wrestle.

The rules were pretty simple. You wrestled until you lost. Also, the losers could gang up on you if you won too many rounds. Afterward, everyone piled into the pool and sloshed around (or if you were me, stared awkwardly at their hands).

Here’s the rub: I’m an introvert who was so timid in middle school I used to eat my lunch in the bathroom. But here’s the other thing: I like to write interesting stories, so I’m therefore required to be a person who does unusual things. So sometimes, I find myself in a heated jello pool whilst partially naked Portlandians wrestle and spoon. It was silly and awkward and funny, and I made a lot of new friends in spite of myself.

Me, an introvert, fighting for my life in a pool of gelatin

The party was fun, although, I’ll admit, it stretched my courage. I love how weird, warm, and welcoming Portland is, though, if I’m honest, I sometimes feel fatigued around this city’s persistent emphasis on nudity/sexuality as a shortcut to connection. But I recognize that in the end, we’re all just trying to get closer. We’re all trying to solve our loneliness.

A 2024 American Psychiatric Association survey found that 30 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 said they were lonely at least several times a week. An informal sampling of my Instagram followers (see graphs below) confirmed a similar sentiment. We’re all longing for connection, but we’re unsure how to best facilitate it. Keep in mind that this is a just a cross-section of people (mostly women) who happen to follow me. First, I wanted to know where adults made friends. Here are the top places:

Next, I wanted to know how people felt about their existing friendships. Of the 2K+ people who responded to my poll, nearly 60% percent said they wanted more close friends. Many told me their social calendar was full but felt superficial. In short: we’re busy, but we’re often not truly connecting. A recent study from Harvard found:

“People can be surrounded by others and still feel deeply lonely. The lack of quality relationships is just as big a problem as the lack of quantity.”— Loneliness in America

So how do we find each other especially right now when the world feels unbearable, unstable, and terrifyingly fragile? How can we form gangs of hope for the coming days? As a full-time community builder and someone who recently built a friendship circle from the ground up, here are my best tips for finding true connection:

Flirt with your friends

We miss out if we save all the grand gestures and adorable romancing for strictly romantic relationships. Charm and court each other a bit. Buy gifts, cuddle, woo. Prove that you’ve got no shortage of whimsy. There are so many excuses for tenderness.

On a recent tea date, a new friend brought me a lovely book of poetry. Another gifted me a pair of rose-colored socks at my book launch, and another long-distance friend sent me an Ubereats giftcard when I was flat on my back with the flu.

I made my best friend of nearly a decade because she saw me at a speaking event, tracked down my email online, and then messaged me several times asking me to coffee. I finally agreed, and it was immediate kindredship. To be honest, her level of intentionality was more swoon-worthy than most of the men I date and it stuck. So don’t be afraid to make the first move, then flirt a bit.

Jen and I travel the world together

Create recurring ritual

Because I have a large network, I quickly become fatigued by scheduling multiple drink/dinner dates with separate friends. Now, when I make a new friend, I invite her to my existing schedule of community potlucks or dance church. If she is literary or creative, I have her join my monthly writer’s group. By including friends in ongoing activities, I maintain closer connection and better control over my weekly structure. I like taking off the pressure of having to constantly socialize one-on-one. And I deeply enjoy introducing my incredible friends to one another.

Monthly writing groups

Right-size your network

My friend, Rebecca Van Damm says there are sidewalk friends, front porch friends, and dining room table friends. You often don’t have to end a relationship, you just have to rightsize it. This philosophy has solved a lot of heartbreak for me. When I have a flaky, problematic, or unreliable friend, I try not to cut them out of my life. I simply reimagine the boundaries I put around our connection. I prioritize our time differently. I reduce the amount of expectation I place on that friendship. I have a ton of sidewalk friends and really enjoy that. The ones who gather around my table are much fewer, but they are the loves of my life.

Make gatherings artful

“Gatherings crackle and flourish when real thought goes into them, when (often invisible) structure is baked into them.”― Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

Recently, my friend

Keeks Writes Books

threw the world’s most gorgeous Galentine’s Brunch. She made us sticky buns, scones, and signature drinks and 20+ women piled into her living room. On name tags, we all wrote down imaginary aliases like Thursday, Asspyn, and Lucky, then created elaborate back stories. It took a minute to learn everyone’s real name, but the icebreaker was an immediate intimacy-maker.

For my writer’s group, we also send out a small intention ahead of time. Each month, we define our purpose. Recently, on the eve of the new moon, we wrote down a sadness, rant, or a grievance and burned it in a fire. In the smoke that night, invisible threads seemed to tie us together.

My friend

Devon Fredericksen

also throws such thoughtful parties. Often, she themes conversation around questions that we all consider ahead of time like: How do you each define success? For her upcoming birthday, we’re all bringing “girl-dinner-esque snacky accoutrement” and preparing for curated conversation. In this way, setting intentions builds anticipation and deepens the experience.

Galentine's brunch

Share sweat

During my last poetry retreat with

Ranchlands Collective

, I’ll never forget watching the horses rounded up from the pasture. They came in great rippling waves, sun glinting from their hooves, the fresh dust of morning falling like a quieted congregation.

I’ve found a great connection in moving with my friends. Yes, talking is phenomenal, but I crave the connection that comes from breathing and silence. Often, my dearest friends become the people I’ve met in pole class, walking, or at my gym. Or as my friend

Nikki Weaver

(who jogs early mornings with her neighbor) says, “Pre-dawn and sweaty, you say all kinds of shit you wouldn’t otherwise say.”

Just like the most bonded horses are the ones that run together neck and neck, slowed to the other’s pace—there’s power in the run. There’s love in the sweat.

Uncliché your community

I tell my writers that the best way out of clichés and into truly inspired writing is to start traveling down unexpected, risky, and strange paths of thought. That’s how you forge new neural pathways and build your creative muscle. The same is true of friendship. If you’re feeling lonely, it might be because the social roads you’re traveling are too familiar. Make intergenerational friendships, seek out people radically different from you, go to a jello wrestling party. See what happens. xx

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Where do you find friends? What’s your best friendship hack? I’d love to know. See you in the comments.