Our initiative
We believe no one should feel like a stranger.
Loneliness is the quiet epidemic of our century. We built Meet New Friends to push back — one introduction, one Tuesday, one city at a time.
Why this matters.
In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a global public-health priority, placing it alongside obesity and tobacco as a leading threat to human flourishing.
The same year, the U.S. Surgeon General warned that the health impact of chronic isolation rivals smoking fifteen cigarettes a day — and that the cost is borne disproportionately by young adults, new arrivals, and anyone who has ever quietly slipped through the cracks of a city.
Modern life is, by most measurable standards, the most connected it has ever been. And yet roughly one in four adults worldwide say they feel lonely most or all of the time. The maps are full. The rooms are empty.
Behind every statistic is a Tuesday night nobody texted you.
"Social connection is as essential to our long-term survival as food and water."
Four numbers we can't unsee.
adults worldwide feel lonely
Meta–Gallup State of Social Connections, 2023
cigarettes-equivalent health impact of chronic isolation
U.S. Surgeon General Advisory, 2023
public-health priority, declared by the WHO
World Health Organization, 2023
of young adults report frequent loneliness
Harvard Making Caring Common, 2021
What we hold to be true.
We believe Friendship is infrastructure.
We believe Loneliness is a design problem, not a personality flaw.
We believe A city is only as warm as the doors strangers can knock on.
We believe The internet should send you outside more often, not less.
How we push back.
Map the warmth
We catalogue the communities, meetups and gathering places that already exist in cities worldwide — so anyone, anywhere, can find a room where they belong.
Lower the first step
We partner with apps like Pulse that turn intent into a real meet — a small group, a planned activity, a Tuesday on the calendar. Not another inbox.
Stay free, forever
No accounts. No paywalls. No ads. Funded by people who care, not by algorithms that don't. Belonging shouldn't be a subscription.
A small collective with a stubborn idea.
We're a distributed group of editors, designers and engineers who got tired of watching friendship be treated like a luxury good. We partner closely with Pulse, the app that matches strangers into small groups and plans the first hangout, because technology is only good for loneliness when it ends in a room with other humans in it.
No founders to canonise, no investors to please. Just a quiet conviction that the next century's most important infrastructure is the one that helps strangers become friends.
Questions about the directory, partnerships or corrections? Reach the editorial team via PulseNow.app.
Real friendships start with one Tuesday.
Make this one yours. Find your city, find your room, find your people.