Making friends when you work remotely in New York
Updated
Working from home in New York has real advantages: no commute, a quieter day, more control over your time. What it quietly removes is the steady, low-stakes contact of an office, which is where many adults made most of their friends. If your week has started to feel like a long conversation with your laptop, you are not imagining it, and it is fixable.
What the office used to do for you
An office puts you in the same room as the same people, day after day, with something to talk about. You did not have to plan any of it. Remote work means building that repetition on purpose, which feels strange at first but works the same way.
Work somewhere else a few days a week
- A coworking space with a membership, where the same people come in on the same days.
- A library branch. The New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library have free spaces to work, and the regulars become familiar quickly.
- A café you like, at the same time each week. Becoming a regular matters more than which café it is.
Two or three fixed days are better than an occasional change of scene: you want to see the same faces.
Use the flexibility
Remote work often means you can take a long lunch or finish early. Use that for things office workers cannot easily join: a midday class, a weekday morning run club, a volunteering shift on a Tuesday afternoon. Smaller daytime groups are often friendlier than packed evening events.
Make the evening plan before the day starts
When you work from home, it is easy to finish at seven and never leave the apartment. Put one social plan in your calendar each week before Monday begins, and treat it like a meeting you cannot move. A standing dinner, a class or a walk with a friend gives the week a shape.
Find people in the same situation
Other remote workers understand the rhythm of your day, and many are looking for the same thing. Coworking events, remote-work meetups and professional groups in your field are good places to find them, and lunch on a weekday is often easier for them than a Friday night.
Simurgsu can help too: you choose the kind of evening you want and get up to three introductions a week to people in Manhattan and nearby Brooklyn who chose the same, starting with a five-minute call.
