Tell me if this feels familiar.
The group text bings and someone suggests lunch. One person hearts the message. Two say “Yaaaaaassss! Soon.” One says “this week is wild, next week maybe?”
Then nothing happens.
A few days later someone sends a meme. Then a birthday gif. Then a “thinking of you ❤️.”
No one is mad or avoiding anyone.
No one is being dishonest.
But no one is showing up either.
And somehow, it's become fine for a beautiful friendship like this to live mostly in our phones. The connection exists theoretically, and for sure in case of emergency, but not over lunch?
C'mon, is this really the best we can do?
Some of us don't even have a group text.
Does it gut you to think that some people actually have five friends on a group text? Do you feel a deep river of shame if you don't?
For starters, stop it.
Part of the problem with loneliness is the 5th grade stigma attached to it. Dreading track practice because you don't have anyone to run with; feeling like a loser with nowhere to sit in the cafeteria.
Did you know, one in six Americans report feeling lonely or isolated all or most of the time — and those are the ones brave enough to admit it.
It's not that people don't want friends, of course they do. It’s that modern life has given us a billion "easier" choices. It has made friendship feel optional. More than that, it turned the places where friendships once formed naturally into social ghost towns.
When is the last time you went to The Elks Club, a union meeting, Rotary or dinner in a swanky mid-century modern house with a record player, and excessive scotch consumption?
Oh right. Mid-century.
As our culture stopped making room for the slow, repetitive, inconvenient work of friendship, we became lonelier. The data proves it.
How did we get here?
In 1993, Political Scientist and Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, began researching why democratic institutions in Italy performed better in some regions than others.
Putnam's research showed that trust, reciprocity, shared norms, and civic participation are crucial to democratic performance. He called it social capital — the glue between us that makes life less lonely, more meaningful and safer.
When people know and trust each other, simply because they spend time together, the community gets healthier. Conversely, communities marked by distrust and isolation, demonstrated weaker democratic systems.
Hmm.
Putnam expanded the theory in his 2001 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. He maintains that Americans have become radically less connected, and it’s weakening individuals, communities, and democracy itself.
From roughly the 1960s, Americans got less and less involved in civic and fraternal organizations. Informal social rituals like weekly dinners and neighborhood gatherings began waning too. Intergenerational friendships took a similar hit, and so did churchgoing.
And those social spaces weren't really replaced with anything — not at a structural level. So while their use waned, their usefulness did not, and we as a nation grew lonelier.
And that was before the internet or Covid-19.
Basically, we've forgotten how to make friends.
- Maybe you think, "friendship is great, if I have time and energy."
- Maybe you're shy and the available public spaces seem too hard.
- Maybe it's impossible, because your pals live halfway across LA.
- Maybe life alone is just...easier?
Sorry, I don't buy it.
In the face of a growing loneliness epidemic, with significant physical, emotional and, according to Putnam, democratic consequences, now is the time to reinvest.
You may not love everyone in your neighborhood bowling league, but at least you see them every Tuesday. How many of them will notice and care if you don't show up to bowl?
Those are your people. That's your social capital. Time to rebuild it.
Firelight Adventures - A social capital restoration project
If this is a skill set and a proximity problem, we can fix that.
We've been putting women in cozy rooms together for nine years. While beautiful views and good coffee do most of the work, it's the being together that everyone loves.
I'm grateful for Zoom but I'm sick of it. I want to be together live.
And I want to train women how rebuild their social capital, courageously, in their own communities. We're watching neighbors in Minnesota do this on the fly, in incredibly difficult conditions. If we can do it in advance, we should.
So, if I were inventing curriculum (and I am) this is what it would include.
- How to make and maintain friendships in 21st century America.
- How to reach out like a friend.
- How to repair a rupture with a friend.
- How to host a wicked fun dinner party — often.
- How to maintain excellent friendship-hygiene.
- How to run errands together and why it matters.
- How even introverts can have a group text with five friends on it.
So welcome to Firelight Adventures where we make friends and go places. Part travel adventure, part friendship camp for women, we're making interdependence cool again. This isn't the first time I've talked about it, but now we've have a 2026 schedule.
Here it is.
Taos, New Mexico - April 10-13. Registration opens next week. If you want to be the first to hear when it does, click here and get on the interest list.
Chamonix, France - June 13-18. Registration will open in a month or so. Wanna go to Europe with us? Allez. Get on the interest list here.
Killarney, Ireland - Mid September. More details coming on that soon.
By the way, this was dinner prep in Chamonix at our last women's retreat there. Hospitality Queen, and my friend of 20+ years, Deann, was whipping it up. She is the best.
If this is ringing bells for you, hop on the Taos list or the Chamonix list (or both) and we'll reach out with more information when we have it.
Have a well-regulated, steady week.
xoErin
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