Estimated reading time: 20 minutes

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

Question: what’s the best way to meet new people, or to spend more time with your friends you already care about, when you and everyone in your circle is broke?

This has been on my mind since reading the article, “America’s Loneliness Trap” by Nick Keppler, and it felt spot on to me! 

It essentially argues that the loneliness epidemic isn’t gendered, it’s class-based.

As a woman whose household income hovers around the 25th percentile in the U.S., I tend to agree. So many of the barriers to connecting with old friends, and meeting new ones, could be solved with money!

Do you have ideas for how to meet people in a way that doesn’t involve joining a club with dues, or spending much on food or transportation? 

Or reconnecting with friends when transportation to each other’s cities is a bit pricey? I have a monthly phone call with one friend, but I want to do more. 

– Broke and Missing My People

This is a well-timed question, BMMP, because Dr. Liz and I recently recorded an episode of our podcast “Do As We Say, Not As They Did” about YouTuber D’angelo’s video about the loneliness epidemic, which touches on Keppler’s article among other aspects. And – spoiler alert – we agree: it’s not just gendered, it’s everyone, and the ultimate reason is end-stage capitalism.

You’re correct (as is D’angelo) that much of what pushes the epidemic of loneliness is how many barriers exist in trying to go out, meet people and socialize and how many of those barriers are ultimately money-soluble. From trying to find places to hang out or go on dates to just getting places if you don’t have your own car, the costs of trying to be social have gone up significantly. And to be clear, those costs aren’t just financial; it’s time, it’s energy and it’s effort too. And it’s incredibly frustrating.

Unfortunately, it’s also one of those situations where there’re no good or easy answers. It would be nice if there were One Simple Trick to solve these problems that didn’t involve a lucky break of a scale that would imply divine intervention, but unfortunately there really isn’t. There aren’t any simple answers and there isn’t just one that will solve them; it’s a systematic problem, with many factors that simply can’t be controlled for on the individual level.

I will say that it’s a problem that has always been with us in some form or another; as long as humans have had civilization, there have been barriers to having a life that goes beyond a hard-scrabble existence. We are social animals and we have social needs that don’t go away just because it’s difficult to meet them. But that’s also a good thing; for as long as those barriers and difficulties have existed, we’ve been finding ways to deal with them, mitigate them or work around them. And almost all the ways we’ve found to bring people together and create those social connections have involved communal effort. After all, costs – including non-monetary costs – can be defrayed and less onerous when shared among many instead of covered by the few.

So, one of the ways to square this particular circle is to plan events and get-togethers that have a low cost of entry and whose other expenses can be shared or distributed equitably. Hang-outs at friends houses, with potluck meals or drinks and a volunteer carpool to help people get to and from the place is an option. So too are picnics, or organized hang-outs in the parks. I have friends who would plan get togethers to do things like have NERF wars or pillow fights in the park or do things like meet up at open-air museums and statue gardens and then take pictures of one another for their social media and dating profiles. All of these can be done for relatively little money; the costs tend to revolve around the time spent planning and organizing things.

There’s also the option of having get-togethers with friends in order to just do chores or run errands. This is the sort of thing that sounds weird at first – who wants to get together with their friend to get groceries? – but in practice, it’s often incredibly satisfying. It provides the opportunity to hang out and catch up while also getting things done – time that is often less than thrilling and seen more as an inconvenient necessity than something you can enjoy. People who’ve started making plans like this with their friends find that it provides a serious boost to their mood and often feels more meaningful to their friendship. It can also help drive down the costs – you accomplish many things together and more efficiently, saving you both time and gas.

Staying connected with distant friends can be tougher, but is still doable; it just requires a little thinking outside the box and looking for ways to spend quality time together. One of the things that helped keep me and my friends sane during the COVID lockdowns in 2020 were the weekly cocktail parties we arranged via Facebook and held over Zoom. Every Friday, we would have a group zoom-call while we made drinks and caught up with each other’s lives. Everyone who could make it did, and the folks who couldn’t make it one week knew that there would be another the next week, so they didn’t feel like they had missed out.

Of course, Zoom isn’t the only option. I knew people who would arrange hangouts in online games – not just MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, but games with online components like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Animal Crossing; they would all arrange to meet in some pre-determined corner of the world, hop on voice chat (usually, but not always, through Discord) and spend time chilling in Azeroth, Hydaelyn or the Old West. Having in-game options, from quests to riding and roping horses gave a feeling of accomplishing little tasks and doing fun things together.

Similarly, you should make a point of finding local events that are free or open to the public – movies or concerts in the park, museum visits on days when they have discounted or pay-what-you-can tickets, gallery and art shows, street fairs, block parties all exist. There’re also often community events organized and hosted at community centers – whether they’re groups like the Lions or the Rotary Club, the Jewish Community Center or others – that are free or relatively cheap to attend. These are great for both friend hangs as well as cheap or low-cost dates.

Part of the challenge is just finding them. Fortunately, the connected age means that the information is out there; it just often isn’t all collected in one place. Finding resources for what’s happening in your area can require some research and some dedication. Local subreddits and community newspapers – including local alt-weeklies and neighborhood newsletters – are invaluable starting points for keeping on top of what’s happening each week.

Another part of the challenge can be getting there. It’s one thing if you live in a major metropolitan area that has ample public transport. It’s another if you’re lucky to have a local bus line at all; many communities shut them down or privatize them, leading to higher prices and worse service. This is another area where trying to organize rides or carpooling for people going to the events can help; it defrays costs and makes it possible for more people to attend, while also bringing folks together. It’s not easy, and it often may require your being the one doing the organizing, but it is an option.

As for meeting new people, finding new friends or possibly even folks you may want to date, I can’t recommend getting involved in your community highly enough. Volunteering is a prime example; finding a cause or a project that you care about and giving your time to it will bring you in close contact with other like-minded people with similar goals and values. Whether it’s helping out in neighborhood beautification or clean-up projects, political or community organizing, helping at animal shelters or other local causes, you will be meeting and spending a great deal of time with people and working together towards a common goal.

Not only does being part of something bigger than yourself – and doing something unquestionably positive for your community – bring incredible satisfaction and a sense of purpose, but it also helps create and cement bonds with the people you are working with. There’s nothing quite like working together with people towards a common goal to help you connect with others.

And yes, sometimes you’re the person who’s stuck in a place where there’s precious little of any of that. In those cases, you may well have to be the person who gets the ball rolling – to help build the community or the volunteering opportunities you want to see or be part of. And… yeah, in an ideal world, it wouldn’t fall on your shoulders to have to build not just a social life but the ground work for a community. But sometimes, when the thing you want to see doesn’t exist, then spitting in your hands and picking up the tools is the only way to see it come into being at all. But in doing so, you’ll often find other people who feel the same way and who will want to be part of this new endeavor… and in doing so, you’ll be finding and building those new connections, while also making it possible for the people who come after you to take part and join into something incredible.

As I said: the costs are still there, and they’re not all monetary. But with effort and care, you’ll find your people and in doing so, make it possible to share those costs so that that they’re more equitable and far less onerous for everyone.  

Good luck.

As-salamu alaykum Doctor NerdLove,

I came across your site by chance and was hoping you might be able to give me some advice.

I’ll try to keep this as short as I can, but there’s a lot going on.

My family came to the U.S. as refugees about 15 years ago, when I was 12. My dad and my uncle — my stepmother’s brother — opened a deli. It never did all that well, but it was pretty much our only source of income.

My dad died when I was 22. Since I was his only son and had always helped out at the store, I ended up taking over. His will named me as the legal guardian for my younger siblings, and the court agreed that I was probably the best person to handle things. The judge thought my stepmother would be overwhelmed, and honestly, nobody really trusted my uncle to take care of everything.

So for the last five years, I’ve been doing my best to take care of my stepmother and my siblings while also keeping the deli running.

My dad was married three times. My mother and older sister died before we came to the U.S. He had another wife before my stepmother, but I never met her. I have an older half-sister from that marriage who is now 17, and my stepmother and dad had twin daughters who were born here and are now seven.

My stepmother took my dad’s death very hard. She was already in poor health before he died, and now she needs someone watching over her most of the time. Usually, I just bring her to the deli, where my uncle and I can keep an eye on her.

At her last doctor’s appointment, we were told she probably has dementia, and that it will likely get worse.

Sometimes she talks about how much she misses our home country. She has even asked me to drop her off at ICE so they’ll deport her, because she wants to die in the country where she was born. Other times, when she’s doing better, she tells me how happy she is to be here with us. She’ll cook, clean, help with laundry, tell jokes, sing, and play with her daughters. It’s really hard to watch her go back and forth like that.

I’ve asked social services for help, but they don’t have anyone available. I asked around at the mosque too, but my dad had a long-running fight with the imam, and unfortunately that seems to have continued even after my dad died. A Christian charity offered to help, but my stepmother got into an argument with the woman they sent.

We definitely can’t afford a full-time nurse. We’re already heavily in debt because my dad was never very good at running a business.

My older half-sister helps take care of my stepmother when she can, but she has told me more than once that she plans to leave when she turns 18. She has always felt that our family is too religious and too tied to tradition. She thinks we’ve made our lives harder by refusing to just live like “normal people.” She has even said that we aren’t her “real family.”

Honestly, I don’t completely blame her. She should be able to choose what she believes and how she wants to live. My dad was way too strict with her.

Since he died, she’s basically been rebelling against everything. She drinks, smokes, wears makeup, and dresses however she wants. She hasn’t prayed with us in years. The police brought her home twice last year after she got into fights at school. She hates that I’m her legal guardian.

At the same time, she has thanked me for taking care of her. The other option was my uncle, and he wanted to send her back to our home country and marry her off. I was completely against that.

Recently she started working weekends at the deli, and honestly, she’s a huge help. She’s really good with people, and I have to admit that a lot of young guys come into the store when she’s there. Some of them try to show off and spend extra money to impress her. We probably make around 15% more on days when she works.

I wish I could pay her what she deserves, but we just don’t have the money.

She also has a boyfriend. He actually seems like a good guy and has gone out of his way to help us. He’s even tried to learn about our family, our traditions, and our religion. Still, it feels strange being in this kind of “meet the girlfriend’s father” role when I’m only about eight years older than him. He also shops at our deli almost exclusively now.

A few weeks ago, I accidentally saw the two of them having sex in the parking lot behind the deli while she was supposed to be working. They saw me, panicked, and drove away. She came back a few hours later.

My uncle was furious with her, but I told him to mind his own business.

Later that night, she thanked me for standing up for her. She admitted what happened and said she felt bad about it. I just told her to make sure they used protection and to let me know if she needed some personal time so I wouldn’t worry about where she was.

Then she asked me why she never saw me with women or why I wasn’t married.

That question hit me harder than I expected.

I told her that I never really felt like I had the time to date. And honestly, I don’t know who would want to marry into the situation I’m dealing with. At some point, I just shut that whole part of myself down.

When I was younger, I assumed marriage would eventually happen through the mosque, like it traditionally does in our community. But usually your parents are the ones who help arrange introductions and things like that. I didn’t have anyone to do that for me. The imam is supposed to help people who don’t have parents, but he doesn’t like my family.

Even when I did talk to women my age at the mosque, their parents would often step in pretty quickly. I’ve overheard people saying that I wasn’t a good choice because I wasn’t strict enough with the women in my family, that I had too much baggage, that my family had “bad blood,” or that I was already too old.

My sister seemed really upset after I told her all of this. Since then, she has been going out of her way to help me and be nicer to me. I think she feels guilty. I also think it may have been the first time she really saw how sad and lonely I can be.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking a lot more about how lonely I feel sometimes. Before that conversation, I had gotten pretty good at pushing those feelings aside. But now they keep coming back. I keep thinking about how nice it would be to have someone who was there for me for once.

I’ve looked into Islamic matchmaking services, but they’re usually expensive. I don’t have much free time for regular dating or social events. Online dating also seems difficult when you’re Muslim and not rich or white.

Some people I know have suggested marrying someone from my home country who would be willing to “overlook my flaws.” But I don’t really feel like I belong there anymore. I’m also not nearly as traditional or strict as they would probably expect me to be.

I’m not even sure anymore whether I want to marry someone from my religion.

When I was younger, I got along well with girls at school. Usually just as friends, but I liked how open and relaxed they seemed. Maybe I’m just looking back on that time because it was before I felt like I had to take care of everyone and everything.

I also don’t know if it would be fair to bring someone into my life as it is now. Maybe in eight or nine years, when the twins are older, things will be different. But by then I’ll be even older too, and sometimes I feel like my life is just passing me by.

Sorry this got so long. Maybe I just needed to get all of this off my chest.

I’m open to any advice.

ma’a khalis al-taqdeer

Lonely Deli Owner

This is a rough situation, LDO, and it’s one of those times when there aren’t really good or easy answers; there’s just the choice between which options suck the least.

You’re not alone in your struggle; we are awash in situations where people find themselves as the de-facto lynchpin of their family, trying their damndest to keep everything afloat with precious few resources to help. It’s unfortunately a very common story, and it sucks for everyone involved.

And to be perfectly frank, a nation that lived up to its purported ideals would have a stronger social safety net to help people in situations like yours, so that people aren’t left relying on inconsistent aid and charity that can be taken away on a whim or doled out only to people who meet arbitrary standards of being “worthy”.

(Something for folks to consider as we head into the midterm elections in three months, especially when voting at the state and local levels. Just saying.)

Much of what you’re struggling with – and it is a struggle – is well outside my remit as a loudmouth asshole with a relationship advice column. I will say that what you’re doing is admirable, and you’re doing a lot with very little. It would be great if you could find more help or resources to take some of the burden off your shoulders. If there’re others in the community who could help – trusted neighbors who could help watch the kids, for example – that might free things up for you. Or if there were grants or low-interest loans for local small businesses that could help get the financial situation under control. It may be worth doing some research if funds or options exist, either at the state or municipal level; your local library may be able to help with that. But sometimes, what you have is all you have and that’s what you have to work with.

I think it’s important that you recognize that you’re doing the best that you can under incredibly challenging circumstances, and ones that are through no fault of your own. And I think it’s important that you remember that, because I’m hearing a lot of self-blame in your letter – as though you should be capable of more or that you’re doomed because you can’t find a way to thread multiple needles at the same time when you barely even have thread.

This is why I think it’s important to give yourself not just grace but credit. To blame yourself for the crime of not being superhuman or to be a reasonable person in unreasonable circumstances is the definition of being neither fair nor helpful to yourself. You’re stuck in the position of doing multiple jobs, each of which require almost all of your time, energy and bandwidth, and doing so with very little. The fact that you are keeping things in as good a condition as you are is not just commendable but admirable. I think you need to keep that in view, because it’s going to be important – both for having the strength to keep going, but also as a reminder that life isn’t passing you by, nor is it a disqualifier for your future.

In this place and at this time I would agree: trying to date or bring someone into your life is a bad idea. You are beyond maxed out in terms of your mental and emotional bandwidth, never mind free time or even energy. To try to date would require resources you simply don’t have to spare, and even trying to work with a matchmaker or facilitate an arranged marriage is going to tax you in ways that you can’t afford. While arranged marriages can often have better long-term outcomes than “traditional” ones – you can’t exactly fall back on “love is all you need” and have to consciously work together to build an effective partnership – it still takes a lot of work just to make it succeed on an individual level. Finding someone who is going to fit in your current dynamic is a challenge in and of itself. Making a leap to a long-term, committed relationship with all the responsibilities and challenges inherent to both relationships in general and your situation specifically is going to require god-tier effort and equally divine luck.

This is an area where triage is important: you need to devote your time and energy where they’re most needed, and be willing to put off the things that aren’t going to be as vital to your immediate goals of taking care of your family and keeping your collective heads above water. As much as you might wish it were otherwise, sometimes things just have to wait until later. Think of it like a starship in crisis; when you’re needing to reroute all available power to life support and the engines, you’re not going to be putting any effort into fixing the ice machine.

And yes, in this case, dating is functionally about the same level as fixing the ice machine.

This isn’t to say that dating isn’t important or something that you should be fine going without. It simply is to say that in the hierarchy of needs, it’s a fairly good distance away from safety and security, never mind food and shelter. You have a lot of responsibilities to manage and as various parents (whether the biological parents or the people who stepped into the role when needed) know, the kids have to come first.

Now that having been said, it’s also important to realize that this won’t be forever. There will come a point where the burdens will ease and you will have more available resources. It may take a while and getting there will suck in the meantime, it will come. As the saying goes: it may pass like a kidney stone but it will pass.

When that time comes, it’s important to realize that you aren’t going to be “too late”, nor will you have missed out. There isn’t a window where you are able to start dating and missing it means that you’re locked out forever. Love can and does bloom at all ages and at all experience levels. You may not have had the typical life or the “typical” experience of a 20-something year old man, and that’s fine; you’re not a typical person and you aren’t going to want to find a typical partner. You’re going to want to find someone who can match your vibe and life; that’s going to take someone special who can recognize and appreciate that you are someone special.

And let me be clear: when the time comes that you are ready and able to date, when you have the time and the available bandwidth? You are going to be a prize. Someone who’s caring and responsible, family oriented, who helped keep his entire family afloat through serious hardship and struggle, who almost single-handedly raised his sisters and came through the other side without a callus on his soul and with love in his heart? Someone who is going to be far more mature and experienced than his peers because he stepped up when the call to action came?

Shit dude, you are going to have a very hard time sorting through the number of women who will be throwing themselves at you. You’re going to be like the male lead in a cozy romance novel.

(Honestly, I’d suggest taking notes and writing things up yourself, if you have an inkling; you might have a best seller on your hands.)

For now though: acknowledge that what you’re doing is very, very hard and it requires pretty much all of your effort. You are doing something that people struggle with under the best of circumstances and you are doing it with far fewer resources than they have. Give yourself grace for what you’re going through and give yourself permission to focus on taking care of your family over everything else. You’re doing better than I think you realize and it says a lot about you that you’re doing it at all.

Hope burns bright, and a brighter day is coming. You just have to get through the night first.

All will be well.