Hi, I’m Katrina.

I moved to Vancouver from Ontario in 2017.

Before even touching down in my new city, I was told by people around me that Vancouver, albeit beautiful, was a cold, cliquey place where it was impossible to make new friends.

Nevertheless, I was convinced that my extroverted personality and experience living in new cities would be enough to overcome whatever it was that made people think I would be lonely.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. I spent the first few months alone and found it difficult to establish lasting friendships.

Eventually — through a combination of DMing strangers, BumbleBFF, and luck — I met my people. But over the years I continued to hear the same story being repeated over and over by both newcomers and people who had been here for years: Vancouver is a lonely place to be.

Finally, in October 2021, I decided to do something about it.

In the wake of a viral Tiktok, I began We Should Be Friends — a group dedicated to helping people make friends in this lonely city.

Over the past few months, I have hosted outdoor picnic-style meetups that have brought out hundreds of people seeking friendships. During the winter months, I organized book clubs so that people could meet in smaller groups indoors. The response has been incredible, which simply shows me how great the need is.

In his book Lost Connections, Johann Hari writes that “we — without ever quite intending to — have become the first humans to ever dismantle our tribes.”

Thanks to the internet, for the first time in history we are more connected than ever — and yet many people still feel utterly disconnected, and hopelessly lonely.

I believe that community building is not only important, it is essential to our mental and social health. And I hope that We Should Be Friends will continue to not only inspire connection and build friendships but allow people to see that at the end of the day, we’re not really all that different.

- Katrina Martin