The further we get into 2026, the more I’m convinced that this is the year of taking in-person hangouts seriously.

After the pandemic-era lockdowns lifted, it felt like there was this boom of going out, coupled with anxiety surrounding a new, new normal. People now had different expectations about hugging, sharing spaces with strangers, and coming into work with the sniffles. In-person jobs started to look like a thing of the past, and many people had optimized their lives to focus on insular activities; book-reading, binge-watching, and doom-scrolling. Rents went up, and we all had less going-out money. We’d gotten used to staying indoors, and now instead of staying in due to health-related fears, it’s because we’re making the most of our homes.

But lately I’m seeing us come out of our cocoons more and more as we realize that seeing people isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a necessity. I’m seeing cozy creators tell their followers that going to parties isn’t going against the “soft life”; you have to be social in order to have something to recover from. I’m seeing TikTokers posting content about avoiding brain rot and learning how to be a villager by putting down their phones and trying to make friends. Mostly, I’m seeing people exploring the spaces they take for granted outside their homes.

I don’t think this is a fad—I think we’re finally ready as a community to have a conversation about how much it sucks to be lonely. When I first moved to London, I had no friends, no connections, and no one to text about how difficult life was. And I felt like such a loser, because what 20-something doesn’t have friends? It felt like back then, no one was talking about it. But I’m glad we are now.

Studies show that loneliness and social isolation increase rates of suicidal ideation and mental health conditions, and lower-functioning immune systems and cardiovascular health. In short, being lonely isn’t just an imagined slight—it has real-world consequences for our health and wellbeing.

I’m lucky that I have a social circle full of people I love. But one of the ways that I kept a social circle going for a while was regular hang-outs; time spent together on a scheduled basis. The person who made that happen wasn’t me; it was my friend, who I’ll call S.

S came from a group of friends who’d all gone to uni together, graduated together, and were now living in South London. I’d made friends with one of them through rooming in the same house. S had an idea: a once-a-month dinner club, modelled after something she’d seen another friend group do. There were “rules”; they were as follows:

• We’d go to a restaurant the first Friday of each month (one week after payday for most of us)
• One person would “host” (ie, pick the restaurant), and keep the place a secret from us. We’d come to a pub nearby and walk over together.
• We couldn’t have the same type of cuisine twice in a row (so if we went to an Italian place in May, the next host couldn’t pick an Italian place for June)
• The restaurant had to be a small business (no chains, as defined by having more than 3 locations)
• The menu had to include a starter & main for under £20 (this was in 2014; now it would probably be “under £35”)
• The host of the dinner would announce who they picked to host the following month. Unless you had a good reason, you couldn’t refuse!

S’s friends dinner club had all sorts of rules on top of this (the host had to wear a hat, and no one was allowed to wear jeans were a few), but we wanted to keep ours simple. We made a group chat called “Dinner Club” to coordinate all of it.

And for years, that’s how I got to know, and stayed close to, this group better. It lasted the better part of 10 years, with people dropping in and out as we grew through our twenties, partnered up, got married, and sometimes left the city. We also had new people join our group, as they heard through friends-of-friends and wanted to give London small business restaurants a try. I think our biggest dinner club was 22 people, including partners.

Eventually, the group fizzled out. But then a great thing happened—one of the Dinner Club members decided he wanted to go even more niche, and create an offshoot called Pizza Club. Our rules are a lot more lax, but every month we have a host, and we try a different pizza place. It’s an almost completely different group of people, who I’ve enjoyed getting to know.

Whether it’s a Dinner Club or Pizza Club, making the decision to explore the city on the same day each month has been a really low-stakes way to keep connections strong with friends. For the last 12+ years, I’ve been getting to know London’s food landscape, trying cuisines from all over the world—seeing places I’d never consider going solo.

I wanted to share how we built a habit to keep us close, and how and why it worked. I write so much about exploring where you are, and taking in the wonders around us—it’s so easy for us to forget that where we live might be a place people would love to visit, and we’ve got access to cool things all around us. Feel free to take the parameters from above if they’re useful to you. Here’s why I think it worked for us:

We picked a specific day that was consistent every month. This meant that if anyone tried to make plans with me on the first Friday of every month, I would immediately think I’m busy that night. It was never a surprise that I’d have to see if I had free; after a while, I kept it free, because I knew it was coming up.

It was a light lift, plans-wise. This was a casual plan; dinner with friends, after work, at a time in my life where I really wanted to spend time with them. No one planned a Dinner Club at the outskirts of town, so there wasn’t a huge problem with transit; we didn’t have to dress up; we could come directly from work. No extra steps needed to enjoy ourselves!

It was something we all wanted to do. Who doesn’t love eating, sharing stories with friends, and kicking back after a week at work? This wouldn’t have gone as well if we’d tried to do it on a Tuesday, at breakfast—we all wanted to go out on Fridays, and this was a fun way to make it happen.

There was a price limit. I cannot begin to tell you how skint I was when I first moved to London; grilled cheese and plain pasta were my go-to staples just so I didn’t starve. But when there’s a rule that the price can’t go beyond a certain amount, it felt like I could relax a bit.

The labour was divided. At its peak, our dinner club had at least 12 members, so if you were chosen to “host” then it would only be once per year (unless you got unlucky!). This meant two things: one, you didn’t have to do picking-a-restaurant-by-committee. We trusted our host, and even if you didn’t love the food, you’d be getting a new experience. And two: when it was your turn, you took it seriously, knowing this was how you were making sure the tradition kept going. It’s important to give as much as you get when it comes to group excursions.

If you’re looking to start a group this year to bring people together, I hope that my experience serves as proof that it doesn’t need to be hard or complicated to be fun. I’ve toyed with the idea of making new “clubs”: a book club, an indie film-seeing club, and a bullet journaller’s club. I might do these in the future, with the guideposts of making it as easy, fun, and cheap as possible. If you start a club, I hope you’ll let me know. Happy travels!