Making Friends With the Creator of “How to Make Friends in Durham”

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Good morning, readers.

Last week, one of my editors dropped something interesting in our Slack channel: a website called “How To Make Friends in Durham.” The site had no “about” page, just a list of local groups and activities sorted neatly by category.

Curious, I reached out through the contact form and received a quick response from Mary Parsons, an anxiety therapist. Parsons tells me she launched the site this January after noticing a perpetual question on the Durham subreddit: “How do I make friends here?”

“There are so many people who just don’t know where to start or feel overwhelmed by all the options” when it comes to finding social activities as an adult, Parsons says. “My hope was to create a database where I could compile and organize a lot of the options so that taking that first step could be that much easier.”

The site offers a directory of things to do organized by interest—sports, arts, activism, and so on—alongside broader resources like Durham County Library events and neighborhood listservs.

Of course, finding activities is one thing; getting yourself to attend them is another. Parsons’s advice for showing up?

“I’ve found that what I have to do is rely on external motivation,” she says. “I have to sign up for clubs and teams that I know expect me to be there every week. We all want to be internally motivated, but I don’t think most of us have the self-discipline of Navy SEALs.”

Have a good weekend.

 —Lena

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