As Americans Lament Friendship Recession, 1 Simple Idea Is Helping Neighbors Become Friends Again

A fun set of snow-day photos — friends laughing in a cozy apartment and bundled up outside for the first snowfall of the season — wasn’t supposed to spark widespread discourse on social media, but a large number of commenters responded with longing, envy and frustration, turning a lighthearted moment into a flashpoint in Americas ongoing “friendship recession.”

On X user @stuff1eee‘s post, the comments poured in: “youre setting unrealistic expectations,” “other people are living my dreams,” “how do I get this,” and even “how do you have so much money?” The user, surprised, replied that they only “make $24,000 a year lol,” and that it was “just a regular apartment in Illinois.”

The reaction illuminated a widespread ache for casual, comfortable companionship that many adults feel theyve lost. Even before the pandemic, Americans were struggling to maintain friendships as churches, community centers, bowling leagues, and other traditional gathering spots faded from everyday life. Parenting became more intensive, work more consuming, and social circles more fragmented. The result: millions of adults suffering from loneliness, sometimes because they lack friends entirely, and sometimes because they lack the time and space to nurture the friendships they do have.

That scarcity has sparked renewed demand for “third spaces,” the term sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined for places outside home and work where people can simply exist together. Board-game bars, climbing gyms with lounges, and hybrid wellness-community spaces are springing up all over. But for some, the path back to connection is even closer than that — right outside their front door.

In 2022, as people began emerging from their early-pandemic isolation, Maryam Banikarim in New York Citys Chelsea neighborhood co-founded The Longest Table quite by accident when she decided to bring her block together for a meal.

“I saw a picture of what I now know to be Egypt and iftar, like it was just a picture of people having a meal together down the street,” Banikarim said, referring to the fast-breaking meal shared after sunset by Muslims during Ramadan. “So I took that picture and posted it on my personal Nextdoor account and said, ‘what if we did that?'”

The post got “lots of reactions,” she said, so she got together with a handful of neighbors to make The Longest Table happen. Banikarim had previously started the nonprofit NYCNext to help New Yorkers during Covid, so they rented tables and chairs, and recruited some volunteers to help.

“We swept the street, we put down the tables and chairs, we invited neighbors to come with friends and food, and the first year 500 people showed up,” Banikarim said. “We’ve now done it for four years; this year, we had over 2,000 people just in Chelsea.”

Since that first meal in Chelsea in 2022, people from around the country inquired about hosting similar events in their own cities and neighborhoods. In 2025, there were 50 The Longest Table events in communities across the U.S. Those who volunteer to host a table get an informational “toolkit” to help them plan the event and recruit volunteers, not just to help set up, but to serve as “table captains” and check-in hosts who ensure everyone is welcomed and finds a place — especially when they come alone.

“I walked up to the table this year, and a woman said at check-in that she was a recent widow and that she was nervous about coming,” Banikarim said. “When she was checking in, somebody overheard the story she must have been telling somebody, and they were like, ‘why don’t you sit with us?’ And then she tells me this story and tears start coming down her face. And it’s just the most amazing thing.”

One part of the toolkit for hosts is a survey for participants, and the results of those surveys have shown a striking impact: 79% of attendees report feeling less lonely after attending, and 87% connected with new people. On social media, attendees regularly gush about the new friends they’ve made at The Longest Table.

And it’s not just about making friends individually — though that certainly happens — but about building community: 82% of attendees reported feeling inspired to get more involved locally, and 90% reported feeling more positive about their neighborhoods.

“Nobody’s making money doing it, and we’re just neighbors trying to get others connected to their neighbors,” Banikarim said. “And I think everybody does it because you walk away just feeling a sense of agency and belonging and connection. And don’t we all want to live in that world? I mean, it just feels like we could all use a little bit more of that.”