Why this exists
More time together, less time on a screen
Show Up Alone started with a simple idea: most people would like more real people in their week, and the easiest way to get there is a group that meets on a regular schedule.
Phones and streaming made it easy to stay home. Clubs, leagues and weekly gatherings used to do a lot of quiet work, putting the same faces in the same room often enough for friendships to form. Plenty of those groups still exist around here. They just aren't easy to find, and walking in by yourself can feel like a lot.
So we find them, check them, and list the ones you can join on your own. Below is the idea that started it, and the research that convinced us it was worth doing.
The short version
- We see each other less. Time with friends in person fell from about an hour a day to 20 minutes.
- That matters for health. Strong social ties are linked to about 50% better odds of survival.
- Friendship takes repetition. It takes roughly 50 hours together to become casual friends, and a weekly group gets you there.
- It goes better than you think. People who talk to strangers enjoy it more than they expected, and the other person likes them more than they guess.
Ready now? Find a group near you.
It started with the third place
Home is your first place. Work is your second. Everyone needs a third.
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. He described third places as public spots that host “the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.” Think of the diner where the waitress knows your order, the corner pub, the barbershop, the weekly card game.
You go because you want to, not because you have to. It's cheap or free. The same regulars show up, and newcomers are welcome. Conversation is the main event, and nobody's job title matters once you're in the door.
Source: Katherine Peinhardt, What is a Third Place?, Project for Public Spaces, 2026
Independent diners, neighborhood cafés, senior centers and congregations have been closing, and researchers have linked that loss to rising loneliness and thinner community ties.
Sources: Samuel J. Abrams, American Enterprise Institute, 2025 and Axios, 2026
Show Up Alone began after reading Samuel Abrams’ article on America’s disappearing third places. The clubs, jams, runs and game nights on this site are third places in the truest sense: the same people, the same time, every week. You just have to walk in the first time.
We spend less time together than we used to
This trend started long before the pandemic, and the pandemic made it worse.
Average time Americans spent in person with friends each day, 2003 compared with 2020. The same advisory reports that about half of U.S. adults experience loneliness.
Source: U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on social connection, 2023
Share of free time Americans spent alone, 2003 compared with 2019. Free time spent with people from other households fell from 21.9% to 17.3% over the same years.
Source: Enghin Atalay, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2022
How much more time the average American spent at home each day in 2022 than in 2003. The rise showed up in every group the study looked at and started long before the pandemic. More time at home went along with less happiness and a weaker sense of meaning.
Share of Americans who went to or hosted a party or other social event on an average weekend day or holiday in 2024. On a typical weekday it was less than 1 in 100. Everyone wants to be invited, but fewer people are throwing anything. A group that meets every week is the gathering nobody has to host.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2024
Researchers who counted the words people actually spoke, using recordings from 22 studies and about 2,200 people, found a drop of more than 300 words a day for every year between 2005 and 2019. Most of what disappeared was small, everyday conversation.
Source: Pfeifer and Mehl, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2026
Political scientist Robert Putnam tracked decades of falling membership in clubs, civic groups and bowling leagues. More Americans were bowling than ever, but fewer were bowling in leagues. He pointed to television and other home entertainment as one of the main causes.
Connection is a health issue
Friendship is not just nice to have. Researchers keep finding that it shows up in how long and how well people live.
Better odds of survival for people with stronger social relationships. The review pooled 148 studies covering more than 300,000 people, and the effect was about as large as well-known risks like smoking.
The Surgeon General's comparison for how much a lack of social connection can raise the risk of early death.
Source: U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on social connection, 2023
Harvard has followed the same group of people since 1938. Those most satisfied with their relationships at 50 were the healthiest at 80, and relationship satisfaction predicted later health better than cholesterol did.
Source: Harvard Study of Adult Development, Harvard Gazette, 2017
Adults over 55 who volunteered as tutors and mentors for children said their circle of friends grew. Over two years, their depression went down, while it went up in a comparison group that didn't volunteer. Helping someone else is one of the surest ways to become a regular. You'll find mentoring roles listed for Ogden, Salt Lake County and Utah County.
Source: Experience Corps study, Washington University and Johns Hopkins, 2009
Screens are part of the story
Technology isn't the only cause, but it takes up time that used to go to people.
The Surgeon General names technology that "displaces in-person engagement, monopolizes our attention, reduces the quality of our interactions" as one of the forces pulling people apart.
Source: U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on social connection, 2023
University of Pennsylvania students who limited Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to 10 minutes each per day for three weeks reported significantly less loneliness and depression than students who didn't.
Source: Hunt, Marx, Lipson and Young, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018
Friendship takes repetition
This is why every group on the site meets on a regular schedule.
Roughly how much time together it takes to go from acquaintance to casual friend (about 50 hours), to friend (about 90), and to close friend (more than 200). Seeing the same people every week is one of the few easy ways to get there. A group that meets for two hours a week adds up to about 50 hours in six months.
Source: Jeffrey Hall, University of Kansas, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2018
People were happier on days when they had more interactions than usual with the classmates and acquaintances around them, not only with close friends. The familiar faces at a weekly group matter.
Source: Sandstrom and Dunn, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2014
Don't forget the gym
Group fitness classes are one of the best third places hiding in plain sight.
Oxford rowers who trained in sync as a crew had higher pain thresholds afterward, a common sign of endorphin release, than when they did the same workout alone. Working hard side by side does something that working out solo does not.
Source: Cohen, Ejsmond-Frey, Knight and Dunbar, Biology Letters, 2010
People who danced in time with others felt closer to the group afterward and had higher pain thresholds, a sign of endorphin release. Researchers think this is one reason shared movement has brought people together for so long.
Source: Tarr, Launay and Dunbar, Evolution and Human Behavior, 2016
Brain scans showed that a high-intensity interval workout (HIIT) released endorphins, the body's own opioids, in brain areas tied to pain and emotion. An hour of moderate exercise did not. Endorphins are the same chemicals researchers link to social bonding, from shared laughter to grooming in other primates. Push through that workout next to the same people every week and you're sharing more than the sweat.
Sources: Saanijoki and colleagues, Neuropsychopharmacology, 2018; Machin and Dunbar, Behaviour, 2011
A class also gives you the repetition that friendship needs: the same time, the same room and mostly the same faces every week. Most rec centers and gyms offer group classes, and many let you try one for free. Pick a class, go a few weeks in a row, set up near the regulars and say hi to the instructor. They'll learn your name fast.
Live music brings people together
Sitting in a small room with a drink and a band does more than fill an evening.
A 2025 review of 59 studies covering about 18,000 concertgoers found that live music builds real social connection: a sense of belonging, shared experience and lasting community, across every kind of show and genre. People more often described making new connections than strengthening old ones, and the social side of the night often mattered more to how they felt afterward than the music did. The authors call live music a possible community-based answer to loneliness.
Source: Rickard, Lewis, Ballantyne and Dingle, Musicae Scientiae, 2025
Researchers fitted 132 people at small chamber concerts with sensors. Across the audience, heart rates, breathing rates and skin responses tended to rise and fall together, and heart rates lined up most when listeners felt emotionally moved by the music. The shared moment you feel in a small room shows up in the body too.
The music nights worth looking for are the ones that come back every week or every month in the same room, so the faces start to repeat. Grab a table, go a few times in a row, and before long you'll be nodding hello to the regulars.
Showing up goes better than you expect
The hardest part of going alone is the part before you walk in.
Commuters in Chicago predicted they would prefer sitting quietly. When they were asked to talk with a stranger instead, they reported a more positive ride. People also underestimated how interested the other person would be in talking.
Source: Epley and Schroeder, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014
After a first conversation, people consistently underestimate how much the other person liked them and enjoyed their company. Researchers call it the liking gap.
Source: Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom and Clark, Psychological Science, 2018
Your first visit
- Check the group's page that day. Times and places can change, and some groups ask you to call first.
- Get there five minutes early. It's easier to say hello to a few people than to walk into a full room.
- Tell the host it's your first time. Most organizers love newcomers and will introduce you or show you the ropes.
- Plan on three visits before you decide. The first time is the hardest. By the third, you'll recognize faces and they'll recognize you.
So pick one and go
Choose a group that sounds fun, go once, then go again. By the third or fourth visit, people start to know your name.
Who's behind this
Hi, I'm Brett. I grew up in Ogden and spent part of my teens living in Mexico City, and I've been lucky enough to spend time in Peru and Brazil as well. Seeing more of the world made me appreciate Ogden and Utah more than ever. I still live here, which is why the Ogden page came first. By day I help run a small manufacturing company here in Ogden, where I wear a lot of hats. On the side, I love tech and building things, and this site is one of them.
I also teach an early-morning group fitness class. Some of my closest friendships started in that room, not because anyone planned it, but because the same people kept showing up at the same time every week.
A little over a year ago, I read an article about America's disappearing third places: the clubs, cafés and weekly gatherings outside of home and work where people used to become regulars. It stayed with me. I kept coming back to it as I noticed how easy it has become, for all of us, to finish the workday, head home and spend the evening on a screen. Those groups still exist here, and I love Ogden and Utah too much not to help people find them. That's how Show Up Alone began.
Show Up Alone is a passion project. It's free, and there are no ads. Groups can never pay to be listed or to show up higher.
I check every group on this site with its organizer or its own website before it goes up. If you find something out of date, or know a group I'm missing, write to me at hello@showupalone.com. I read every email.
I pay for the site myself and it costs very little to run. If it has helped you find your people and you'd like to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. It's never expected.
All 25 sourcesTap to see every study, report and article this page draws on.
- U.S. Surgeon General's advisory on social connection and community, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023.
- How time spent alone in the U.S. has changed over the past two decades, Enghin Atalay, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2022.
- Homebound: The long-term rise in time spent at home among U.S. adults, Patrick Sharkey, Sociological Science, 2024.
- American Time Use Survey, Table A-2A: time spent in detailed activities on weekdays and weekends, 2024, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025.
- Sliding into silence? We are speaking 300 daily words fewer every year, Valeria Pfeifer and Matthias Mehl, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2026.
- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam, Simon and Schuster, 2000.
- The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg, Paragon House, 1989.
- Ray Oldenburg, Project for Public Spaces.
- What is a Third Place? Beyond the Buzzword to True Social Connection, Katherine Peinhardt, Project for Public Spaces, 2026.
- America's Third Places Are Disappearing and Why It Matters, Samuel J. Abrams, American Enterprise Institute, 2025. The article that started this site.
- A loneliness epidemic meets uneven social infrastructure, Avery Lotz, Axios, 2026.
- Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review, Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton, PLOS Medicine, 2010.
- Over nearly 80 years, Harvard study has been showing how to live a healthy and happy life, Harvard Gazette, 2017.
- Researchers find sustained improvement in health in Experience Corps tutors over 55, Washington University in St. Louis, 2009.
- No more FOMO: limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression, Hunt, Marx, Lipson and Young, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018.
- Study reveals number of hours it takes to make a friend, University of Kansas, 2018 (Jeffrey Hall, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships).
- Social interactions and well-being: the surprising power of weak ties, Sandstrom and Dunn, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2014.
- Rowers' high: behavioural synchrony is correlated with elevated pain thresholds, Cohen, Ejsmond-Frey, Knight and Dunbar, Biology Letters, 2010.
- Silent disco: dancing in synchrony leads to elevated pain thresholds and social closeness, Tarr, Launay and Dunbar, Evolution and Human Behavior, 2016.
- Opioid release after high-intensity interval training in healthy human subjects, Saanijoki and colleagues, Neuropsychopharmacology, 2018.
- The brain opioid theory of social attachment: a review of the evidence, Machin and Dunbar, Behaviour, 2011.
- The unifying power of live music events: a systematic review of social outcomes for audience members, Rickard, Lewis, Ballantyne and Dingle, Musicae Scientiae, 2025.
- Audience synchronies in live concerts illustrate the embodiment of music experience, Tschacher and colleagues, Scientific Reports, 2023.
- Mistakenly seeking solitude, Epley and Schroeder, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014.
- The liking gap in conversations, Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom and Clark, Psychological Science, 2018.