With a population of more than 8 million, New York somehow has earned a reputation for feeling lonely.
But a new crop of Big Apple transplants that are having trouble making friends are taking action — with a little help from technology.
Millennial and Gen Z newbies are ditching bars, clubs and social sports leagues for dating apps, in the hopes of befriending fellow lonely souls.
“In New York City, it’s so hard to just make friends from scratch,” Brooklyn native Franny Chudner told The Post.
The 29-year-old moved back to New York in 2015 after attending college in Maryland, only to discover she had grown apart from her high school social circle.
“I found myself bored in New York, of all places, like I would be sitting around on a Saturday night, not going out or not socializing,” admitted Chudner.
However, she ultimately found success with the Bumble For Friends app — yes, from the creators of the dating site — which isn’t for hook-ups but rather designed for making platonic connections.
And Chudner isn’t alone, despite feeling like it.
One in three people surveyed by Bumble For Friends met their friends online, according to company data, and 78% of New Yorkers said those digitally fostered connections lessened their feelings of loneliness.
“We often hear people talk about the irony of being in New York, which … is the most populated city in the country with over 8 million people, and also simultaneously feeling disconnected,” Danielle Bayard Jackson, a friendship expert for Bumble For Friends, told The Post.
“So sometimes it feels like a special kind of loneliness.”
It’s an epidemic, many experts say, one that is especially contagious in the era of social media. Often, 20-somethings doomscroll TikTok, seeing gaggles of gal pals boozy brunching or hitting the town, as they sink into their couch on a plan-less Saturday evening.
Jackson postulated that the lack of convenient and immediate community after graduating from college, starting a new job and moving to a new geography could leave young people “hungry” for connection, too. While not a new problem, social media is the main culprit behind FOMO (“fear of missing out”), which exasperates loneliness.
“Moving to a new city after having a solid friend group in college you basically have to start all over again,” content creator Laura Mahachek, from Pennsylvania, told The Post.
She found it “impossible” to find friends with no connections in the Big Apple, so she attended workout classes and book clubs and joined Bumble For Friends and local Facebook groups in an attempt to meet new people, but grew “frustrated.”
“I was essentially on the dating scene but for best friends,” Mahachek, 31, said.
“It’s hard to find people who have similar interests and who match where you’re currently at in your life.”
So, she founded NYC Social Girls Club, a Facebook group for the city’s equally lonely ladies — it now boasts 1,300 members — to meet up for dinner, workouts and outings.
Ellie Ballin, who recently moved to New York from Miami, believes the pandemic changed the way people cultivate relationships, after spending months interacting screen-to-screen.
The 25-year-old has used TikTok, Instagram and her “godsend” Bumble For Friends to meet some of her new besties.
“I’m definitely using the internet to my advantage to meet people,” she told The Post, adding that it’s easier to “tell when you’re going to mesh with somebody” by looking at their profile.
“Because of the pandemic and just because of Gen Z culture these days, why not just use the internet to your advantage?”
