How to meet people in New York City

Start with something to do, not somebody to meet. Not a date.

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New York is the easiest city in the country to be surrounded by people and still not know anybody. You can have four hundred neighbors and no one to text on a Saturday morning. What actually fixes it here is not meeting more people -- it is meeting the same few people twice, close enough to home that a second time is not a commute.

The mechanics are the same in every city -- start with something to do, ask to come, then go back a second time -- and they are written out in full in how to make friends as an adult. If you want the thirty-second version of the app itself, see how notadate works. What follows is the part that is specific to here.

Where people meet in New York City

Pick by your own commute, not by the neighborhood with the best cafes:

• Lower Manhattan and the Village -- easy to reach from most lines, and walkable afterwards if the conversation runs long.
• Williamsburg and Greenpoint -- the default for anyone in north Brooklyn; good for a coffee that turns into a walk by the water.
• Park Slope, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights -- cafe-dense and quiet enough to actually hear each other, with the park right there.
• Astoria and Long Island City -- badly underrated for this, and the fastest hop from Midtown.
• Harlem, Morningside Heights, the Upper West Side -- strong study-and-coffee culture; the easiest place in the city to make a weekday morning work.

If you are somewhere not on this list, that is not a problem -- it is a reason to host. A coffee chat posted in your own neighborhood will reach people who were waiting for one there.

Coffee Chat in New York City

Coffee is the right first meetup in this city because of geometry. Everything else requires both people to be free at the same time in the same borough; a coffee needs forty minutes and a corner. The rule that matters is the twenty-minute rule: if getting there means two trains and a transfer, the second meetup quietly never happens. So pick a cafe near one of you, keep it short, and let the next one be somebody else's turn to choose.

See also: what a Coffee Chat looks like on notadate.

Walk and Talk in New York City

You already walk everywhere here, so a walk with somebody new costs you nothing you were not already spending -- and the route does the talking when the conversation does not. Pick something linear with an obvious end rather than a destination: the Hudson path, the loop at Prospect Park, the pedestrian side of a bridge. Two people walking in the same direction never have to work out who is supposed to be speaking.

See also: what a Walk and Talk looks like on notadate.

Music/Concert in New York City

There is more on a Tuesday night here than most places manage in a month, which is exactly why so many of those shows end up skipped. Meeting at the door is normal in this city, so neither of you has to cross two boroughs early just to arrive together, and the small rooms in Bushwick, the Lower East Side and Greenpoint are forgiving for a first time. Agree beforehand who is heading which way afterwards -- the train home is the part that goes sideways.

See also: what a Music/Concert plan looks like on notadate.

Hobby Session in New York City

Apartments here are too small to be hobby rooms, which is why so much of it happens in public: studios, workshops, climbing gyms, a table at the library, a bench with a sketchbook. That is good news for meeting people -- the thing you would do alone somewhere else is already a room full of strangers here. Look for a session near a line you ride anyway, because that is what makes it survive January.

See also: what a Hobby Session looks like on notadate.

Study Buddy in New York City

The hard part of studying together in this city is the room, not the willingness. Branch libraries, a university reading room if you have access, and the cafes that genuinely do not mind laptops are the real supply, and all of them fill up by mid-morning at the weekend. Pick a weekday block and somewhere with a back room, and you will get the two hours you actually came for.

See also: what a Study Buddy plan looks like on notadate.

Cultural Outing in New York City

This is the one thing the city simply hands you: a museum, a gallery row or a free evening within a short ride of almost anywhere you live. The timing matters more than the place -- a weekday afternoon or the first hour after opening turns a crowded room into a quiet one, and the quiet room is where the conversation afterwards comes from. The Chelsea galleries cost nothing and take exactly as long as you want them to.

See also: what a Cultural Outing looks like on notadate.

Sports Activity in New York City

Space is the constraint here, not interest. Courts, pitches and tracks are shared and usually permitted, so the pickup games that exist are tied to a particular park at a particular hour -- which is the thing that makes them work socially, because the same faces come back. A run is the one that needs no booking at all: a bridge, a loop, a waterfront, any evening.

See also: what a Sports Activity plan looks like on notadate.

Game Night in New York City

Hosting at home is the hard version here, and nobody should feel bad about skipping it -- a board game cafe or a bar with real tables does the same job without anyone seeing your kitchen. Look for somewhere that opens late and does not mind a four-hour table. If you do host in an apartment, put the floor and the walk-up in the plan, because that is the detail people decide on.

See also: what a Game Night looks like on notadate.

Community Hangout in New York City

The park is the living room here, so a no-agenda hang has somewhere to be in every neighborhood: a lawn, a pier, a plaza, the benches outside wherever sells coffee. Summer makes that trivial and the rest of the year turns it into a question of finding an indoor room, which is where a library, a lobby or a long table somewhere warm earns its keep. Low stakes is the whole proposition -- you can turn up for twenty minutes and it still counts.

See also: what a Community Hangout looks like on notadate.

Meeting someone new in New York City

Keep the first one short and somewhere public, and pick a spot near a train you already know -- being able to leave easily is most of what makes a first meetup comfortable. A plan's exact location stays private until the host confirms the meetup; before that, other people see the approximate area, not the address. You can block or report anyone at any point, and there is nothing rude about an hour.

Hosting a plan in New York City

The fastest way to get a plan happening in New York City is to post one. You are not committing to entertain anybody -- you are posting the thing you were going to do anyway and leaving the door open.

Name the neighborhood and the nearest train and you have done the only part that actually matters here.