At the beginning of 2025, Rebecca Gao made it her resolution to see her friends more often and invited them to a monthly cookbook club.Supplied
During the pandemic, my friends and I developed a great routine. About once every other week, we’d all hop onto Zoom and spend a few hours watching a movie and chatting. It was a bright spot in an otherwise dark and scary time.
But when it was safe to see each other in person again, we defaulted back to our group text chain, with real-life hangouts few and far between. I’d noodled around with the idea of a cookbook club before – part-dinner party, part-book club. The idea is that everyone picks a recipe from a chosen book to make and share. At the beginning of 2025, I made it my resolution to see my friends more often and invited them to a monthly cookbook club.
So far, it’s been a success. We haven’t missed a single month and we now have a whole new set of shared experiences to bond over. One month, we cooked from a book from the 1980s, with recipes sourced from across Canada. None of us have ever eaten that much mayonnaise or used Jell-O molds before. The meal, though hard to stomach, led to an evening of laughter and an almost anthropological Google deep-dive into why on Earth Canadians in the 1980s ate so much sour cream.
I’m not the only one who has developed a novel way to see my friends more often.
The cookbook club has given Rebecca Gao and her friends a whole new set of shared experiences to bond over.Supplied
Saskatoon-based Kayla Tycholiz started a monthly “splurge night” for her and her friends: the first time, they had a dip party where everybody brought a dip to share. They’ve also done an at- home facials night and are planning to do an at-home tattoo night.
“Plans used to always get stuck in the group chat,” Tycholiz says. “I think putting a title on [the plans] made everyone respect it way more. Now, we can set a date a month in advance and everyone will make sure they can make it.”
It’s not just about having fun and seeing beloved friends, though that’s important too. Having friends and confidants leads to longer lives and better quality of life, explains Esme Fuller-Thomson, the director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging and a professor of social work at the University of Toronto. While digital friendships can be great, they can lead to “this false sense that you’re connected to people, because you get texts and memes, but it’s shallow and you’re not really connecting.”
Getting together in-person can build deeper friendships. Fuller-Thomson (who was in a monthly mother-daughter book club for 10 years), says that talking and connecting in-person releases the hormone oxytocin, which makes us feel bonded. “Texts just don’t do that.”
Beverley Fehr, a professor of social psychology at the University of Winnipeg, says the biggest reason friendships end is because people don’t make time to see each other.
“Friends tend to not get that same sort of status as family or romantic relationships,” she says. “It’s important for people to realize that, just because your friendship feels like it’s coasting along, there’s no guarantee that it’s actually going to last.” It’s important to prioritize friends and actually make plans to meet.
But, there’s a lot at play here: busy careers, travel, family obligations or just the simple fact that texting is easier than making plans means that seeing friends IRL is low on the priority list. So, how do we see more of each other in person?
1. Integrate friends into your everyday life
Danielle Bayard Jackson, a relational health educator who specializes in women’s friendships, suggests rethinking what hangouts look like. A lot of her clients will tell her that they don’t have time for their friends because they can’t dedicate a chunk of time, Jackson says. Instead, try to think about how friends can be folded into your life: go grocery shopping together, for example, and chat then. “Integrating friends into your day-to-day life will immediately uncover one or two more hours available for friends,” Jackson says.
2. Put it in the calendar
Having a standing date can also simplify the planning process. Fehr recommends picking the same day every month and sticking to it. For example, she says, the last Friday of every month could be dedicated to your friend group’s trivia night. That way, it becomes routine and people will plan ahead for it and know to call a babysitter or leave work on time, she says. And, make sure the plans are concrete. “It’s easy to leave it to the day-of and then other things come up. But set aside that time as sacred, treasure those times and respect them.”
3. Keep it casual
Fuller-Thomson suggests starting small: maybe instead of coordinating a whole activity, you can suggest your friends join you on a walk. Something low-pressure that can build to more. “People think they have to do something grand or clean up their whole house and cook everything, but just meeting at a restaurant or hanging out at a park is great.”
4. Speak your truth
Finally, don’t be scared to be honest. Jackson says that being direct and telling your friend, “we’re overdue for a hangout, why haven’t we gotten out of the group chat?” could help you kick-start plans or figure out why plans haven’t happened, so you can course-correct. Maybe finances are an issue or finding childcare. Once you know what’s stopping a meet-up from happening, you can work towards breaking down that barrier – maybe you all chip in for a few hours of babysitting or do something low-cost such as a potluck. “Give some options, take the lead and, even if ideas are rejected, it’s just a starting point to negotiate.”
