Making friends as an adult can feel surprisingly difficult. Between demanding careers, caregiving responsibilities, divorces, relocations and increasingly digital lives, social circles often shrink just as people need them most. For Toronto entrepreneur Keely Kemp, that reality inspired a growing community built around a simple idea: helping people put their phones down and connect with each other in real life.
Founded in 2025, Social Club 150 hosts regular in-person gatherings for adults 40 and older, offering everything from trivia nights and guest speakers to board games and guided conversations designed to make meeting new people feel easy.
What started as a single chapter in Toronto’s east end has already expanded to two locations, with downtown and midtown chapters expected to launch this fall. But the idea began years earlier in an unlikely place. Kemp, whose background spans artist management, record labels and creative-industry funding organizations, says she was accompanying a friend to celebrate a milestone at a 12-step meeting when something clicked.
“Everybody was so welcoming, and they were sharing, and they were supportive, and there was a real sense of fellowship,” she says. “As I left, I said to my friend, ‘I really wish there was something like that just for being a human.’”
The experience stayed with her. At the same time, she was reading about what many experts have called a loneliness epidemic, alongside increasing concerns about social isolation and declining community engagement.
One day, while discussing the idea, Kemp says the concept for Social Club 150 arrived all at once.
“I swear to God, I got this frisson in my body and I could feel this energy coursing through me,” she says. “It’s like the universe downloaded the whole concept of Social Club 150.”
Within hours, her dining room wall was covered in sticky notes outlining what would become the club’s structure, programming and mission.
While loneliness can affect people of any age, Kemp intentionally focused on adults over 40.
“There’s so much life transition happening at that time,” she says. “You could be looking after children and parents, dealing with divorce, passings, moves, career changes. There’s a lot going on that takes priority over being yourself and having your social life.”
Every two weeks, members gather for what the club calls “Socials”: events that combine structured programming with time to mingle before and after. One night might feature a guest speaker, while another could centre around board games, trivia or a themed discussion.
An upcoming event called Brags and Fails (happening on June 4) invites attendees to share both their proudest accomplishments and their biggest missteps.
“Nobody’s got it figured out,” Kemp says. “And not everything is a lesson. Sometimes it just is what it is.”
The events are intentionally designed to remove some of the awkwardness that can come with meeting new people. Kemp says she became fascinated by the concept of “social atrophy”: the idea that social skills can weaken when they aren’t regularly exercised.
“Certainly coming out of the pandemic, but also because our digital lives have taken over a little bit more than our real lives, we’ve lost some of that social muscle,” she says.
To help newcomers feel comfortable, volunteer members known as “connectors” greet attendees and help introduce them to others.
“Nobody will ever be sitting or standing in a corner,” Kemp says. “Someone’s going to go grab you, pull you back in and make you part of the conversation.”
Perhaps the club’s most unusual rule is that it’s largely phone-free. Aside from emergencies, devices stay tucked away during events, encouraging members to be fully present.
“We ask people afterwards how they felt about not having their phone, and they love it,” says Kemp. “It’s a real reprieve and just coming back to yourself and being present with everybody in the room.”
Ironically, the phones tend to reappear at the end of the night, but for a very different purpose. People are exchanging numbers. Kemp says she’s watched countless attendees arrive as strangers and leave with plans to see each other again. One recent interaction perfectly captured what the club is all about.
“This guy came up to me the other day, and he said, ‘Keely, I just made a new friend,’” she recalls. “I made a new buddy. We’ve exchanged numbers. We’re going to go do things together.’”
For Kemp, that’s the ultimate measure of success.
As Social Club 150 prepares to celebrate its first anniversary on June 10 and continues expanding across Toronto, she’s hoping to create more opportunities for people to rediscover something many haven’t realized they’ve been missing.
“We grew up in friendship,” she says. “We tore up and down the streets on our bikes and played outside until the streetlights came on. It’s time to re-engage with that part of yourself.”
In an era where so much of our lives is spent online yearning for another generation, one offline and more socially plugged in, Social Club 150 is taking the step to bridge the gap between dreaming and reality.
