The Lost Art of Making Friends on your Street

Small steps to building big friendships right where you live

A few years ago, we moved into a new neighborhood that I knew had a lot of school-aged families in it. When we first arrived, we saw kids playing in front yards, riding bikes up and down the sidewalks. We even heard about a block party! My husband and I thought, “This is our dream!”

But as the weeks went on… we started to wonder where everyone went.

I took walks around the neighborhood to see who else was out. We had our friends from preschool and church, and we loved spending time with them—but I really wanted those “neighbor friends” you read about in books or see in movies.

So we started hanging out outside after dinner to say hi to anyone passing by. We did that awkward dance of: “How many times do you see someone before it’s okay to ask for their number?”

(Confession: I even drew a map of everyone’s homes and names so I’d remember them when we ran into each other. Embarrassing, but true!)

After about a year, I still wondered: Is everyone else hanging out without us?

Then I remembered something I once heard: