Dating in a New City: How to Meet People
Entry No. 119 ·
By The IF Team
The best way to date in a new city is to build a social life first and date alongside it, not instead of it. Say yes to invitations, become a familiar face somewhere, join one thing that meets every week, and use apps to widen the net while your circle grows. Give it months rather than weeks. New cities feel lonely partly because everything takes time to become yours, and the people you meet through a life you enjoy are usually better company than the ones you meet out of urgency.
If it is taking longer than you hoped, that is normal. In research on people who had recently moved and were looking for friends, the communication researcher Jeffrey Hall estimated that it takes roughly 50 hours together to turn an acquaintance into a casual friend, and more than 200 to become close friends. Those hours do not arrive by accident in a city where you know nobody. You have to put them in your diary.
Moving also scrambles timing. Sometimes the person you like is back where you came from; sometimes it is someone you meet in your new life who already has a partner. IF is made for both. In or out of a relationship, and whoever you are drawn to, you can use it to be honest with someone you know in real life about how you feel, and it holds that feeling until acting on it is right for both of you.
Build a life before you build a dating life
Dating as a newcomer can feel strangely high-stakes. With no friends nearby, every date has to carry your whole social life, and that is a lot of weight to put on a stranger over a drink. The fix is not to stop dating. It is to make sure dates are one part of a fuller week: a colleague you get lunch with, a class you never miss, a neighbour you say hello to.
There is a second benefit. Friends introduce you to people, vouch for you, and tell you which bar is worth going to. Many relationships in a new city begin with someone saying “you should meet my friend”, and being set up by friends is much easier once you have some.
Small hellos count more than you think
When you are new, it is tempting to save your social energy for the big moments: the party, the date, the after-work drinks. The small ones matter more than they seem. In one experiment, people who were asked to chat briefly with the barista when buying coffee, with eye contact and a smile, came away in a better mood than those told to be as efficient as possible, and felt more of a sense of belonging.
Belonging is what a new city lacks at first, and you build it out of exactly those moments: the same café, the same seat at the same class, the same face at the corner shop. How to meet someone without dating apps makes the full case for becoming a regular. In a new city it is doubly true, because the regulars are also how you learn where everyone else goes.
Your first three months, roughly
Month one: say yes and explore
Accept every reasonable invitation, even the slightly dull ones, because you cannot yet tell which will matter. Walk different neighbourhoods at different times of day and notice where people your age actually spend their evenings. Set up your dating apps, and say plainly that you are new: it is a natural opening line, and plenty of people like showing someone their city.
Month two: commit to one weekly thing
Choose one activity that meets at the same time every week, such as a run club, a choir, a five-a-side team, a language class or a volunteering shift, and go every time. Weekly beats occasional, because the hours Hall talks about only add up when you keep seeing the same people. Keep dating, but let it fit around this rather than the other way round.
Month three: be the one who invites
By now you know a handful of people a little. Turn them into a circle by hosting something small: a drinks night, a games evening, a walk followed by brunch. Ask everyone to bring a friend. Newcomers who invite tend to stop being newcomers quickly, and a mixed room of people from different parts of your life is a very good place to meet someone.
Dating apps when you are new in town
Apps are genuinely useful when you have just moved: they show you who is around before your social life has caught up. Treat early dates as a way to explore, too. A market, a gallery, a walk along the river or a neighbourhood you have not seen yet all make conversation easy, and first date ideas has more that work in any city.
Friendship can be just as valuable in your first year, and it is worth chasing as deliberately as dates. Say yes to the colleague’s leaving drinks, go back to the same class or club until faces become names, and let new friends introduce you to theirs. Friends bring their own friends, and the circle grows from there.
If part of your heart is back home
Moving does not always end a feeling. You may have left someone behind, or fallen for someone just before you went. Falling for someone right before moving away is its own particular ache, and it is worth deciding honestly whether you want to try distance or let the new city be a fresh start. Both are reasonable. What helps is choosing, rather than half-living in two places.
And sometimes the person who catches your eye in the new city already has a partner, or you do. That is not a failing; it is what happens when you meet lots of new people at once. Acting on it behind someone’s back would be another matter, because that is cheating, and the hiding it needs means lying to people who trust you. Honesty leaves you better options, and one of them is waiting.
Where IF fits: a new city, an honest start
A move gives you a fresh start, and IF fits it well. Wherever you are in the move, single or partnered, it does one thing well: it lets you tell one particular person what you feel, honestly, and hold off acting until the timing is fair.
If neither of you has a partner and they already have IF, a Like is all it takes, and once they accept, you can chat and plan that first walk around the city. When one of you is with someone, or the person you mean has not joined, an IF says it instead: no more than 250 characters, sealed from the start, and unable to open a conversation until you are both single. Look for them while swiping, or enter into Search the email address, number or Instagram handle they gave you before you moved, or since. An email address gets one short invitation; a number or handle gets nothing, and your IF waits quietly in case they join.
Someone who already has the app may get word that an IF has come in for them, with no name and no words attached until it is revealed. For the person back home, or the one in your new life whose timing is wrong, that is a way to be honest without disturbing anyone’s present. Your first IF is free, so the brave thing costs you nothing but the words.
If you are working out the rest of the decade too, dating in your 20s covers the bigger picture.
Questions people ask
How long does it take to feel at home in a new city?
Often longer than people expect: six months to a year is common before a place feels like yours. Research on friendship after a move suggests close friendships need well over a hundred hours together, so steady, repeated time with the same people speeds it up more than anything else.
Should you start dating straight after moving?
You can, as long as dating is not your only social life. Early dates are a good way to explore, but a weekly activity and a few friendships will make you calmer, happier and better company on those dates.
Should you tell a date that you have just moved?
Yes. It is an easy conversation starter, it explains why you might suggest exploring somewhere new, and most people enjoy recommending their favourite places. Just avoid making the date about how lonely the move has been; save that for when you know each other better.
Where do people in their twenties meet in a new city?
Through work, weekly clubs and classes, friends of friends, apps and the neighbourhood places they visit often. The common thread is repetition: the same faces, often enough, for a conversation to become something more.
Give the city time, give yourself a weekly reason to see the same faces, and keep saying yes. And if the person you have in mind is not free yet, tell them in an IF, then go and make the place your own while it waits.