Community
Come alone. Leave with people.
Alone sounds like the opposite of social. In practice it is usually the fastest way into it. Turning up to something with a friend means you talk to your friend. Turning up alone means you talk to whoever is next to you, because there is no one else to talk to.
This is the whole logic behind the “Going alone?” tab on every activity. Before you book, you can see who else is coming solo: not strangers exactly, more like people who happen to be fourteen months ahead of you in the same city. Most of them moved here without knowing anyone either. Most of them remember exactly how that felt.
It shows up in the pattern of who rebooks. Croquis on Tuesdays, sunrise harbour swims, the Sunday salsa class: the sessions with the highest repeat rate are the ones people first tried alone. Not because the activity changed. Because by the second or third time, half the room already knows their name.
So come alone if that is where you are. The point was never to arrive with people. It was to leave with them.