Six months ago, my husband and I uprooted our lives, moving to a little town on the coast and away from the metropolis of Johannesburg, where I spent the last 32 years. Hermanus, South Africa (my new home) is small — a population of 100,000, compared to Johannesburg’s 6 million.
In Joburg, we had plenty of friends. In our new town, we had no one. Not a single familiar face. I braced for the worst, anticipating aching loneliness and sparking conversations with the rock hyraxes that frequent the coastal path shrubbery. Instead, we found the mythical ‘village’ that everyone harps on about.
Making friends in your mid-30s is always spoken about with emphasis on how tough it is, but honestly, it’s been laughably easy for us. My mom can’t keep up with all the new names I drop on our phone calls. At a recent birthday celebration (for our pharmacist, whom we befriended), we realized we were surrounded by 16 people we’d call our friends, none of whom we’d known six months ago. Here’s what we did to start a circle from scratch.
We say ‘yes’ to new things
Our theme for this year is ‘Yes, and’ — like the improv comedy phrase. We pledged that in 2026, we would say yes to as much as possible, and then go even further. “Are you guys keen to come camping?” The 2025 version of us would say camping isn’t really our vibe. The 2026 version of us says, “Yes, and we’re bringing everything we need for s’mores.”
We take our friends’ dogs for walks. We go camping by dams or hiking in the nearby Kogelberg mountains. Over the summer months (December to February, here), our friends met for beach evenings, taking turns to buy a heap of fried fish and chips, cracking open cold bottles after dips in even colder tidal pools. Here, an impromptu wine tasting is always well-attended, as is a games night. If I schedule some scuba diving in our kelp forests, at least one of them is happy to tag along.
Courtesy of Tayla Blaire
I posted on social media about our move
I shared about our move on Facebook and Instagram, leading to someone I’d last seen in university reaching out to tell me she lived in the area. Dominique is now one of my closest friends down here, and our partners get along so well that we feel like third wheels around them.
We aren’t afraid to talk to strangers
We befriended another couple by telling them they had a cute dog. They were around our age, enjoying a mid-week dinner at a lovely Greek restaurant. We got chatting with them and swapped numbers, making plans to meet up again a week later. We’ve kept meeting up since.
I’ve learned that it’s important to be the one to initiate plans
My default setting is shyness and introversion, so it’s taken a lot of effort to push past that and be the person who asks for numbers or makes a plan. Most people won’t initiate plans — you might have to if you want to reap the rewards. We’re the first people to text the group chat proposing a beach evening. People are quick to jump on the idea, but often you have to propose the idea first.
Courtesy of Tayla Blaire
I’ve found community groups
I’m in all sorts of community groups. One is for creative writers, another for hobby artists, another for kite surfers, another for scuba divers, another for hiking… you get the idea. I’ve found that if you get the word out using social media, your groups will grow.
Then, once you’re in groups, initiating plans with people helps build relationships. All the things we did once we moved worked together to create the community we have.
Courtesy of Tayla Blaire
We helped our friends become friends with each other
It can be really rewarding to combine disparate friend groups. We asked if we could bring some other friends to a New Year’s Eve party we were invited to, and now everyone hangs out together. “My friend’s friend is probably also my friend,” or something like that.
I tried out new hobbies
I went to a fencing try-out (turns out, it is just as fun to fight with swords as it looks). While there, I met a bunch of other oddballs who thought trying fencing would be cool. And now those oddballs are friends of mine.
