It’s a Thursday night catch-up like any other for the group of old college friends from Villanova. Their conversation, peppered with inside jokes and nostalgic references, easily floats through elder millennial topics — job transitions, sleep regression, “Gen Z coworkers, what do I do with them?” — before it’s briefly interrupted.
“Guys, I’m so sorry, I have to jump,” Kate Reynolds says from Bourbon Street, her wired headphones swinging on the screen like Mardi Gras beads. “We just got to the karaoke bar, but I love you all.”
These 10 friends are on Zoom, where they’ve met every Thursday at 9:30 p.m. since March 19, 2020. Like so many of us, they started their weekly virtual catch-up as a pandemic reprieve. Unlike the rest of us, they never stopped.
Across 321 Zoom calls, they’ve logged on from five countries and 13 states, helped each other through six major career changes, celebrated two weddings and three babies between them, and turned 35 — then 40 — together.
Thursday nights have become sacred to the “NovaZoom” crew. It’s taught them how to foster long-lasting adult friendships, and they plan to keep the tradition going forever — or at least until they move into a retirement home together.
Back to the beginning
Courtesy of Nick Sampogna
College life was still somewhat analog when the NovaZoom group met as freshmen in 2003. If you wanted to catch up with a long-distance friend, you’d call them. The only way to share your location was an AIM away message. Texts were rare — each cost 50 cents to send, and 10 to receive. TV was a communal activity, especially when there was a new episode of “Friends” or “Sex and the City.”
“It was probably the last era where our lives weren’t fully dependent on technology,” said Nick Sampogna, one of the NovaZoom members.
The group formed through typical college experiences — orientation, dorm life, clubs. They bonded over a shared love of the performing arts, joining Villanova’s theater and singing groups. The circle expanded as various members fell in love (one at grad school, another in the middle of a game of Flip Cup).
In the years after graduation, the friends spread out across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. They still found ways to see each other, usually for weddings or holidays. Yet as time passed, their catch-ups became more about logistics or nostalgia.
“The group chat was less frequent,” Sampogna said. “It usually centered on planning the next gathering, or an old memory.”
That changed on March 19, 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns took effect across the country. Amy Gallo had just finished a virtual happy hour with coworkers when she decided to text her college friends to see if they wanted to log on and chat.
“I was feeling pretty giddy and thought, ‘Oh, I miss my Nova friends, why don’t we try this?'” she recalled. “People hopped on, and we played Kings Cup.”
Courtesy of Nick Sampogna
In the weeks that followed, someone would broach the group chat on Thursday afternoon to tentatively see who wanted to keep meeting on Zoom. “How are we feeling about Thirsty Thursday again tonight?” one text said. “It’s Thursday again. Anyone want to keep this going?” another read.
Eventually, people stopped asking. The answer was always yes.
Participation numbers changed weekly in those first months of lockdown. The NovaZoom could get upward of 20 people when it was someone’s birthday, often celebrated with a virtual party and some trivia.
“Ten of us is the usual number now, but when we started, it always kind of varied,” Sampogna added. “There were weeks when we had a full Brady Brunch going on.”
The virtual happy hours fell away for most as a collective screen fatigue set in during the summer of 2020, but NovaZoom never wavered. The weekly Zooms felt like a return to the rhythm the group had established as undergraduates, when their catch-ups were as easy as walking across the hall. In the midst of unprecedented times, it had become an “anchor of normalcy.”
Parenting, pranks, and the past
Courtesy of Nick Sampogna
The group often gets asked the same two questions when people find out about their weekly Zoom: “You guys are still doing that?” and “How do you still have stuff to talk about?”
Their conversation topics have varied widely. During the early COVID days, they’d stay up late and reminisce about college or look for the funniest things you could buy on Temu.
“There were a couple of 4 a.m. nights,” Sampogna said.
The parents of the group have swapped tips and shared milestones as they’ve transitioned from teething to day care. There’s been frequent discussion about one member’s ongoing quest to find love. Countless Thursdays have been dedicated to Villanova basketball games, especially during March Madness, although there’s been plenty of serious conversations as well.
“We’ve discussed politics, racism, feminism, whatever is happening in the world,” Adriane Reilly said. “And I think that’s a reflection of the kind of friends we have found, that we’re able to do that and still transition into funny jokes.”
“Yeah, it certainly hasn’t been all serious,” her husband, Brendan Reilly, added. “The last several weeks we’ve been trying to determine which Nicolas Cage movie Amy should watch first.”
The weekly chats have given them new inside jokes and memories that spill into their group texts and in-person hangs — like when they concocted a yearlong prank to send mayonnaise-related gifts to a friend who can’t stand the condiment.
“Without this Zoom, we wouldn’t have half of the jokes we have now,” Brendan Reilly said.
Friendship beyond the algorithm
Courtesy of Nick Sampogna
Much has been written about our loneliness epidemic. Teens are talking to AI chatbots, doctors are prescribing book clubs, and there’s a host of friendship apps promising to swap swipes for connection.
“Instagram offers this incredible idea that we’re following our friends,” Mike Denny said. “But it’s a very filtered view of their world.”
NovaZoom not only lets the group hear the stories behind their photos, but also gives friends a place to be their unfiltered selves. Sometimes, that’s laughing about mayonnaise; other times, it’s helping each other grapple with dating or balancing care for their kids and aging parents.
“Everyone hears about how my dating life sucks, and it’s been really helpful, because otherwise you’re in your head,” said Jenny Sweeny. “Thursday night gets me out of it. I always know there’s this home base to come back to.”
“We have these personas we have to put out into the world, but I always feel like my truest self is in this space,” added Gallo.
The group is seeing each other more often in the real world, too, and thanks to the weekly Zooms, there’s no need to rehash months of stories in the span of a dinner or crowded party.
“We don’t have to do that ‘How are you? What’s been going on?’ catch-up,” Denny said. “We can just be present in that space.”
By spending more time together, the group’s children have also gotten to know each other — and their parents’ friends — better, even seeing them as extended family members.
“Because of our Zoom and these in-person moments, I’m ‘Uncle Nick’ instead of ‘mom’s friend Nick,'” Sampogna said.
A sacred ritual
Courtesy of Nick Sampogna
There’s no obligation to join the Zoom every week, and no punishment if you miss a few in a row. Some Thursdays, all 10 friends are logged on; other nights, there could be just two or three.
As the years have gone on, though, the group has learned that showing up consistently only leads to deeper connection.
“You have to be a good friend to have good friends, and that’s putting in the work,” Gallo said. “Some of our conversations started pretty awkwardly in the beginning. We had nights where it was small talk, but we showed up.”
“You have to show up or be the one to put the invitation out there, not knowing what’s going to be received,” she added. “Nothing’s going to happen if you don’t take initiative.”
The NovaZoom has no plans of stopping their weekly Thursday date. Their dream is to live in a retirement home together someday, or hit the Powerball jackpot so they can buy Nova Scotia — which they’d promptly rename Villanova Scotia — and move in.
Even in this fantasy, their Thursday nights would remain unchanged.
“Thursdays are still virtual,” Reynolds said. “That’s the town motto.”
