'I live in Vancouver and I have no friends': TikToker tries 30 activities to meet new people
Many Vancouverites say making friends in the rainy city can be difficult
Anna Ho begins her videos with the phrase, "So I live in Vancouver, and I have no friends."
The 23-year-old has lived in Vancouver all her life but says after graduating high school and not pursuing post-secondary education, she discovered there aren't many opportunities to meet people in the city that has an unfriendly reputation.
Vancouver's loneliness problem was severe enough that the municipal government launched a task force in 2012 to increase Vancouverites' sense of belonging and inclusion. A decade later, Vancouver was described as "not so friendly" and ranked among the 10 worst cities for expats to live and work by InterNations, a company that ranked 50 cities around the world.
It's why Ho is challenging herself to do 30 activities to make friends in Vancouver and documenting her journey on TikTok, garnering her hundreds of thousands of views.
Ho went to an electronic music festival with strangers, did a painting class alone and tried finding friends through the app Bumble BFF.
"Meeting new people is very draining and it's very tiring because it's kind of like a job interview or you're going on dates," Ho said in an interview with CBC News.
She's attempting to do at least one activity a week, investing both time and money as she says the activities have cost her hundreds of dollars so far.
Friendship and loneliness experts say it's important for people to step out of their comfort zones and are pointing out that Vancouverites' challenges making friends are also prevalent in Seattle — a city that has a widely accepted term that describes its loneliness problem.
'Everybody already had their circles of friends'
Kimberley Brownlee, the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political and Social Philosophy at the University of British Columbia who specializes in loneliness and belonging, says Ho's challenge may not be effective if she meets different people in every activity.
"Unless the choice of activity will bring this woman in contact with the same people regularly, she won't cultivate friendships as such. However, she will be exercising social muscles, making use of chances to practise being friendly and those are the skills that we take into friendship."
Brownlee says making friends can be hard anywhere and takes a lot of effort but points to things like the rainy weather in Vancouver that could make it more difficult.
"Just looking at the geography and the weather patterns of a city can tell us a bit about how much effort people have to make to be social," she said.
Some people in their 20s that CBC News spoke to say Vancouver can be insular for those who are not originally from there.
"Everybody already had their circles of friends, and it was harder to get in with people that were tight-knit already," said Sofia Katrina, who moved to Vancouver from Kelowna.
However, others said they have no difficulties making friends. "I'll meet friends at the bar. I'll meet friends just out and about," said Dylan Wharndy.
"I think people just need to work on getting out of their comfort zone a little bit. I think everybody's a little bit lonely. Everyone's looking for company, especially in big cities like this."
Ho said she's learning not to take rejection to heart when meeting new people.
"Not everyone's going to like you, and that's nothing to do with you personally," she said.
Lessons from Seattle?
In another Pacific Northwest city, there is a term commonly used to describe the difficulty of making friends — the "Seattle Freeze."
"It's like this coldness, this distance. People aren't very open to wanting to call you into being a close friend. They're friendly enough but not inviting. They're passive and a little cold," said Alexandra Friedman, who grew up in Seattle and has been a friendship coach since 2019.
But she said naming this phenomenon is not helpful and can be used as an excuse to justify why some people aren't successful at making friends.
"If I were to help Seattle or Vancouver at all, it would be to stop leaning on this freeze as an excuse and start leaning in to what is working and how you can step more into that," she said.
Ho is less than a third of the way through her challenge and says she has made one friend so far. She says even if she doesn't make more friends, her efforts won't be for nothing.
"I would hope that even if I didn't come out with as many friends as I thought, that I would grow as a person and I wouldn't take it to heart at all," she said.
"I would hope that this whole series that I'm doing just gives people a positive light and comfort."
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