When Shane Cricket first moved to Greensboro four years ago, he found it difficult to make new connections.
“I’m really good at conversing with people and actually consider myself outgoing,” Cricket said. “But bridging the gap to make a real connection with someone and keep it going has proved to be really hard. I’ve also found a lot of new friends have a tendency to disappear or ghost you.”
That’s when Cricket discovered Greensboro’s Speed Friending events.
The idea, which began with the city’s Parks and Recreation department, kicked off two years ago.
“At the time, our Downtown Greenway team was myself and one part-timer, Sam Gaillard,” said Chelsea Phipps, the Greenway and gardens program coordinator. “She suggested the idea because there was a gap in events for the 21-49 age group.”
Gaillard, who is Gen Z, suggested the concept of speed dating but without the romantic aspect.
“I was skeptical,” Phipps said, “I didn’t really understand it. But I was like, ‘Let’s give it a try.’”
A few weeks later, when the department hosted its first event, it was a runaway success. Now, the city hosts Speed Friending gatherings every two months. The next is on July 17.
Cricket attended the third event hosted in 2024, one specifically for the LGBTQ+ community. The city had put out a poll on social media to see what kind of theme event the community wanted, and a Pride Night won the vote.
“I was very nervous when I showed up,” Cricket said.
But by the end of the evening, he made what would become his closest friend—Destiny Dye.
“I moved to North Carolina amidst COVID and desperately wanted to make some friends,” Dye said. “I’m a bit shy. The event seemed like an easy, straightforward way to meet people with the same outcome in mind.”
The events are 21 and up and almost always held at LoFi Park, outside of Joymongers Brewing Co., on Friday evenings. Attendees can register online and sign up for an age slot that works for them (21-35, 30-45, etc). People can also walk up and join the fun.
Each age group meets during a half-hour time slot where people get to talk for 5-6 minutes before meeting someone new. Each attendee meets about five people each session.
While most events don’t have a theme, the ones that do—like the LGBTQ+ one at which Cricket and Dye met—tend to be very popular. The city hosted an event for book lovers, too.
The Importance of Friendship
“We know friendships are more likely to form with people who have a lot in common,” said Rebecca Adams, professor of gerontology and sociology at UNCG’s School of Health and Human Sciences. “We don’t make our friendships randomly.”
That’s why the themed events seem to be particularly successful, Adams said.
Since meeting at the LGBTQ+ night, Dye and Cricket have become best friends. They’ve gone to the Carowinds amusement park, renaissance festivals, paintballing, and even attended the Unitarian Church together.
“We both love going out and doing things and have bonded being each other’s plus-ones to community and social events,” Cricket said. “She has seen me through some crummy situations, and I’ve seen her in some too…. She has honestly turned into my savior of a friendship here.”
They found they both like goth music and now go to goth clubs together to see local bands play.
“I’ve loved Greensboro from the moment I moved and was really hopeful to meet folks that I would relate to and have common interests with,” said Dye.
Beyond their interests, the two also found each other’s style intriguing.
“I thought Shane looked really cool from outward appearances,” Dye said.
“My first impression of Destiny was honestly that she was way too pretty and cool looking to be my friend, but that I would try anyways,” Cricket said.
While there’s been a lot of public attention on the importance of friendships to health and wellbeing in recent years, that wasn’t always the case, said Adams.
“When I first started studying friendships in the late 70s, people didn’t think it was important at all,” she said. “But even back then, [researchers] knew that friends were a more important predictor for wellbeing than having close relationships with family because you’re more likely to have things in common with friends.”
In 2023, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, then the U.S. Surgeon General, declared loneliness an epidemic.
“The physical toll of isolation is strikingly high, rivaling the health risks of a daily 15-cigarette habit,” Murthy wrote. “In fact, the lethal potential of social severance often surpasses that of a sedentary lifestyle or obesity.”
Several studies have shown the positive mental and physical effects of having close friendships. But the problem persists. In 2021, the American Perspectives Survey found that 12% of U.S. adults reported having no close friends at all, up sharply from just 3% in 1990.
Since then, communities across the country have been grappling with the issue.
“When you think about how adults make friends, it’s either your work colleagues, your neighbors, or maybe you go to church, or through your kids,” Phipps said. “That’s about it. But you’re not inherently making friends like you would in college or other such venues.”
Bringing together people who have a common goal of making connections can help lessen the burden, Phipps said.
“It brings it offline,” she said. “It’s face to face. It’s in person. It’s quick and easy. And you’re not committing to this long-term or lengthy thing. It’s just five minutes with a person, so even if it goes terribly or it’s awkward, it’s only 30 minutes, and then you can go home.”
The event organizers make starting conversations easy, too. They give each attendee a list of 20 questions to ask their conversation partner and a 20-sided die so they don’t even have to choose which question to start with.
“I appreciated that a lot of the pre-chosen questions to get to know someone were very direct and had the option for answers to be very detailed,” Cricket said. “You could really gauge if you and this new person have anything in common or would get along.”
For Cricket and Dye, that ended up being nature and bugs.
At the end of the event, Cricket asked for Dye’s number and the two kept in touch through texts. Those eventually led to hanging out more in person. They’ve even gone back to a few other speed-friending events.
These repeated interactions, particularly in person, are important to long-lasting friendships, Adams said.
“It really has to do with seeing someone over and over again,” she said. “The frequency of encounters is important.”
Many attendees come back to the events, Phipps said. It’s been particularly helpful for those in transitional periods of life.
“A lot of our attendees are new to town because they relocated for a job, graduated college,” Phipps said. “We have people who have been through divorce, or are looking for a new friend circle, all sorts of stages of life.”
For Dye, this format makes sense for anyone looking to connect.
“Making friends in adulthood can be hard for some, introverted or extroverted,” she said. “Having the opportunity to meet people with the direct intention of forming connections helps make the awkward moments feel less scary and more endearing.”
In the future, Phipps said they may try to switch up the location of the events to other parts of the city. But for now, anyone is welcome to give it a try. The worst that could happen is you meet someone new. You could find a friend for life.
“What more can one ask for than to have a friendship that is fun, makes you feel inspired, supported, and also valued?” Cricket said. “I would never have connected with her without the speed friending event, and I’m so, so grateful it all happened the way it did. “
