My family moved to a small town 8 years ago. It's been mostly great, but it's been hard to make friends as an adult.

"When my wife and I moved from Calgary to Nelson, British Columbia, in 2017, we thought we knew what we were signing up for. We wanted a slower pace, more nature, and a place where our kids could grow up with freedom and space to explore. What we didn't fully consider, though, was how hard it would be to build new friendships as adults."

"Nelson is beautiful in a way that's hard to describe until you've been here. The mountains rise straight from the lake, and the pace of life feels almost intentionally slower. It's the kind of place where people smile at the grocery store, where kids still walk to school, and where you can get across town in 10 minutes. But there's a difference between being surrounded by friendly people and having real friends."

"In Calgary, we had people who'd known us for years. Friends and family would come over for dinner, or we'd get together at a park with our kids on weekends. When we moved, we expected to find new versions of that here. Instead, what we found was a lot of surface-level friendliness but very little follow-through. When our kids were younger, weekends were filled with playdates, birthday parties, soccer games, and built-in social plans that made it easy to connect with other parents."

Relocating from Calgary to Nelson, British Columbia in 2017 brought a slower pace, more nature, and space for the kids to explore. The town's scenery and outdoor opportunities met expectations, but the move severed longtime social ties. Nelson's residents are friendly, yet many interactions stayed surface-level with little follow-through. Previous routines with younger children provided built-in social connections through playdates and activities, which faded as the kids aged. Adult friendship formation now requires deliberate, intentional effort to cultivate deeper relationships beyond everyday friendliness. The contrast between being surrounded by friendly faces and having real friends created a sense of quiet loneliness.

Read at Business Insider