When Ankit Shah graduated from college and moved to the Bay Area in 2013, he didn’t know a single person there. Hungry for connections, he asked his Facebook friends to ask their Bay Area-based friends if they’d like to have tea with him, a stranger.
“I was very nervous that people would be like ‘who’s this weirdo on the internet?’” Mr. Shah said. “But sure enough, my friends started tagging their friends in the comments — some even shared it on their own page — and eventually, there were more people interested in getting tea than I could keep up with.”
Mr. Shah recalled the first group that joined him for tea: “Six dudes, a mixture of the hyper-intellectual and goofy, artistic types.” But rather than covering standard small talk questions, their conversation went deep right away, eventually unpacking “what it means to be embarrassed.”
Five years and 1,000 “teatimes” later, Mr. Shah, now 27, has turned that personal project into an international movement called Tea With Strangers. It now has hosts in 15 cities to do exactly what Mr. Shah did: invite five strangers to chat for about two hours over tea.
Users can find local teatimes online and sign up for one of five slots. Then, hosts email those users with an introduction, location details and an emphatic ask not to flake. What they’re never asked, though, is to pay — as Mr. Shah firmly believes money shouldn’t stand in the way of social connection.
To sustain that model, Mr. Shah has recruited 450 volunteer hosts who are vetted for “thoughtfulness.” They are not trained to be mental health counselors and might not know how to handle someone who needs intense emotional support. But they are trained to deal with “difficult people” — those who are rude or cynical — and to be “great conversationalists.”
As for what those conversations cover, that’s up to the host, so long as they advance the project’s overarching goal: to “make cities feel like neighborhoods.”
For public health officials, there’s an urgent need to heed that call. Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former Surgeon General of the United States, called loneliness an “epidemic” and told The Washington Post that its health impact was as severe as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Others have linked chronic loneliness to weakened immune systems, worsened cognitive function and an increased risk of cancer.
Some researchers doubt loneliness is higher today than it has been in the past, but recent surveys reveal surprising statistics. Of 20,000 Americans surveyed in the 2018 Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index, more than half claimed to persistently feel lonely or left out. Fifty-four percent said they sometimes or always feel as if no one knows them well. And while many assume loneliness most severely affects the elderly, the survey suggested that adults between 18 and 37 are much lonelier.
David Estrin, 28, was once among that group. When he moved to San Francisco in 2013, he said, “I knew zero people and was quite lonely for those first eight months.” But by the time he moved again three years later, more than 200 people attended his going away party. The vast majority, Mr. Estrin said, came from Tea With Strangers connections. He is now a Tea With Strangers host in Baltimore.
[Read more about ways to counter loneliness.]
Some are attempting to fight loneliness with less personal strategies like a mobile meditation app or artificial intelligence chatbots.
Others are investigating whether a pill, such as one researchers at the University of Chicago are testing, could counteract the brain’s “loneliness-related biological changes.” Stephanie Cacioppo, the lead researcher, cautions that the drug, called pregnenolone, is no substitute for social connections, but that it might help lonely individuals socialize more easily.
Britain is taking a straightforward approach by attempting to directly foster those connections. It has a Minister of Loneliness, whose latest strategy involves social prescribing — a process through which doctors refer patients to art groups, cooking classes and other community activities. So far, that plan appears promising: a longitudinal survey of 820 patients published in May found that 69 percent of them reported feeling less lonely after following their prescribed social activities.
Others have found social relief through grass roots efforts, like the Chatty Cafe Scheme. The idea is simple: cafes designate special tables for strangers seeking conversation, no hosts needed.
But Alexandra Hoskyn, who started the initiative, knew what the gesture would mean to people like her, a new mother who craved real-life conversation.
“I was out of the house for most afternoons, but was having no interaction with other people,” Ms. Hoskyn recalls. “It made me think ‘if I feel like this, surely other people do too.’”
Evidently, she was right. The program has spread to 900 cafes in Britain and four in Canada, and hopes to soon expand in America.
Ms. Hoskyn recognizes that it is not a golden cure, especially for the meaningful connection some lonely people seek. “It’s very informal and casual, and there might not always be someone to chat,” she said. “But it’s about trying to make conversation part of the norm.”
In contrast, Mr. Shah’s program, Tea With Strangers, prides itself on facilitating deep conversation.
“We end up in bars and so many places where we’re asked conventional questions like ‘Oh, what do you do?’” Mr. Estrin explained. When he hosts teas, he asks questions like “What surprises you?” or “What’s your biggest fear?”
“It’s really more like a group self-examination session, and I’ve come to notice that I tend to be more honest in teatimes with strangers than I would be with my friends,” Mr. Estrin said.
Last month, in the quiet, fairy light-lined backyard of a Union Square cafe, I attended a teatime to find out for myself. Ordering a green tea for me and a nachos plate for the strangers, I was quickly greeted by Jaleel Adams, my host. We started out small, discussing our favorite cafes in New York and our preferences for chili.
When other “strangers” joined, the conversation turned to the potential of universal basic income, our favorite childhood video games, and a prompt from Mr. Adams: “What is the best thing you’ve ever done for yourself?”
Two hours flew by. I knew there was a chance we wouldn’t see each other again. But when we all hugged goodbye and headed separate ways, I left feeling less like a stranger and more like a neighbor.