How to Make Friends in Boston Who Share Your Interests
Boston hands you friends by the semester and takes them back at graduation. This is how to find one or two people who share your interests and are staying.
Team Alyke
Boston gives you friends in batches: a dorm floor, a lab, the group that always ended up at the same bar in Allston. Then graduation comes, the group chat scatters across the map, and you're the one who stayed, with a good job and nobody to text on a Thursday night.
You want one or two people who like the same things and aren't leaving in May. They're all over this city, and here's where to look.
Why college friends came easy, and what still works
Living down the hall got you in the room. What kept you there was a personality that fit yours and interests you shared, like the roommate who'd skip a party to dig through a used bookstore with you. Proximity ends at graduation; fit you can look for on purpose.
Surveys spent years failing to show that friends share personality traits. Then researchers measured personality from what nearly 300,000 people did online, and friends turned out more alike than anyone had thought.
Boston is full of people rebuilding
Boston runs on semesters. Nearly one in five Boston residents moved in the past year, so a big share of the city is rebuilding its social life. The people who stayed feel it too: in Suffolk County, Boston's county, roughly four in ten adults say they at least sometimes feel lonely. Nationally, about one in eight adults have no close friends, four times the 1990 share, and close to half made a new friend last year. The person you're looking for is looking too.
Three ways to meet people who like what you like
College handed you a schedule full of people. These hand you one back.
Run the stadium stairs with November Project
November Project Boston is free and meets inside Harvard Stadium at section 37 around 6 a.m. on Wednesdays, and at Corey Hill Outlook in Brookline at 6:30 on Fridays. The ask is a month of early alarms and stairs that hurt; by the third week the regulars know your name and your pace.
Join a rec league on your own
Boston Ski & Sports Club says it specializes in putting individuals together for teams: sign up alone for kickball, volleyball or softball and you're placed with others who came alone. It takes a season of weekly games with strangers, and the teammate who always stays for a drink after is the one to ask along next time.
Join a Porter Square Books club
Porter Square Books runs monthly clubs at its Cambridge store on Mass. Ave and its Seaport store inside GrubStreet. You RSVP, read the book and show up ready to say what you thought to a table of strangers. Three months of that and you'll know whose taste sits next to yours.
All three work, each takes a season and some nerve, and you'll meet a lot of people before one fits. There's also an easier way to skip to that one person.
The easiest way to find your first friend who gets it
Alyke is built to help you find intentional friends, one person at a time. Most friend apps hand you generic recommendations. Alyke starts your feed with the people who share your vibe the most, based on your interests and personality instead of your looks. So you skip the season of showing up and the awkward hello, because the person you start with already likes what you like.
Pick your interests, Book Lover and Gym Workouts, and write a line about each. When another reader's line could have been yours, say so; that reply is the friend request. If the vibe's mutual, you're friends, and the chat opens with your reply already there.
Alyke Pro can narrow the feed to readers, or to people with your kind of personality.
Questions people ask
What do you do when your college friends leave Boston?
Keep your college friends with a regular call, and start building a local circle one person at a time. A weekly routine helps, like a run along the Charles or a monthly Porter Square Books club, where the same faces return each month. To find one new friend, add interests like Book Lover or Gym Workouts to your Alyke profile, and people who share them show up first.
How do you turn a chat into actual plans with someone new?
Suggest one specific place and day while the conversation is still going, like "Saturday at 10, coffee at Tatte?" A clear plan gets a yes or a new time, and either one moves things forward. On Alyke, your chat starts with the comment you left on their profile about an interest or prompt answer you share, so it's easy to suggest a plan built around it.
Are friendship apps worth trying after college?
Yes, if you want to meet people outside work now that campus isn't doing it for you. The good ones help you start with something in common. Alyke puts the people you have the most in common with at the top of your feed, and you add someone as a friend by commenting on something in their profile, so your first conversation is about a shared interest.
What's the best app to make friends in Boston?
Alyke, a friendship app for iPhone, lets you build a new circle of friends in Boston one person at a time after your college friends move away. You add interests like Art or Brunch, write a short sentence about each, and the people who share them come first. Members verify their photos and phone number, and a badge marks each verified profile. Keep your old friends with a monthly call while you meet new ones.
How do you find friends in Boston who want the same weekends as you?
Alyke lets you find friends in Boston who want the same weekends, because you can describe your weekends right on your profile. Under an interest like Book Lover, you might write "Saturday mornings at the bookstore," and people whose interests and personality line up with yours appear first. When something in a profile sounds like you, comment on it to send a friend request. Be specific about days and times, since that makes the first plan easy.
Is Alyke a good way to make friends in Boston after graduating?
Alyke is built for making friends in Boston after graduation, when campus no longer puts you next to people who like what you like. Each profile shows someone's interests, the personality picks they made and their prompt answers, so you can tell who you'd get along with before you meet. To become friends, comment on something they wrote. Answer a prompt like "Currently hyperfixated on..." so people have an easy way to start the conversation.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024, via Census Reporter: Boston, MA.
- CDC PLACES. Local Data for Better Health, County Data 2025 release: loneliness among adults, Suffolk County, MA (BRFSS 2023).
- Survey Center on American Life. The State of American Friendship, June 2021.
- Association for Psychological Science. Couples, friends show similarity in personality traits after all, 11 Feb 2017, on Wu, Kosinski, Schwartz and Stillwell, Psychological Science.
- November Project. Boston.
- Boston Ski & Sports Club. Help center.
- Porter Square Books. Book clubs.
