If you’ve scrolled the Durham subreddit, you’ve seen the recurrent posts: “How do I make friends here?” “New to Durham, looking to meet people!” “Anyone want to hang out?”
Those are evergreen questions. Rather than letting these scattered asks fade into the void, Mary Parsons, a local anxiety and OCD therapist, decided to create something more lasting. This January, she launched How To Make Friends in Durham—a crisp, colorful website meant to serve as a primer for connection-seeking Durhamites.
Visitors can browse local groups organized by category—sports, arts, environment, service and activism, games, music—or navigate over to the “more fun” page for broader resources like Durham County Library events, neighborhood listservs, and curated event calendars.
“I realized that there are so many people who just don’t know where to start or feel overwhelmed by all the options,” Parsons, 33, says. “My hope was to create a database where I could compile and organize a lot of the options so that taking that first step could be that much easier.”
Her vision is for the site to evolve alongside Durham’s social landscape, with community members contributing their own suggestions to build an ever-expanding resource.
The INDY reached out to Parsons to learn more about her perspective on making friends as an adult, the power of external motivation, and building community in a post-pandemic world.
INDY: I read the bio on your website—you’re originally from Clayton and went to UNC-Chapel Hill, and you’ve been in Durham for the past 9 years. Do you think staying within a fairly tight geographic radius has helped you maintain and build friendships? Or does being a local versus a transplant not matter as much as we might think?
MARY PARSONS: I think it definitely did help. I swear, there’s a UNC-Chapel Hill to Durham pipeline. I know so many people from UNC that now live in Durham. I got to grow more comfortable exploring Durham with people right there beside me. I think if I had come in on my own and didn’t know anybody, it would have taken a lot more bravery to get involved in some of these things.
Tell me more about your friendship journey as an adult.
I’ve always had a pretty robust group of friends in different stages in my life, but I think it felt the hardest coming out of the pandemic, because I also transitioned to working from home, and so my social life really hit a rough point. I realized that I had to take a more active role in building a social life and building friendships and maintaining them.
That makes sense. It does feel like there’s been such a huge shift in the wake of the pandemic. In some ways it’s staggering seeing all of these different activities laid out on your site—like, there is clearly no shortage of things to do, places to go, places to meet people, but it takes so much effort and motivation, and it feels like it almost doesn’t occur to people.
I talk to my clients a lot about external versus internal motivation. I think we all really want to be internally motivated—we all want to go outside and see people and do things that are good for us. But I don’t think most of us have the self-discipline of Navy SEALs. I’ve found that what I have to do is rely on external motivation. I have to sign up for clubs and teams that I know expect me to be there every week. I need that external piece to make me actually get up and go do it.
If you’re going to a new activity or a new group, do you think it’s better to push yourself to go alone—if that might end up actually creating more connections with new people—or can it be good to have someone there as a crutch?
I think it’s whatever gets you there. If you won’t go without a crutch, then go with a crutch. If you can go on your own, I think you’re right that that typically is when—at least for me—it forces me to make conversation and meet new people if I don’t have someone there to fall back on.
There are different types of friend-making activities: structured groups like chess clubs where interaction is built-in, looser activities like run clubs where chatting is optional, and platforms explicitly for friend-seeking, like Bumble BFF. Do you have thoughts on these different approaches? Is one better for certain personality types?
I don’t know that I have any groundbreaking thoughts on that. I think you’re right that there are different ones for different personality types. I can speak for me: while I really like activities where I can talk to someone for a long time (I’m a therapist, so I can make conversation), I really enjoy doing something and having something to bond over, as opposed to just trying to hear facts about people’s lives.
Among all the groups and activities listed on the site, are there ones that you’ve personally tried or been part of?
Yeah, quite a few. The ones I’m involved with right now are the Durham Soccer Academy, which is a backyard 3v3 soccer league that I really love. I’m also a part of a 9v9 women’s soccer league through the City of Durham. I’m a member of the Recreation Advisory Commission for the Parks and Rec Department in Durham (there’s a section on the site for boards and commissions!). And I’ve also volunteered with Keep Durham Beautiful.
As an OCD and anxiety therapist, how has your professional experience shaped your understanding of friendship-making?
In general, even though I treat anxiety and OCD, I’ve seen that loneliness is just rampant. I have so, so many conversations with clients who feel really lonely and isolated. Being a therapist has taught me a lot about how common it is. Most people I talk to still feel alone in their loneliness—they think that most people have really robust social lives and that they’re the only ones struggling with this. [But] I could have five conversations a day with clients dealing with the same things.
Being a therapist has also shaped my understanding of friendship in broadening what I view as ‘hanging out.’ I’ve got a lot of young clients who spend a ton of time on Discord with their friends, or play games online and have great friends from there. That has really broadened my understanding of what friendship can look like. I do worry, of course, about people spending that much time online. But it’s kind of like the crutch example you mentioned earlier—I would take that over nothing.
Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on X or send an email to lgeller@indyweek.com.Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.