If that resonates, congratulations: you're a normal person living in one of the most socially fragmented regions in America.

Let's be honest about why this happens. The Bay Area has become a transient tech colony where people cycle in for a few years, cluster with coworkers, and leave. Organic community — the kind built through churches, neighborhood bars, rec leagues, and years of showing up — has been hollowed out by sky-high housing costs that keep people moving, remote work that keeps people isolated, and a culture that treats busyness as a personality trait. When your city prices out the people who'd normally stick around long enough to become regulars, you get a region full of strangers.

This isn't something government programs can fix, and it's not something another subsidized "community space" will solve. It's a downstream consequence of policies that have made the Bay Area brutally expensive and relentlessly unstable for regular people. You can't build community when nobody can afford to stay.

As one local put it bluntly: "Wait, you guys have a social circle?" The gallows humor writes itself.

But there's a practical thread worth pulling here. Another Bay Area resident shared that they joined a meetup group aligned with their interests and ended up organizing weekly hangouts. "Whatever it is you like to do as a group activity, do that." Simple advice, but it works — because community is built by individuals showing up consistently, not by waiting for institutions to manufacture belonging for you.

The fix isn't a new city initiative or a taxpayer-funded loneliness task force (please, don't give them ideas). It's people choosing to invest in where they live. That means cheaper housing so people actually stay. It means vibrant small businesses where regulars become friends. It means a city that works well enough that people want to be out in it.

Until then, be the person who organizes the hangout. Nobody's coming to save your social life — least of all City Hall.