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.
We swapped our busy city life with family, old friends, and familiar routines for a town of 11,000 people tucked in the mountains where we didn’t know a single person. While the scenery, outdoor adventures, and more relaxed lifestyle were everything we hoped for, the friendships we left behind were harder to replace.
The quiet loneliness of small-town life
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. But now that they’re getting older and developing their own lives, those interactions happen less often, and I’ve realized how much adult friendship requires deliberate effort.
Working remotely makes it even harder
Most of my work happens at home. I split my time between freelance writing and architectural consulting, which means my “commute” is about 20 steps from the kitchen. This setup is fantastic for flexibility, but not for building community.
In an office, you naturally form connections through casual conversations, shared frustrations, and after-work drinks. Working remotely means those moments don’t happen unless I create them. And in a town this small, there aren’t many networking events or professional meetups to fill the gap.
There are days when I go hours without speaking to anyone who isn’t my wife, my kids, or our dog. For someone who loves his work, I didn’t expect it to feel isolating. But there’s a certain kind of loneliness that comes from not having anyone nearby who really knows you — that special kind of friend who doesn’t need context, who you can sit in a comfortable silence with. And I miss that.
Redefining what friendship looks like
I’ve learned that making friends as an adult looks different from how it did in my 20s. There’s no shared dorm, no coworkers in the next cubicle, no built-in social infrastructure. You have to be more intentional, which isn’t easy for an introvert who spends most of his day behind a screen.
It took a year or two before I met someone I’d actually call a friend. I got to know a guy at my gym who eventually invited me to join a small running group on weekends. I’ve also joined a band with one of my son’s friends’ parents. Through these experiences, I’ve realized friendship here is a slow process, built around consistency more than convenience. Now, I have a small handful of friends I’ve met through shared interests and saying yes when the opportunity comes up, even when it would’ve been easier to stay home.
I still keep in touch with friends back in Calgary, too. We text regularly and get together once every year or two when we’re back visiting family. These friendships help fill the gap where the new ones can’t, but the ones I’ve built here feel rooted in this specific chapter of life.
Living in a small town hasn’t given me the bustling social circle I once had, but it’s taught me that friendship as an adult isn’t about how many people you know, it’s about finding the few who make this chapter of life feel a little less solitary. And for now, that’s enough.
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