Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us slipped into a strange in-between state.
Millennials and older Gen Z, what I’ll call the “new adults,” are connected to everyone and bonded to almost no one. We have group chats, Discord servers, Slack channels, and endless feeds, yet we struggle to gather people on our own block.
Ask people in this age range what community looks like, and you’ll usually hear a mix of nostalgia and confusion. Many of us grew up with neighbors who kept spare keys to each other’s houses, with holiday gatherings that lasted all day, and with church or civic groups that gave families an automatic support system. Today, those structures don’t appear on their own. If we want them, we have to build them, slowly, intentionally, and in a culture that pushes us in the opposite direction.
A significant part of the problem is individualism masquerading as ambition. We’re taught to optimize everything, from our time and habits to our wellness and careers. Relationships don’t fit neatly into that formula. They’re messy and often inconvenient. They require patience, not efficiency. Community means signing up for obligations you didn’t pick and sticking with people when you disagree with them. Many of us know that in theory, but it’s hard to choose it when productivity feels like the real measure of adulthood.
Then there’s mobility. Our parents often stayed in the same city for decades. Many of us have moved three or four times by the time we are thirty. You can’t build deep local ties when you’re packing your life into boxes every couple of years. You’re always the new person, and you end up treating every neighborhood as temporary, even when it isn’t. Without long-term roots, the community never gets the chance to grow into something stable.
Technology makes this even harder. It’s not that new adults are antisocial. We talk all day. But we spread our social energy thinly across screens and niche online corners instead of gathering in the places where we actually live. A digital connection offers a safe middle ground for experiencing the feeling of belonging without the vulnerability of in-person presence. There’s no risk of rejection, but there’s also no real support. When something goes wrong, such as a breakup, a layoff, or a sudden illness, you can’t call a group chat to pick you up from the doctor.
Another truth we don’t like to admit is that many of us don’t apply the skills that make community possible. Conflict, compromise, vulnerability, and asking for help. When every hard feeling feels like a reason to leave rather than work through it, relationships tend to remain shallow. A genuine community requires individuals who can disagree without being disagreeable and who can allow themselves to be needed.
And because adulthood no longer comes with built-in social circles, everything has to be intentional. There’s no dorm hallway. No mandatory classes. No shared playground where parents linger. Without those automatic touchpoints, gathering people takes effort. A lot of it. And effort is the one thing most of us already feel we’re running out of.
For most of history, people survived because they lived interdependently. They shared food, work, childcare, celebrations, and grief. Independence wasn’t the goal; it was a luxury no one could afford. Today, we treat needing others like a flaw, but we’re paying for that mindset with chronic loneliness, anxiety, and burnout.
The challenge for new adults is to treat the community the way previous generations treated it, as something that is actively built. That means hosting the gathering even when your apartment is small and checking on a neighbor without waiting for an emergency, and asking for help before things fall apart. Staying in the room when a conversation is uncomfortable. Choosing presence over convenience.
We already know what’s missing. The question now is whether we’re willing to trade a little personal comfort for a lot more collective strength.
