When I got married in 2021, not one work friend attended the wedding. Not that they had a choice: Despite having spent nearly 10 years working in newsrooms, I barely had any work friends to invite.
So imagine my pleasant surprise when I looked around my birthday party last year — just over a year after going freelance full-time — and realized about half of the attendees were journalists or publicist friends. The ratio of work-friends to friend-friends held steady at this year’s soiree.
How did my move from a bustling office to a solo writing career actually breed work friends when other independent journalists understandably report feeling isolated after transitioning to a home-based workplace? And how can you — whether extroverted or introverted, living in Manhattan or in the middle of Missouri — find community while pursuing remote and largely solitary work?
Here’s my best advice, as well as insight from an expert in social connections and, yes, a few of my freelance friends.
See freelancing as an opportunity
It’s true, I’m a raging extrovert. From the moment I left my staff job, I was compiling spreadsheets of all the editors I wanted to reconnect with, calling old colleagues who’d become freelancers themselves, and scheduling coffees and drinks with writers I knew but had yet to enter the friend zone with.
I said yes to every media dinner, trip or event I ethically could; set up my “office” in hotel lobbies, coworking spaces, airports and bars; and ramped up the number of panels and mixers I organized as AHCJ’s New York City chapter lead. I did all of this instinctively — not because I had a strategy to widen my net and yield more assignments, or even to become happier and more fulfilled (though in retrospect, those things happened, too).
The lesson, no matter your personality type: Working for yourself can provide more time and flexibility to create the number and kinds of connections you want. Sure, office life gave me talented people to brainstorm with and company parties to banter at, but being locked into a screen 9 to 6 prevented my social side from truly taking off.
Find your people
Similarly, while a newsroom provides built-in colleagues, freelancing offers the chance to curate the kind of “team” that nourishes you. For example, my office environments were full of newshounds who loved breaking news and chasing scoops, but my freelance comrades are more often creatives who love talking craft and trading personal essay ideas but don’t necessarily start their days scanning headlines and listening to “The Daily.”
That slight identity shift from what my job title had been (some version of “reporter”) to who I actually feel I am (a “journalist” or “writer”) has led me to podcasts, organizations, book talks, workshops and friends whom I clicked with right away.
So consider: What kind of freelancer are you or do you want to be? There’s surely others of you out there, whether that’s journalists connecting over a shared identity (The National Association of Black Journalists, Journalism and Women Symposium), shared beat (AHCJ, Society of American Travel Writers) or shared goal (writing a novel, starting a newsletter).
Often, just being a freelance journalist alone is enough of an identity to find rapport. AHCJ-affiliated freelancers, for one, gather monthly for Zoom “lunch and learns” and stay connected in between on Slack and an email listserv. Platforms like Study Hall and Upod Academy are helpful hubs for moral support, editors’ info and pitch call curation.
Be proactive
When Jamie Ducharme, a New York City-based freelancer, left her staff job to become a freelancer in March 2025, she re-joined AHCJ, signed up for networking events and conferences, made coworking dates with other self-employed friends and asked freelancers she admired to grab coffee. Since Ducharme is more introverted than me, the outreach took intention, but it’s paid off.
“I’m getting out into the world and meeting new people more than I ever did when I was on staff, simply because I no longer have the luxury of being complacent about it,” she said. The mix of quiet days at home and afternoons out for lunch or an event “feels balanced, rather than isolating,” Ducharme, author of “Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul,” added.
Her advice for fellow freelancers: “Don’t be afraid to reach out to people you don’t know well, or even know at all! I’ve found the freelance community to be warm, welcoming and generous. There is definitely community to be found in this industry; you just have to look for it.”
Expect discomfort — at first
If reaching out to a distant connection makes you cringe, keep in mind “the liking gap,” or the psychological phenomenon that other people tend to like you more than you think they do. Other research has shown that while people report wanting to hear from friends who’ve faded away, they don’t want to make the first move. Why not you?
If that’s not enough of a nudge, consider that a socially deprived brain can’t be entirely trusted to judge the risks of interaction accurately, neuroscientist Ben Rein, Ph.D., author of “Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection,” told me. “When we are isolated, we start to process information differently. Our brains are basically paying closer attention to negative social information than positive information,” he said. And so, isolation breeds isolation.
But if you can push past that initial wariness, you’ll remind your brain that — albeit sometimes awkward — networking is safe, if not essential to a successful freelance career. It will get easier with repetition.
Consider a coworking space
I’m such a big fan of my coworking space, The Luminary, that I often post up there even on weekends. Aside from giving me more (beautiful) space to work, the environment pulls me out of Brooklyn and usually closer to after-work media events I’d otherwise be inclined to skip. It surrounds me with hard workers who motivate me to hustle — even if we don’t exchange a word. It also provides programming and has served as the space for some local AHCJ events. But most revolutionary for community-building: Since the space allows members to bring a guest, I have a tried-and-true option any time a source comes to town or a fellow freelancer wants to meet up.
Of course, not everyone can or wants to join a coworking space, but even a regular Zoom check-in with other freelancers or a weekly call with an accountability buddy can help give your work life some social structure.
Prioritize IRL contact
In an era where everything including grocery shopping, visiting the doctor and auditioning for a choir can be done behind a screen (and often is), real-life contact is more important than ever, Rein said. So, can you meet a source for an interview? I interviewed one story subject while running side by side. Can you pursue more on-the-ground reporting? My experiences physically immersing myself in sauna culture and, unrelated, steinholding fanaticism are among my favorite memories of the year. Can you scout out journalism holiday parties in your city or attend a local author’s book launch?
If you reduce all of your interactions to Zoom, creativity is just one aspect of your mental health and productivity that will suffer, research shows. “Narrowing your focus to a couple of boxes on the screen is not the right place to be creative,” Rein said.
Don’t overlook the power of ‘micro interactions’
You don’t have to endure lengthy face-to-face conversations to reap the benefits of being around other people. Introverted author Susan Cain wrote her book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” almost entirely from a coffee shop. “The mere presence of other people helped my mind to make associative leaps,” she wrote.
Beyond being effective for the writing process, research has shown that “micro interactions” with strangers are a boon to health and happiness, even though introverts in particular underestimate how good they’ll feel. So say “thank you” to your bus driver. Make eye contact with your barista. Ask your neighbor how they’re doing while walking your dog. Better yet, make it part of a routine — say, going to the same coffee shop every Tuesday morning — since studies show familiarity breeds attraction. In other words, regulars grow to like other regulars.
Connecting with people in the wild “shows your brain you have allies around you, that these strangers are actually friends,” Rein said. “Especially in today’s very polarized environment, I think it’s a really valuable thing.”
Know yourself
While forging new or more meaningful work-related relationships may require a step or two outside of your comfort zone, don’t force yourself into a lifestyle that doesn’t actually work for you. Remember: You’re the boss!
What’s key is “understanding the specifications of your social battery,” Rein said. “How much charging does it require? How quickly does it charge? How quickly does it deplete? And most importantly, have you left your social battery uncharged for too long? Because if so, you definitely should try to charge it more.”
For Rachel Hosie, an introverted freelance health journalist who recently moved from London to the south of France, chatting with industry friends through WhatsApp and taking the occasional press trip satisfies her work-related social needs. “I love working from home and never feel lonely,” she said. “I don’t see much appeal in working from coffee shops or coworking spaces either. I’d much rather be at home, in comfy clothes, with full access to my kitchen.” Who am I to argue with that?
