AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's easy enough to sign up for a dating app, but how do you go about finding a friend? When student Juliette Sartori from San Francisco started studying in Scotland, she realized she was lonely. And when she confided in her roommates, she discovered they were lonely, too. So they decided to do something about it, creating a new club at the University of Glasgow called Dinner with a Stranger. It proved an immediate hit. Hundreds of students have signed up for the friendship experience. Juliette Sartori, who's in her senior year as a business and management major, joins us now. Welcome to the program.
JULIETTE SARTORI: Hi.
RASCOE: Hi. So what inspired your idea to do this?
SARTORI: So I originally saw the idea on TikTok by TikToker named Jessie Wright. For her New Year's resolution, she was having dinner with a new stranger every single week. But these were, like, mutual friends or friends of friends, so she was very easily able to find them. And I remember thinking, oh, this would be such a cool idea for society, but I wouldn't know how to actually originally connect people.
So I started to think about several ideas and ways to pair people together, and then I thought of the idea of doing a questionnaire and doing a questionnaire every month on a different topic, so it kind of gives you, like, some common ground going in. You have, like, an icebreaker. And then I pitched the idea to my flatmates, and I was like, oh, I kind of want to start this, but I don't know. Like, is this a weird idea? And they all ended up really liking it, so we went ahead and decided to start it at our university. We thought maybe, like, 30, 40 people would join, and then 200 people ended up doing the first questionnaire. And we were really shocked about that 'cause it's basically like friendship blind dating.
RASCOE: I would be absolutely terrified to do it. Like, it's, like, this is what my nightmares are actually made of (laughter). But explain to us how the matchmaking actually works 'cause you don't have, like, an algorithm, right? How do you fix people up?
SARTORI: We do, like, initial preferences. Like, do you only want to be paired up with people in the same year as you? Do you only want to be paired up with people who identify similarly? And we honor those first to make sure everyone's in pairings that they're comfortable with. And from there, we ask, would you want to be in a pairing of just a group of two, or would you want to be in a group of three or four? Just because it is a bit - 'cause I'm shy, as well. It is a bit nerve-wracking going in. And especially if it's, like, a one-on-one type of thing...
RASCOE: Yeah.
SARTORI: ...It really does feel like a first date.
RASCOE: Yeah.
SARTORI: So it kind of eases a lot of people's tensions when they realize they can go in a group. And then from there, every month, we have a different topic. So last month, we did movies. So we would ask, like, random questions based off movies like, what's your favorite genre? What's your favorite movie? And then we went by genre and did, like, of these different genres, like, which movie is your favorite? Stuff like that.
RASCOE: Why do you think so many people signed up? Do you think that because everything is so online - that there are a lot of lonely people in your generation?
SARTORI: Yes, I would say so. I would say especially now that, like, it's always in our face. When someone does a Instagram post, and they appear to have, like, 15 different friends, like, hanging out at a huge dinner. Like, stuff like that - it's constantly in your face of, like, seeing other people have so much fun and hang out with so many people.
And obviously, it is just, like, a snapshot of someone's life. It's not their whole life. But from the other end, sometimes it can kind of lead you to doomscroll and feel like you're quite lonely in that aspect. And then I feel like, while we do have a lot of clubs and stuff at my university to meet people, like, going into it - it's really scary.
But with this society, because it's more of an open community, like, it's very welcoming at all the socials because you can very easily just go up to whoever you want and just, like, spark a conversation with them because everyone's in the same boat. Everyone's there to make friends.
RASCOE: Well, do you participate every month, too? Like, have you made friends? How many friends have you made from this?
SARTORI: Yeah, I would say I make, like, two or three every month 'cause I tend to do a group of three or four. And one of our heads of events and our secretary actually - they weren't part of the committee last year, and they just did it for fun. And then they ended up meeting and becoming best friends. And now they live together, and they're both on the committee, which is so sweet.
RASCOE: That's Juliette Sartori, a student at the University of Glasgow. Thank you so much for joining us.
SARTORI: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
