the thing is, It’s kinda Chic to care about connection

As women, we've been told for years now that we should ‘foster connection’, but I question why.

Has it been because it's a good business move? Because it's good to network, to have connections, to know the right people? Because community helps us grow? Even the way we talk about connection has started to sound like a business strategy. Build your community. Grow your network. Engage with your audience. Find your people. There's always an end goal.

Well, I actually think it's pretty damn cool to form connections just because, well, you like the person and you want to spend time with them. No strategy, no wondering what you could do for each other, no collaboration in the pipeline. Just I like you. Let's be friends. Because for all the connection social media supposedly gives us, I sometimes wonder how connected we actually are. We know what people had for breakfast, where they went on holiday, we see their babies grow up, their houses change, their businesses evolve. We can know an oddly intimate amount about somebody we've never actually sat across a table from. We're all there watching, liking, reacting, occasionally replying to a story. Close enough to see into each other's lives, but not always close enough to actually be part of them. We're all in glass houses, looking into other glass houses, and I think it's time we opened the doors and windows.

I think maybe we're craving something a bit more real now. Less audience, more community. Less ‘we should definitely get coffee sometime!’ and more actually putting a date in the diary. And I think that's a huge part of why I started building The Nest Social. Honestly, I think I needed it. I wanted somewhere for women to actually meet each other, not necessarily women in business, not mums, not creatives, not women who fit into some really specific box that makes us easy to market to. Just women who want to go for dinner, walk somewhere beautiful, paint pottery, read books, make things, eat nice food, go away for the night or sit around a table and talk for far too long. Women who maybe have loads of friends already and women who have suddenly looked around in their thirties and thought shit, where did everybody go?

Because making friends as an adult is actually really hard. People move, people have babies, people work. Friendships change, your interests change, you change, and I don't think we talk enough about how lonely that can sometimes be. The Nest isn't about being productive together or helping each other become more successful. I mean, I'm sure those things will happen. There are loads of clever, creative, interesting women there and obviously they're going to end up helping each other, but that's not the goal. The goal is connection. Real, deep, supportive, magical connection, because incredible things happen when women actually come together in community, not because they're strategically networking or somebody told them community was good for their brand, but because we actually need each other.

And I think there's something really lovely about allowing friendship to be completely unproductive. You don't have to make money together, start a podcast or collaborate on something. You can sit around a table eating something nice and talk. You can go for a walk, make something badly together, send someone a message because you saw something that reminded you of them. You can show up when things are shit and celebrate when things are really good. There doesn't always have to be something at the end of it.

Maybe after years of being told to build audiences, we're realising we don't actually need more people watching us. Maybe we need more people sitting beside us.

Ten people around a table would be nice. And honestly? I think that's kinda chic.