How To Relearn The Art Of IRL Connection

The word ‘connection’ is thrown around a lot — by brands, at work, in relationships and friendships — but there’s not a huge amount of it happening. Compared to two decades ago, today’s young adults have 1,000 fewer hours of in-person connection time each year, made worse by rapidly disappearing third spaces. Hinge is on a mission to change that. One More Hour is the brand’s social impact initiative helping Gen Z to plug into their local clubs, pick up a new hobby and find their community. We joined Hinge on their mission and brought Assemble to life: a digital-meets-physical space to get you up, out and doing stuff IRL. We kicked things off with an event in New York hosted by eight anti-clique clubs. Read on to unlock the most impactful ways to connect with others, offline.

Embrace play

In a world fixated on productivity, play has been pushed aside for more serious, results-yielding activities; but play serves an important part in fostering connection with ourselves and the people around us. At Assemble, No Routine got people together under the guise of games, “Physical activity is an amazing connector. When moving together, especially in a team setting, you naturally start relying on others to get that win — and that’s when the magic happens”. Group movement formats cultivate connection, “People bond quickly, whether it’s through friendly competition or just having fun together. The shared effort and energy creates a real sense of camaraderie, and by the end, everyone’s clicking like they’ve known each other for ages”.

Play comes with a generous dose of nostalgia to connect over too, “People often tell us that No Routine is like taking a trip down memory lane, playing childhood games. For many, it’s the first time they’ve played these games since being kids! We’ve noticed that tapping into our inner child brings out a lot of joy and excitement — It’s like reliving those carefree moments again”. Play is fun and freeing, helping us connect with others while serving as an important reminder that sometimes the simple things bring the most joy.

Learn something new, together

Learning something new together creates a shared experience that sets the stage for meaningful connections between new people. Not knowing how to do something breaks down barriers by creating a space for vulnerability, learning, and encouragement. Whether mastering a skill or exploring a creative pursuit, the process of learning opens opportunities for conversation, collaboration, and trust, forming a foundation for deeper relationships and community building. Pawn Chess Club is dedicated to getting more people into chess, “Chess is a great game for connecting because you’re facing each other, and it’s easy to chat so it feels social. It’s fun to learn together and figure out each other’s learning and playing styles. Even the setup with colourful boards and pink blankets gets conversation started.” Learning a new skill often puts pride into play too, “There’s also a collective sense of accomplishment when learning something new together whether it’s a new opening, or solving a puzzle”. Adulthood tends to lure us further into what’s familiar, which can make learning something new feel uncomfortable — flip the script and embrace the unknown.

Tap into your creativity

Getting creative encourages an open mind by inviting people to explore new perspectives and express themselves freely without fear of judgement. When people engage in creativity as a group, they build trust through shared vulnerability and it becomes easier to connect with other people as creativity bridges differences and nurtures a sense of belonging. There’s no such thing as a non-creative person, Work In Progress tells us, “creativity is within all of us, but some of us are better at accessing it than others. Sometimes, we need others to help us”. They explain where some of the fear associated with creative expression stems from, “A lot of people get dissuaded from being creative during childhood because maybe they didn’t do well in art classes or never know what to make. They then grow up to be adults and are convinced they ‘aren’t creative’, but they don’t push themselves to try being creative again or find their medium”.

Everyone has a right to creativity, says AZN AMERICANA, a nonprofit collective for Asian women and femmes, “In NYC, you’re surrounded by people with creative job titles or who work in the creative industry, and it makes you feel like you can’t be creative because you don’t have that job title or experience. Creativity shouldn’t be gatekept. It’s there as an outlet for all of us. In immigrant and Asian American communities, we grow up hearing our parents say we have to find traditional jobs with traditional salaries, and we end up boxing ourselves into this imaginary box that excludes creativity”.  Not only does everyone have the capacity for creativity within them, but the more diverse voices there are, the better. True creativity is thinking outside of the box, and you can only get there with the help of other people.

Park your fears & show up solo

Work In Progress, the zero-judgement art collective, explain what happens when people show up solo versus with friends, “We know that people tend to act a certain way in the presence of other people — we all have masks and often mirror our friends when we’re with them. When people come in pairs, each individual will show up as the version of themselves that they are with that particular person, and most likely leave as that version of themselves too. When someone shows up alone, they’re more likely to find a new version of themselves, and show up most authentically”. In short, turning up solo can be daunting, but you’ll probably get more out of it. If you do feel anxious or unsure at an event, just seek out your host. In the wise words of Pawn Chess Club, “hosts are vibe curators”, they’re there to welcome you and make sure you’re having a good time.

Tooled with our tips for relearning the art of connection, take a look around Assemble to find your local anti-clique clubs.