Cuffing season has arrived! Forget Mr/Mrs Right—your standards are lowering with each drop in temperature. Cold, dark nights lie ahead and cuddling is more fun when it’s not just you and the pup.

Or…you could skip that part. Single by choice looks good on you. If you’re ready to leave cuffing season behind this winter, here are seven easy ways to build community instead.

7. Volunteer.

Not sure where to get started? Visit volunteermatch.org or Google “volunteer options near me.” Volunteering is a great way to be a better community member and to meet people of all ages who share your values. Community is bigger than just hanging out with your peers, it’s age-diverse. So befriend the woman several decades older than you who does intake in Spanish at the free clinic or the retiree who reads to kids at the library. 

Not looking for new friends? No worries; you’re still building community and being a better community member. You’re taking action because far too many of us are only progressive online and once every four years during presidential elections. Otherwise, we struggle with putting our values into practice daily.

We spend our limited time and money on backcountry trips and expensive gear—not on bail funds, courtwatch, or picking up a weekly shift at the low barrier shelter. Life is hard; there’s nothing wrong with escapism or wanting to spend as much time as possible in Nature. However, that doesn’t mean we ignore our responsibilities as community members to focus solely on what we personally need to thrive as individuals. 

That’s why step one is volunteering! Even if it disrupts your routine, puts you slightly out of your comfort zone or requires you to speak to lower-income People of Color—when you prefer drinking IPAs and crushing century rides with your higher-income, mostly white friend group. Between climate change and multiple genocides in different parts of the world, carrying on as usual isn’t really an option. 

You got this! 

6. Get a library card.

Getting a library card is super easy. Go to the front desk and tell them you’d like to get a library card. 

That’s it. They’ll walk you through the process. People with library cards care about their community and this publicly funded third place. They recognize that libraries serve as safe spaces for all, but especially for children, youth and people experiencing homelessness. You’re already well on your way to building community. Download Libby from the App Store while you’re at it. Now you’re no longer 'too busy’ to check out books! 

5. Talk to someone at the coffee shop.

We all have different needs and tolerances for socialization. So I’m talking to people who are currently interested in making connections with others. Start at your local coffee shop. Just not with your barista (say hello to them but keep it moving unless they want to chat; they’re in a different category because they’re a captive audience). 

Instead, ask the person in line next to you what they’re planning to order. Or, if someone’s breakfast sandwich or tapsilog looks amazing, let them know. Talk to a college student about what they’re studying—briefly, because organic chem is no joke. Greet all of the dogs (except the service dog because she’s working). If you are white, talk to someone who doesn’t look like you. If you are a Person of Color, try connecting with someone who does.

Remove all pressure to make friends. You are just making conversation and building community by banking repeat daily (or weekly) interactions with people in your neighborhood. If you go to a union-busting, pro-genocide, large franchise for mediocre seasonal drinks—despite the boycott—this may not work. Try visiting a local coffee shop instead. If you make your tea/coffee at home, try this strategy in other third places like barber shops, at the local pickup game, library, or wherever you volunteer each week. 

4. Take public transportation.

In certain large cities and gentrified areas, public transportation is better funded than ever (well, maybe since trolleys were popular). However, in almost every other community, public transportation has a lot of stigma attached to it. Biking to work has the same PR and funding issue outside of gentrified cities. But you love your city—even though the buses aren’t always on time, there are no dedicated bus lanes and the stops lack shelters, benches and posted schedules.

You believe in public transportation because it’s the future. Take it. And greet your driver. They can’t listen to music and they drive the same routes over and over again. So say hello. 

You want walkable communities? Take the metro or subway. It doesn’t have to be every day. But do your best to invest in this community resource. I recently changed jobs and started driving to work again. However, I still take it a few times each week. It’s not just the aura points, y’all. I often hear people who live in the suburbs slander my city as ‘dangerous’ and the subway as ‘unsafe’. Going out of your way to avoid public transportation because you are afraid of people experiencing homelessness is extremely limiting. For starters, when you avoid mass transit, you lose access to so many activities like museums, art galleries, street festivals, cafes, shops, and farmers markets.

Sure, there was a random near-fatal stabbing at my stop recently but that is the exception, not the norm. And this is America; that could happen literally anywhere. I feel most vigilant in restaurants and grocery stores because of this country’s track record on mass shootings. But I also still have to eat. Meanwhile, the suburbanites who give unsolicited opinions on the dangers of public transportation make stress-free Target runs because they’re actually scared of Black people—not random acts of violence.

Taking public transportation helps fund it for everyone. If you are white, this especially applies to you. Because we all know Black and Brown commuters took the bus and subway for years without our cities investing in mass transit—no matter how much we pleaded and advocated for ourselves. Now that gentrification, or the displacement of working class residents, is accelerating across most major cities, it’s a different story.

In the U.S., political and social capital varies greatly according to race. So if you have more of it, use that racial privilege to help your community. Want to go the extra mile? Push for bus shelters, benches and shade trees—not just in your gentrifying neighborhood but in other neighborhoods too. I don’t care if you only bike to work. Care about your city as a whole. Care about lower-income commuters, because I promise: your city doesn’t.

There will be exceptions to all of these. If you have legitimate reasons for wanting to skip mass transit (e.g. - you are an Asian woman and Asian women are being deliberately targeted and murdered on the subway in your city) and can afford other options, that’s one thing. But most working class folks—regardless of race and gender—don’t have an option. So please find other ways to support this valuable public resource.

3. Say hello to people in your neighborhood. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with this as a Black woman living in an overwhelmingly white neighborhood. For a time, I just stopped saying hello altogether because I was tired of my greeting going unreturned.

I get it, I really do. My white neighbors’ interactions with Black people are limited to UberEats, DoorDash, and Instacart; Amazon, FedEx and USPS; and the Caribbean nannies that push their white infants around in expensive prams. Most of the Black people in their life are there to serve them. Since they don’t recall ordering anything, they always seem confused that a Black person is greeting them. After awhile, I stopped trying. But my silence made them even more uncomfortable. Sigh. 

I’m reverting back to greeting everyone. This is more for my sanity. I smile, say hello and keep it moving.

Greet your neighbors, y’all. Worst case scenario, if you go missing, they’ll notice. Best case scenario, you’re banking positive, little humanizing interactions throughout the day. As one TikToker pointed out, think about the person experiencing homelessness on the street who greets hundreds of strangers a day and nearly all of them ignore him—pretend he doesn’t exist. Then people are shocked or angry when he has a mental health crisis that disrupts their morning commute. We are social beings for the most part and we need positive social interactions. Where are my small town folks at? Y’all get this.

2. Be neighborly and help others.

It could be someone lost and in need of directions; unattended toddlers playing too close to the street; or someone struggling with a heavy package or door. Find small ways to be neighborly and help others.

Don’t automatically assume it’s the visibly disabled who need your help. It’s probably not. And if you look long enough and stay engaged, you can start to tell the difference between the person in the ultra lightweight wheelchair—who just needs you to stop blocking the sidewalk with your discarded e-scooter—and the person in an oversized hospital wheelchair who might be fresh out of surgery and grateful for assistance. Always ask first. 

Let’s bring back holding doors (no, not your apartment complex door with keycard access) for strangers, and helping others.

If you are a homeowner, and your neighbors trash or recycling cans end up in the middle of the street after pickup, take the extra minute to grab them. 

If you can afford to, tip a little extra. Yes, the system is unsustainable but today you’re sustaining someone—including the dishwashers and bussers in the back.

Carry cash on you—small bills, and greet the man panhandling or the person experiencing homelessness when you see them. Don’t worry about what they do with it—that’s none of your business. They might buy alcohol and drugs? Okay, well so do you. And we’re not judging.

Do you speak your heritage language? Badly? You’re self conscious about it? Okay great, use it to help the elder in the store who’s having trouble communicating in English. Your feelings are still valid, but right now you’re navigating your own discomfort while helping others. Even if you receive a lecture or an unsolicited photo of someone’s dusty son for your trouble instead of a simple ‘thank you’.

Yes, the point is to help others, but what I really mean is to help other marginalized people—to help those with the least support and greatest need. The solution isn’t always money either. Sometimes it’s showing an older adult the way to the bus stop and sitting with them until it arrives.

And sometimes it’s having that slightly irritating “Where are you from?” conversation with an immigrant elder, because you know they’re not attempting to paint you as a perpetual foreigner, they’re looking for a familiar face in a crowd. Yes, it’s still triggering because you’re tired of answering that question daily but you navigate your own discomfort while being kind to someone who is reeling from their own trauma of immigration, separation and loss.

Small acts of kindness shouldn’t completely deplete your emotional reserves. If so, you may be doing it wrong. You can maintain healthy boundaries and still help others. But sometimes what we think are healthy boundaries are actually walls designed to keep others out. You can’t build community that way. And kindness isn’t even the right word; these are only acts of kindness because we so rarely observe them. Really, they are small acknowledgments of our interdependence. 

1. Give compliments.

This is an incomplete thought but yall hear me out. I’m not saying you should make unsolicited comments on people’s bodies. I mean you can, but you don’t want to make people uncomfortable, do you? When would that be appropriate? When you’re uplifting a child or young adult and you have the right context, cultural or familial tie to do it in a meaningful, appropriate way. Basically, it’s complicated.

Then there’s the wrong way to do it. For example, even if you think someone looks like a goddess with a beautiful, unique-to-you skin tone, maybe don’t compliment that. Nobody wants to be called any version of olive, chocolate or caramel—or porcelain. No food comparisons; don’t make it weird.

Okay, so how should I compliment strangers if I can’t reference food, their smile, weight loss, weight gain, skin color etc?

Try commenting on people’s style, fashion, makeup, fit, hime cut, sister locs, straight bangs, etc. I live in a city where people put a lot of effort into all of the above. I mean we’re not New York or L.A. but we do all right. So I love to give out compliments—primarily to women and gender unknowns. But occasionally to men. I also love asking other 6 ft+ women where they buy their clothes. I get pro-tips and also, it’s just a nice conversation starter.

Most people love to receive compliments but it can definitely depend on who’s giving it. My preschool-aged nephew once told me I look like Elsa (a Disney princess) while playing with my two month-old knotless braids. I almost cried. It healed some childhood part of me which struggled with my hair texture but that’s a story for another day. For the record, I look nothing like Elsa, but out of the mouths of babes right? I’m a f**king princess.

Well, what if you don’t want to compliment people’s clothing, hair or makeup? This is a specific one, but I compliment people who hold the door—“that’s so kind of you” or “thank you, that’s really thoughtful”.

I compliment parents who calmly and matter-a-factly handle their little ones’ super loud, inappropriate questions, because kids have no filter. And the ones who use their gentle parenting techniques to redirect and avert meltdowns. But also the ones who don’t; because tired, overstimulated kids are a fact of life. I say parents but I really mean women, because that is who I come across in my daily life doing the bulk of caregiving.

I compliment baristas, retail workers and health workers and anyone in a job that requires them to stand on their feet for eight hours. I compliment customer service representatives because adulting is hard and I feel so grateful any time another human helps me check something off my list.

You could compliment someone for being good at their job, for being patient, or kind, or compassionate or helpful.

This is just my list. Yours might look completely different.

I look at it this way; so much of modern life is dehumanizing. Our value is based solely on our productivity. So much of city life is dehumanizing. Many of us feel incredibly alone, despite being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people. Compliments are one way of pushing back against those conditions and of acknowledging others. It’s the race neutral version of the head nod, and if you know you know.

Part of building community are these repeat, humanizing interactions. Sometimes we’re the recipient of them, sometimes we’re the ones reaching out. But if you can’t see the humanity in others, your community building efforts won’t go far.

Your compliments make more of a difference than you think. Keep ’em coming! Spread a little love.