The Lilly Friend Project: How to Make New Friends 

Last updated: March 10, 2025

In 2018, I conducted an experiment placing 100 flyers around NYC with the simple headline ‘Do you want New Friends?’ 

The project yielded fascinating results and connections. And I thought: surely I’m the only person crazy enough to do something like that.

So when Lilianna reached out and told me she had independently created an almost identical experiment—but with her own unique twist—I knew I had to learn more.

Here’s her story, what she learned, and how you can do the same to make new friends in your town.

Who is Lilianna? 

Lilianna is a freelance writer based in New York with a background in marketing. She holds a BA in Literature and Chinese from Bennington College.

In early 2023, Lilianna launched “The Lilly Friend Project,” distributing 400 flyers throughout New York City’s diverse neighborhoods with a simple but provocative message:

“Do you want to make more friends?”

Her experiment combined old-school flyer methods with digital surveys to find meaningful connections in one of the world’s busiest cities.

Nick’s note: While our methods shared the same foundation—using physical flyers to meet new people in a digital age—me and Lilianna’s approaches and results offer interesting contrasts in friend-making strategies. My approach involved hiring someone to post laminated flyers. Then I hosted a cocktail party for respondents. Lilianna personally distributed 400 flyers across the city and conducted filmed interviews with potential friends.

New Friends Flyer

Here’s what her flyer to make new friends looked like:

Do You Want to Make More Friends?

Do you find the whole process of making friends as an adult difficult?

Well, I have devised a genius, foolproof method to make friends.

All it involves is filling out a survey and then being willing to be filmed during an in-person interview in Manhattan. That’s it.

Ready to get started? Go to lillyfriendproject.com

How You Can Do This

Here’s how you can do this experiment yourself:

1. Craft a Simple, Eye-Catching Flyer: Design a flyer with a bold, straightforward question like “Do you want to make more friends?” in a clear font to grab attention and appeal to a wide audience, keeping it minimal yet provocative to spark curiosity.

2. Distribute Flyers Personally Across Diverse Areas: Take the time to walk through various neighborhoods—familiar and unfamiliar—placing flyers in unexpected spots, ensuring you reach beyond your usual circles for a truly diverse pool of potential friends.

3. Combine Analog and Digital Tools: Pair your physical flyers with a digital component, such as a website or survey link, to filter responses and gather insights about respondents while maintaining the charm of an in-person, analog experience.

4. Prioritize Safety When Meeting Strangers: Implement safeguards like reviewing respondents’ social media, sharing your meeting schedule with a trusted person, bringing a friend along, and choosing a secure, public location for interviews.

5. Focus on In-Person Connections: Emphasize face-to-face interviews over digital exchanges to foster authentic, trust-building interactions that reveal more than online communication ever could.

The Interview

Here’s my interview with Lilianna to learn more about her project.

Nick: Let’s start by having you tell us a bit about yourself.

Lilianna: My name’s Lilly. I live in New York City. 

I enjoy art and literature, which are big parts of my life and personality. While I value my personal space, I also really enjoy community and being in the company of others. I think that’s one reason I wanted to explore new ways to connect with people in such a bustling city.

Nick: How did you come up with the idea for The Lilly Friend Project?

Lilianna: I had this idea, maybe in November 2022, and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. 

I kept thinking about it and developing it with my partner at home. My New Year’s resolution was, I’m going to make this happen. 

Nothing really worked for me before this — other approaches didn’t yield the results that I felt they could have. I felt like there was more community to be had in the city.

Real Connections

Nick: What motivated you to create flyers rather than using social media or other methods to meet people?

Lilianna: The connection people talk about on social media is often unfulfilling because many social media platforms aren’t centered around connection. Actually, I feel like a lot of them make people feel even more disconnected.

I didn’t want a situation in which friends of friends applied to be my friends after seeing an Instagram post. I wanted a truly diverse, authentic experience representing New York City. 

While I had individual friends in the city, I didn’t feel a great sense of community in New York City. I wanted to go outside of myself, my own boundaries and social norms to experience things I didn’t know about yet.

I also really liked the analog feeling because the whole project’s in-person too. I met everyone in person, and I wanted to keep things physical and have people see the flyer in a physical format and respond in that sense.

Nick: Can you walk us through your process of creating and distributing the flyers?

Lilianna: So in January, which is the coldest month in New York, I developed the flyer.

I wanted it to be simple to grab people’s attention and attract the most demographics possible. It’s black and white, Times New Roman font, and it says, ‘Do you want to make more friends?’ in huge black letters. 

Then it says, ‘Do you find making friends as an adult to be really hard?’ followed by well, I’ve developed a foolproof genius method of making friends. 

All it requires is that you’re willing to fill out a survey, come to an in-person interview in Manhattan, be filmed and maybe be on social media. Then I put the website, thelillyfriendproject.com, and the link to the survey.

From January to March, every weekend I was stomping around the city in the freezing cold for eight hours a day, Saturday and Sunday, putting up as many flyers as I could. 

I went to as many neighborhoods in as many boroughs as I could, though I didn’t go to the Bronx or Staten Island, which will always be a big regret. 

Nick: Did you choose specific locations for your flyers?

Lilianna: For places I was less familiar with, I just walked. I hadn’t spent much time in certain parts of Brooklyn, but I walked six miles one day from one part to another part I’d never been to, and just randomly put up flyers.

That was kind of the point – I didn’t want to just go where I hang out or where I thought cool people would hang out. The reason New York is such a great city is that no matter what people think about a certain place or neighborhood, there’s always something cool going on there, always cool people, always culture everywhere. 

I didn’t want my own habits or prejudice to dictate where I could find friends. I wanted to feel really open. So what if I’m on a freeway underpass in this neighborhood that looks strange to me – there still could be a friend there.

The Design Process

Nick: Your flyer was simple, but your questionnaire was quite detailed. What were you thinking there?

Lilianna: It was a really weird exercise to sit down and craft questions that I wanted to know the answers to, but also figure out if I would want to be friends with someone. 

It was a really weird experience. I actually think everyone should do that.

I was thinking a lot with my questionnaire about whether these people were into art or literature in the same way I am, because that’s a big part of my life and personality. And I want to be able to talk about those things with people I’m close with. 

But then I realized there are people in my life that I love and am really close to who don’t have the same connection to that as me. 

So I found myself judging my own biases, like it’s kind of stupid and superficial to deny someone friendship because they don’t know the same writers as I do. 

Maybe they could teach me about something else, or maybe I’m limiting myself. So it helped me understand my biases and evaluate whether those biases are helpful.

Nick’s note: The depth of Lilianna’s commitment to this project is extraordinary. While my approach prioritized efficiency, her months-long personal investment—from weekend walks in winter weather to hours of filmed interviews—created a rich, immersive experience. What’s particularly fascinating is how this extended timeline allowed her process to become a journey of self-discovery alongside friendship-making. Her willingness to fully inhabit each step of the process reminds us that meaningful connections often require genuine time and presence.

Nick: How did you structure the questionnaire to avoid overwhelming people?

Lilianna: It’s just a marketing thing – when you’re trying to get someone to do something, you have to chunk it out and break it into steps so they’re not overwhelmed. 

I really tried to consider the journey someone would go on through looking at the flyer, then going to the website, then filling out the questionnaire. 

I tried to start the questions off slow and fun and easy, then get progressively more deep or serious, ending with a final question that’s quite serious and involved.

People who responded and came to interviews often said they thought it was funny and started filling it out because they were having fun. By the time they knew it, they’d completed all 40 questions and were at the essay question at the end.

Nick’s note: Our follow-up strategies reflect different philosophies on friendship formation. My approach culminated in planning a cocktail party to bring all respondents together at once—creating instant community among strangers with me as the common connection. Lilianna’s one-on-one interviews created a hub-and-spoke model of connection, with her at the center of each individual relationship. Both methods have merits for different personality types and social goals.

The Results

Nick: How many responses did you get?

Lilianna: About 70 people filled out the questionnaire. And then out of those people, I did 24 interviews.

Nick’s Note: Where our approaches diverged most significantly was in the vetting process. My flyer directed people straight to my website and email, resulting in 11 direct responses that I could immediately engage with. Lilianna created a more elaborate funnel—directing people to a website with a 40-question survey that served as both a filtering mechanism and a compatibility assessment, ultimately conducting 24 in-person interviews from 70 questionnaire responses. Both approaches demonstrate that analog methods can still create meaningful connections in our digital world.

Nick: What safety measures did you take when meeting strangers?

Lilianna: I had people provide a social media link or website so I could have something on them. 

I would send my partner the schedule every day of who was going to be there and when. I also invited another friend to be with me in the room during the interview at all times, so I wasn’t alone with someone I didn’t know.

The interviews were in an office building with a doorman. There were definitely some risks I took, but there were also some people who filled out the questionnaire that I said no to. 

If I felt anything was off in a way that felt dangerous, I declined.

Nick’s note: The 40-question survey Lilianna developed is a fascinating psychological exploration in itself! While my approach created a direct pathway to connection, her elaborate funnel served multiple brilliant purposes—filtering for compatibility while simultaneously helping her examine her own friendship biases. I particularly appreciate how she designed the questionnaire to gradually deepen in intimacy, making the process engaging rather than overwhelming. Her reflection that crafting these questions was “a weird exercise” that “everyone should do” highlights how this project wasn’t just about meeting others, but about understanding herself—a valuable dimension I hadn’t considered in my own experiment.

Unexpected Moments

Nick: What surprised you most about the interviews?

Lilianna: The first interview was really weird – we couldn’t get into the actual office building, so it was shot in a dark hallway next to the elevator. 

It was with someone really out of my comfort zone, someone I had never met a person like before. 

The conversation got really weird, and I was skeptical about the whole project, and it freaked me out. 

But then I met more and more people, and I met some really amazing people. I was always so shocked how much people would give of themselves to me and how much they would share. 

It made me feel this sense of wow, you trust me this much? 

I really have to do something good with that. These people are so incredible, and they’re sharing so much that has helped me so much, so it makes me want to give back to them and give back to the community of New York City even more.

Nick: How did people typically react when they first arrived for an interview?

Lilianna: When people first came in, they were often really freaked out. Some people scheduled interviews but couldn’t bring themselves to come due to safety concerns, which I understand. 

One guy came in and said, ‘I’d made peace with the fact you were going to harvest my organs or ship me off to Scientology.’ He came in with this steely sense that there was danger and that it was okay, which was funny.

But for the most part, once you start talking to people and asking questions, they’ll just open up and share their feelings, experiences, and memories. It’s really beautiful. 

Being in a suit in a therapy office with the structure of the whole thing made people feel kind of soothed in a certain sense.

Nick: What did you learn from this experience?

Lilianna: It was really a spiritual journey. I feel like I was meant to have this experience in the way that I had it, and I wouldn’t change a thing because it taught me so much. 

The most valuable thing I got wasn’t necessarily generating new connections, but appreciating what I have and seeing myself more clearly. 

Through meeting all these people in New York and hearing their experiences, it made me feel a part of something greater than myself.

Nick: Would you recommend others try this approach, and would you do it again?

Lilianna: I don’t know if I would recommend anyone do it exactly as I did. I think everyone should approach making friends in the way that’s best for them. I don’t think I need to do it again, but it was certainly the right move for me at the time. 

Rather than just generating new connections, the most valuable thing I got was appreciating what I already had and seeing myself more clearly. Through this process, meeting all these people in New York and hearing their experiences, it made me feel a part of something greater than myself.

Nick: Do you have a funny or memorable story from the experience?

Lilianna: In one of the questionnaires, someone said the reason they were filling it out was because they thought it was funny how desperate I seemed. 

When I interviewed them, I asked if I seemed desperate in person, and they said ‘No.’ 

I thought that was a classic case of how people speak online in ways that are extreme and intense, but not true when you actually ask them about it in person. She was really a lovely, sweet person who would never say that to someone’s face.

Conclusion

Lilianna’s experiment highlights an important aspect of friendship-making that I emphasize in my own guide.

What I learned was this: Sometimes you need to step outside your comfort zone and create opportunities for connection rather than waiting for them to happen.

What’s particularly striking about The Lilly Friend Project is how it embodies our core philosophy: 

If you want to meet interesting people, you have to do interesting things.

Lilianna didn’t just join existing social structures—she created an entirely new framework for connection that attracted people who shared her sense of curiosity and openness to new experiences.

Both experiments—Lilianna’s Friend Project and my own flyer campaign—reflect a willingness to step outside conventional social networks to discover new connections. 

While I focused on bringing people together through a planned social gathering, Lilianna’s approach emphasized deep individual conversations that revealed as much about herself as about her potential friends.

The experiment demonstrates how powerful face-to-face interactions remain in our increasingly digital world. Despite the initial awkwardness and uncertainty, those in-person conversations led to meaningful exchanges and genuine connections that might never have developed online.

For those inspired by Lilianna’s approach, her story reminds us that friendship-making is deeply personal—there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a journey of self-discovery that happens alongside meeting new people.