Make a Friend Picnic

A REAL UPDATE: WE HAVE A DATE. 🎉

Most importantly: you’re all awesome.

You signed up to a stranger’s event because you wanted to make a friend. You put yourself out there to meet people you don’t know, which is hard, and you did it anyway.

So thank you. That took guts, and I wasn’t going to let that go to waste.

When I first made this event, it was 20 people and a blanket. Then it became 505 of you, plus a waitlist, which was genuinely insane and also one of the nicest things that’s happened since I moved here.

Naturally, that also created a tiny logistical problem: several hundred people showing up to a public park requires a permit.

So I went to SF Rec and Park, explained exactly what happened, and after a lot of back and forth, we officially have a new plan: October 18 at Potrero Park.

Since this has become much bigger than the original “people sitting on blankets making friends” plan, I’m also putting together a few fun, easy activations to help people connect once they get there. Nothing mandatory or overly structured, just things that make talking to a stranger a little easier.

Also, somehow this whole thing became news. The SF Standard wrote about the picnic and the very real desire people in San Francisco have to make new friends. You can read the article here: https://sfstandard.com/2026/09/12/viral-sf-picnic-city-permit/

Athena and I are excited to meet all of you!

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I'm still new to the Bay, and this is still the most extroverted thing an introvert can dream up: inviting a pile of strangers to come sit in the grass with me. My social battery is finite. My love of people, picnics, and the specific magic of introducing two people who end up becoming real friends is not.

Bring your own picnic setup: a blanket, drinks, snacks, whatever makes sitting in the grass feel a little luxurious.

I'll either be the redhead having a solo picnic reading something objectively terrible on Kindle Unlimited, or the redhead surrounded by people looking a little overwhelmed because this happened again.

Athena, my dog, will be there too, asking you to throw her ball or slip her a snack. She has no shame about it.

Either way, come say hi.