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Why a New Fringeship (not Friendship) May Be Just What You Need
Casual acquaintances can increase feelings of belonging, boost mood, buffer stress and expand social support
Casual social connections, or "fringeships," can improve well-being, lower stress and expand social networks.
Jia Liu
Key takeaways
- A “fringeship” is a relationship that sits just shy of friendship and grows through repeated contact in shared places and activities.
- Even casual social connections can foster belonging, improve well-being, reduce stress and expand support networks.
- Building fringeships often starts with showing up regularly, starting small conversations and overcoming hesitation.
You likely have fringeships in your life and don’t even realize it. It’s the woman at the dog park with whom you share pet stories most mornings, the hairdresser you enjoy chatting with once a month or the regular at the book club who, you’ve learned over time, is struggling with an empty-nest transition.
This sort of connection constitutes what a group of researchers has dubbed a “fringeship” — a relationship that’s nearly a friendship, but not quite. It develops over time and is rooted in a common experience and location, says Karen Fingerman, a psychologist and director of Texas Institute on Dementia, Aging and Longevity at the University of Texas at Austin.
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“This is the person who shows up in a given place that you go to regularly,” whether that’s a worship service or an exercise class, says Fingerman, the lead author on a recent paper published in Review of General Psychology exploring the emotional benefits of forming fringeships in everyday life. “You have something in common. They make you feel grounded in that space. So you know that when they’re there, you are going to feel like you belong.”
Fingerman and her research colleagues argue that finding and fostering fringeships can help build a bulwark against the much-discussed national epidemic of loneliness. One in 3 adults ages 50 to 80 reports having felt socially isolated at least sometimes during the prior year, according to 2024 findings in JAMA. And in a 2025 AARP study, 40 percent of adults age 45 and older reported feeling lonely. Friendships require considerable time to forge, between 120 and 200-plus hours, according to one study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. But there’s another pathway. Even so-called weaker ties, including passing interactions with neighbors, can prove surprisingly powerful in boosting mood, buffering the effects of stress and reducing the risk of depression later in life. Moreover, people who have constructed a rich social latticework that involves both close ties — typically friends and family — and weak ties are more likely to live longer, Fingerman says.
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Socializing is important because it exercises the brain, which neuroscientist Ben Rein describes as a “use-it-or-lose-it organ.” When people engage with others, they benefit from the release of dopamine, serotonin and other positive-mood-enhancing brain chemicals, says Rein, author of Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection. Other research has shown that people with larger social networks are more likely to have more brain matter, which can provide a buffer against age-related loss of brain function, he says.
“The reason why fringeships intrigue me is we have this huge isolation problem, and it’s deeply embedded in our culture,” says Rein, who hadn’t previously heard about this concept. “If you are willing to allow someone into your life as a fringeship, it’s kind of a low-pressure way to start interacting.”
Echo and Kevin Garrett walk their dog Scout regularly along the Chattahoochee River in Georgia, making fringeships along the way.
Courtesy Darryl A. Vincent
The payoffs of fringeships
Weak ties fall along a spectrum, with passing acquaintances at one end and fringeships at the other, sitting on the cusp of a friendship, Fingerman says. “The stranger in line that you talk to in the coffee shop,” she says, “is not the same as the person who has been in your yoga class for the past three years.”
As people move into later life, they may already have a cadre of friendships, “and they don’t really have room, if you will, for another demanding relationship,” Fingerman says. In a 2026 AARP research study, nearly half of the almost 1,500 respondents said that making friends was harder than it was when they were younger. “But the threshold for a fringeship is much lower,” Fingerman says. “You have to show up. You have to smile and nod. You have to risk a little discomfort to approach someone. But the payoff is pretty big.”
During the pandemic, Echo Garrett and her husband, Kevin, began walking the same stretch of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia, often rising before dawn to catch the river at first light, when the birds and other animals are more active.
Over time, they recognized fellow river walkers with similar habits and also focused on photographing the landscape. They chatted and started to look out for one another. And the small group, all in their 60s and 70s, began to discuss more than photography.
When Garrett’s sister died two years ago, she shared her grief with another in the group, who had lost his young grandson to sickle cell anemia the prior summer. Earlier this year, Garrett supported Connie, another river walker, who was coping with the sudden death of her mother.
“They’ve become really important relationships,” says the 66-year-old author, who lives in Marietta, Georgia. “We talk about real stuff because we realize that we have so much in common that we can offer legitimate support. They’re not surface relationships.”
Fringeships can form over a shared interest, even one that doesn’t involve the activity where you met, Fingerman says. Perhaps nobody else in your life follows basketball as closely or plays as vigorously with their dog. “You get to go farther into this topic,” Fingerman says, stimulating your brain in the process.
An additional benefit: Fringeships don’t carry the weight of inherent obligation that friendships may. A fringe connection, Fingerman says, likely won’t ask for a lift to the airport.
It’s true that these fringe relationships can provide another way to connect with people amid the loneliness epidemic, says Anna Goldfarb, author of Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections. But the concept makes her a bit sad as well, she says, as a fringeship is “a more fragile interaction.”
“There’s no commitment,” Goldfarb says. “And to some, that’s an asset. And to others, I feel like, what do we have if we don’t owe each other anything?”
Still, Goldfarb recognizes the value of fringeships in her own life, such as the fellow regular at the café where she often works. “It would lower my enjoyment of the café if I didn’t get to see him.”
Finding fringeships
To foster more fringeships, look for ways you can set your schedule so you cross paths with the same people, Fingerman suggests. For instance, you can pick the same time to go to the dog park every evening.
Check out your local library and other spaces that host gatherings, whether that’s a board game meetup or a craft group. Another route is through volunteer work, Fingerman says. Pick a cause that you’re passionate about and where you’ll meet like-minded people; then show up at the same time each week, for example, to help sort cans at the food bank.
Last year, at age 60, Fingerman joined an improv class, where she’s picked up acting skills and along the way has built her own fringeships, most of them much younger, she says with a laugh.
Getting beyond a casual acquaintanceship requires overcoming your own inhibitions, Fingerman notes. Just a smile may be sufficient to get the other person talking, she says. Or lob a question: Did they also hit traffic on the way to class?
Technology is preventing more of these casual interactions, with people getting groceries delivered or opting for the self-checkout line, says Rein, who encourages all of us to push back against the tide of technology. Ask the butcher how their day is going or what they did over the recent weekend.
“These little moments of connection, I think, are really undervalued, maybe underestimated,” Rein says. “And they’re getting very persistently stripped out of our lives.”
Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, takes notes on his phone during his train commute to collect details about people with whom he’s had a passing conversation, including their name, so he can greet them the next time. “I almost never get on the train without knowing somebody anymore,” says Epley, author of A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection.
The biggest barrier, Epley stresses, is getting up the nerve to try in the first place: “People generally underestimate how positively other people respond when you reach out to them.”
Epley coauthored a study in which commuters on public transit were split into groups, including one group that was encouraged to talk to strangers. They thought that they’d enjoy the commute more if they kept to themselves. As it turned out, chatting with someone else, even briefly, made the journey more pleasant.
Epley made a key fringeship on his own commute — someone who, he later learned, also taught at the University of Chicago — when he said hello roughly two decades ago. “And then I saw him again, and I said hello again.” Over the years, Epley says, “we’ve watched our kids grow up together. We’ve talked about serious, serious things.”
The relationship, albeit primarily confined to that morning commute, notably enriches Epley’s daily life.
“I could spend the morning on the train by myself doomscrolling on my phone or whatever. Or I could spend it each day with a buddy, with Harold. I get a half-hour uplift almost every morning from sitting down with him.”
If you’re feeling lonely, take a moment to reflect on your own bench of fringeships, Fingerman says. “You might have a bigger social world than you think. And you’re important to those people, too.”
Fringeships have emotional and cognitive value as their own relationship category, Fingerman says. But sometimes, a fringeship can break beyond the bounds of that initial setting where you first met, and you can develop it into a real friendship.
First, Fingerman advises that you give that initial fringeship time and space to deepen before suggesting a shift. “And then the simple ask is, ‘Hey, do you ever have time for coffee afterwards?’ ”
Garrett can see some of her river fringeships migrating in that direction. She’s invited Connie to two events, including her own birthday party, but the timing hasn’t worked out yet. Still, Garrett now describes their bond as a friendship, sealed by shared grief and their shared passion for photography. “We’re true nature lovers,” she says, “and we always are chasing the light.”
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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