So how do we actually do this community thing?

Friendship vs. Community. My personal experiences, thoughts and ideas for re-imagining the world

Nadia Meli

Mar 10, 2025

On a fine day in May last year I was scrolling through Substack and saw a note someone had shared that said: “I am so heartbroken that I am not married yet, I thought I would have my own family by now. Instead I am traveling alone, living alone, eating alone, caring for myself with no support - I am really tired of it and scared that I will have to do the rest of my life alone.”

This in turn left me heartbroken. I felt the exhaustion in every single word. I felt the yearning. I felt the loneliness. I could emphasise with their pain so much. And I felt the most heartbroken about the fact that this individual could not see or imagine another way of living.

That they believed if they hadn’t found ‘the One’ and didn’t have their ‘own family’, it meant that they had to do life alone. That the choice is between socio-normative romance or loneliness.

What a tragic lie.

In my heartache, I very impulsively typed out this Substack note that got quite a bit of attention and a lot of resonance:

A question I have gotten again and again after writing this was:

This is not the first time you’ll “hear” me talk (write) about my issues with the nuclear family, the normative lifestyle that propels Capitalism, Individualism and a lot of other unhealthy ‘isms’ we accept as ‘normal’. It’s something I talk about a l l t h e t i m e because it is in my heartbeat. Because it is what I am building, actively living and striving to live towards more and more. So naturally, this occupies a lot of my thoughts, words, choices and actions.

Two examples are these pieces:

Why do we still pedestal romantic love?

Nadia Meli

·

4 November 2024

This story is shared anonymously but with permission:

Read full story

I don't want a baby.

Nadia Meli

·

27 August 2023

“Why don’t you have children?”

Read full story

What all of these pieces have in common are people asking in the comments:

”But how do you do this? How do you find the people that want to do it with you?”

Intuitively, we know this is the most sustainable and healthy way to live. But in reality, all around us we see people go about their lives more or less following the template laid out for us.

So how do we do this community thing?

And what does community even mean?

Community is something I have sometimes (often) confused with friendship and therefore struggled most of my life finding community. Because it was never close enough or intimate enough for me. And so I tried to convert anyone I really liked into my close circle. It might be a Leo thing. It might be trauma. It might be all of it. (I mean, how much of who we think we are is actually what trauma made of us?) My upbringing in Germany is also one of the reasons I only called people close to me “friend.” Germans are very good at taking friendships seriously. Therefore didn’t understand how Brits could call their colleagues or neighbours they never hang out with ‘friends’. You were either in my close circle or not in my life at all. I was very good at that separation.

So while I live, breath and preach close friendships, try to flatten the relationship hierarchy in my life and bring more people into this, my friend Ami Robertson (they/them) is someone who taught me a lot about the value of the wider community, the people who might not be our inner, close circle, the people we might not call ‘friends’ - but people who nonetheless are vital to our existence and vice versa. Within the wider community there still can be emotional, financial, physical support - without having to be best friends. Because unlike me, Ami is very good at that .

It’s the wider net that holds us too, the people who may not be our ride-or-dies but who still show up, still make life richer, still make it possible to actually exist outside the isolating structures of capitalism. And that thought shift changed things for me.

How I view friendship on the other hand, well, if you have read me for a while, you know this already (see letters linked earlier):

Relationally, for me there is no difference between a romantic relationship and a friend. In fact, friendships are the purest form of love to me. Held together by the enjoyment of each others existence. No physical attraction that makes the connection feel more urgent, no kids, no mortgage, no shared DNA that makes the connection feel obligatory. Now that to me is the highest love.

When I was married, our house was constantly open and we had friends sleeping over, popping in for food, third wheeling on our dates, we celebrated Valentines days with our single friends at the time, as a couple we went on holidays with our single friends, we had mutual aid funds with our friends, passed around money to who needed it among us - we treated our friends with the same holy devotion we were taught to treat our marriage.

The man I dated after my divorce met my friend group 4 weeks into us dating. And on many occasions when he came to visit me, a friend of mine would also join us; just as I have spent countless nights on the couch and in the kitchen of my married friends, cooking and singing, crying and laughing.

This week I am going to travel to be with my friend on the day she is having surgery - even though she is married. We don’t assume that just because she has a man, that means she doesn’t need anyone else there to support her in hospital - and him as well. Which is what most people accept by default.

I’ve said this before, and will say it again: I loathe “the relationship escalator.” We all know the script: Dating, meeting the parents, celebrating holidays together, gifts that get more and more extravagant, sacrificing friendships for a lover, moving in, marriage, kids, mortgages, traveling together—the whole conveyor belt of milestones that dictate who matters most in our lives.

Funny thing, we praise low-maintenance and low-effort friendships. Friends who don’t inconvenience us. Friends who don’t need to see or speak to us all the time. We would never dream of talking this way about romantic partners. A low-effort partner? No thanks, next.

You know what: Love means being inconvenienced. Be serious about it.

Where is the escalator for friendships? For community? It doesn’t exist. But it absolutely should, and it needs to if we want to save each other.

Yes, I believe this is how urgent it really is:

We need to save each other. Now more than ever. And the further along the world moves into the direction it is currently going, the more urgent this will become.

This socio-normative way of doing it won’t save us, even if to some degree it feels comfy right now.

This piece very obviously struck a nerve. We want to know How? How do you actually live this? Because when nobody around you does it, it feels impossible. Like you’re defaulting to the normie path just because it’s the one laid out for you and nobody you know is showing up differently.

This letter is not an instruction manual. This is not a template. It is simply my personal account of the steps I have taken (and am still taking) to build a life that ensures safety, support and care for everyone - not just the couples and nuclear families. This letter is about showing you choices and action. It hopefully will inspire some. It’s proof that something else is possible. I am definitely not the first nor only one to live life this way. There are so many more examples of anarchical forms of living, of systems that go beyond the nuclear family or the living-alone-model that is shoved down our throats. At the end of this letter, as well as in the two I have linked earlier, you will find more people who are actively aligning with their words and creating different living systems. I highly recommend engaging with them.

If you are serious—like I am—about distancing yourself from capitalism’s crushing weight, the hamster wheel that demands you earn 20k a month just to get by , then you have to use your imagination. You have to stop following the pre-mapped, comfy route. Because that route? It was never designed for your freedom. I am sorry to tell you that you have to decide if you want a comfortable cushy seat in Capitalism or if you want to help change the system we currently have. Because you cannot have both.

Up until a few years ago I was still under the illusion I could have both. But I realised that’s not true.

Why is she talking about capitalism again, wasn’t this supposed to be about community?

:)

Well, it’s because Capitalism is completely opposed to real community. We need to realise this. Capitalism distances us from each other and then in return wants us to pay for community. A video I saw recently online visualised so perfectly how we’d rather take a taxi to the airport than ask a friend to drive us there. Or sleep in a hotel than inconvenience a friend with a sleepover. This hyper independence feeds capitalism. Then Capitalism tries to sell community back to us in the shape of expensive memberships, workshops and events.

The more we share, the less we have to buy things. Community not only makes us less lonely, it also saves us money - and Capitalism hates that.

Let me repeat that:

You cannot have both. You cannot climb the capitalist ladder and work for a revolution at the same time. They are literally opposed to each other. And no, you can’t dismantle the house from within either. The house needs to burn down. “You cannot serve two masters”, to quote my least favourite book, the Bible. (Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day)

In this case it really is either - or.

So here’s what I have done in the past and am doing now, to find my people, to build a community based lifestyle that includes mutual support and care the same way we are taught a family should.

When you are done reading, please feel free to add your ideas below! Tell me your stories! We need IDEAS. IMAGINATION. RE-IMAGINING. Because EVERYTHING IS MADE UP. I can’t stress this enough - remember the relationship hierarchy we live in is made up. Capitalism is made up. This means we can make up a new system! You do not have to do what your friends are doing.

Step One: Unlearn EVERYTHING

The first thing necessary for re-imagining is de-conditioning. I had to, and still have to de-condition myself all the time in order to be where I am today.

And yes, there is still a nagging voice in the back of my head that wants to tell me “You are not adulting right” - that is conditioning.

Reading this wonderful book right now and coming across this quote while I was editing this life letter was so timely.

I had to de-condition myself from the idea of ‘The One’, the idea of a man who becomes my safety, of the nuclear family as the guarantee to happiness and motherhood as a purpose I had to fulfil. I have always seen my friendships as pretty on par to a romantic relationship, but I had to become even more radical in order to start chipping away at the socio-normative, capitalist storybook.

What about the people I didn’t want in my community because I found them annoying?

What about my relationship to success?

You need to decondition yourself from everything you think you know about how life should look. Question every assumption that you make and every assumption taught to you.

What is it you believe about friendship and what have you been taught about romantic relationships? Why do you prioritise one person over everyone else? What makes them worthier / more important / more valuable than the other people in your life? What does the hierarchy look like in your own life? Can you recognise your own conditioning?

How does it feel to allow the thought of not having biological children, but rather invest your life time into raising other people. Does that feel less worthy to you?

Why spend so much time with a romantic partner and not more with your friends? How does it feel to allow the thought of not seeing your partner for a month (which is ‘normal’ and acceptable for friendships) and spend that time with friends instead? Does that feel wrong? Unbearable? Unacceptable? Why is that? How come it doesn’t feel so bad when you don’t see a friend for months?

What if you never owned a house? How does that feel? Is that scary? What if you never got married and lived with a bunch of friends instead? What if someones parent also moved in? What if you had a patchwork-multi-generational home created by love, not DNA bonds? Would that feel like a failure?

What if your work never becomes a commercial success? What is it that makes you a success? How has Capitalism poisoned the way you see work and achievements?

Who is your community? Who “deserves” care? Who “deserves” to be in a community? Is it only people we like? Only people who are nice to us? What about people who don’t behave the way we like them to? What about people who look like ‘failures’? Who do we blame for their failure? Do they ‘deserve’ to be in our community?

Capitalism teaches us that care is transactional. That we should reserve our energy for “worthy” people. That love and support are earned. That you are only deserving of community if you behave in the ‘right’ way. But real community doesn’t work like that.

I can go on and on and on.

Basically: Question everything. Unlearn. De-condition what has been hammered into you.

Only when the old is thrown out, there is space for the new. In order to re-imagine we need to unlearn first.

Step Two: Talk about your vision. Stay the Course

I remember the phase when everyone around me was getting married (including me), having babies, buying houses. Now, at 39, I’m watching a second wave of it. When you choose to build a lifestyle based around community and friendship, not romance and the nuclear family - it can feel like you’re the only one on a different path—but don’t be discouraged. You are in fact, not alone. There are many out there already doing it and many more who really want to and are searching for people like you.

The way to do make this work is by staying the course, being patient, and leading by example .

Talk about your vision for friendship and community as much as possible. Verbalise it often. Make it known what you want. This is what I did for years. I still am, now actually more than ever.

When I was 25, talking to my other married friends about “wouldn’t it be great if we lived together” it all sounded like a cute dream. Even though on the inside I really did believe it was a great idea - it seemed kind of ridiculous and childish (hello conditioning!!!), come on, real adults don’t do this right?

Talk about it with everyone - this is how you find your people. This is how you plant the seed in people’s minds, people who maybe have never considered it before.

The truth is, people who deeply want to live like this exist! And sometimes, people don’t even realise this way of life is possible until they hear about it. You have to infiltrate people’s brains with your vision (I’ve been doing this my whole life). You’d be surprised how many people would love this if they knew it was an option.

But: be prepared to wait years for it to materialise. It took me 36 years to find the right people (and also still looking for more!) and it took that long for myself to be really serious about this as well.

Step Three: Lead by example. Start now

Start building the community you want right now by showing up in your relationships the way you want others to. Even if nobody else is reciprocating. You need to go first. For me, that looks like:

Not prioritising dating over my other relationships. (I took along a friend to a second date with a guy last year because I really wanted to see her and our diaries didn’t match up, and his diary didn’t match up with mine, so yeah. The three of us had a great time!)

Encouraging a “popping in” culture with friends instead of scheduling everything weeks in advance.

Hanging out in each other’s homes, not just going out to restaurants or for coffee

Meeting each other’s friends and family—because I want our circles to blend to build that wider community

Bringing/sending food when my friends are sick.

Sending “good morning” and “good night” texts because small things matter.

Showing up for hospital appointments

Giving money / time / other resources to aid people in my wider community / friends of friends that I don’t hang out with - and receiving it too

(like the boyfriend of a friends friend who drove a giant ladder to me so I could put wallpaper up, because I don’t have a car nor a ladder. I can’t remember his or his girlfriends name and haven’t seen him since, but I was a member of his wider community who needed something and he showed up)

(like a friends friend in our town, who could not pay their council tax bill and someone in our wider community raised the money for them within 2 hours through a WhatsApp group. No questions asked)

My fairly new friend Sana just called me while I was writing this letter and I was so delighted to see her name on my phone. She said she was just walking to her local grocery store and had seen my Instagram and thought, why not just call me and talk instead. I love spontaneous calls, so does she! We found each other because of my consistent talking about what I believe and want for this world. She resonated with it, she first became my client - then a friend.

Simply put, this means: try and treat friendships the way you are conditioned to treat romantic relationships.

Practice the things we reserve for partners in friendships. See what happens.

I practice the kind of friendships I want to have. I talk about it. This is how I find people who want what I want. Guess what? When new people enter my life, they either love it and start reciprocating or they hate it and run for the hills . Either way, I win.

You have to do it first . Even if nobody around you is doing it. Even if it feels like you’re the only one swimming against the tide. You cannot wait for others to go first. You have to model the kind of relationships and community you want to see. Whoever likes it will join in—but you have to be willing to do it alone at first .

Patience and consistency are everything.

This is a l o n g game. It took me 36 years to make this a reality. But if you stay patient and consistent in your actions, you will find your people.

Step Four: Let People Be

Ok this is a really hard one for me, because I am an annoying radical Idealist - and also because I can see the future and the solutions and I want others to see them too - does that sound delusional enough? Ok.

This is something I’m still learning and not great at yet: But I’m slowly moving away from chasing friendships and trying to mould others into the world I dream of. The relationships I dream of. The system I know is possible.

Not everyone wants to live like this. And that’s okay. Let people choose. Let them be. If someone doesn’t want to engage in this kind of community, don’t force it.

I have to remind myself of this constantly: stop trying to convince, stop trying to make it work, stop holding on to relationships that don’t align.

I stop mentioning things to the same people over and over again if I see that they’re not engaging with my ideas. It’s ok for people to disagree and move around freely in the community container. Human relationships are gorgeous and messy.

The right people will come. The right people will stay. Letting go is - sadly for me, who hates letting go - part of the process.

trey has explained this part so beautifully on his Substack : Letting people have their agency is of course necessary in order to have more balanced relationships and have people on board who whole-heartedly and joyfully consent to living this way.

Listen, this shit is RADICAL.

A wealthy, normie life and changing the world are not possible at the same time. I love how Audrey Lorde points it out so well: We cannot solve problems of oppression working with the tools of a system of oppression. (“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House”) This is true for any system of oppression, any hierarchy we live under.

And as hard as it is, I am more serious about a changed world than I am about my personal, commercial success. That’s just what it comes down to.

I know this means I am making things harder for myself, but i am SO serious about this. If we don’t take it seriously and become radical - how the hell is this ever going to change?

We need more radicals, not less. And actually, if we all did this, life wouldn’t be harder for us - it would be easier!

Because a community first mindset makes for an easier existence.

I don’t know about you, but capitalism hasn’t made my life easier. Ever. When I had a six figure business I was as stressed and anxious as I am now - just about other things! Maintaining the lifestyle I had, making more money, scaling my business in order to pay more taxes, making more to pay next years taxes, disappointing friends and family because I couldn’t show up for them because of work, destroying my mental and physical health because of work...and so on.

Radical comes from the latin word radix/radicalis which is the word for roots .

Being radical is a wonderful thing. We need people with roots in convictions. With roots in community. With roots in a different future. People who understand it, breathe it, live it.

We have enough plastic bag people who blow in whatever direction the latest wind blows.

Listen, most couples and families I know have some kind of codependent streak. I think the line between co - and interdependence is fine. So, why does this feel too radical?

I am itching to hear from you:

How do you re-imagine community?

In your wildest dreams: what would you want your social life and your relationships to look like?

What is currently in the way of you building this dream?

What steps have you taken (or want to take) to build a different way of living together, a different way of doing community?

I am interested in the ACTION as well as the DREAMS:

What are you doing right now, what are you already living that builds towards this new world?

Share your ideas below! Let’s inspire each other, this is really about imagination + action.