When Jasmine moved to Newcastle from Queensland in 2019, the excitement of living in a new city awaited her.
But little did she know it would be a struggle to form new friendships.
Five years later the 28 year-old says she doesn't have a single close friend to count on.
"I have work acquaintances and a roommate but no one I could call in an emergency or someone that feels like home," she said.
"It's a very lonely life."
"Going to a show or dinner and a movie on your own just becomes embarrassing," she said.
Jasmine not alone with a number of 'new Novocastrians' in their 20s, struggling through the pressures of finding and nourishing new relationships.
Senior lecturer in Sociology at University of Newcastle Dr Julia Cook found through a longitudinal study of life satisfaction, that young women from their late 20s to early 30s were unsatisfied with their lives, particularly the social aspect.
"We found contemporary young women, when compared with people that were the same age as they are 15 years ago at present, are less satisfied with their lives," she said.
"They're in the so-called 'rush hour' of life where they're working, they might've started a family and have some caring responsibilities so the kind of opportunities for socialising are really challenging," she said.
She said friendships are one of the categories of relationships in people's lives that is the most undervalued.
"Friendships add a lot to our lives, they give us social support and are important for our sense of well-being and for feeling connected," she said.
Dr Cook said a person feeling like they belong in a location can come down to who they're surrounded by.
"People that relocate - having friends in the area can really make an experience kind of positive or less positive," she said.
Tess Boyle, 26, moved to Newcastle from Sydney in 2022 and has found the area to be 'cliquey'.
"Things are sort of small town, clique vibes up here. People are happy with the friends they've known since they were kids and aren't super welcoming to outsiders," she said.
She said she has managed to make friends although has had to work extra hard at it.
"I had to work really hard to make it happen, reaching out to people and being extra nice and thoughtful," she said.
Similarly, 25 year-old Sarah Wild moved from South Australia to Newcastle five years ago, to be with her now husband, and has struggled with loneliness in a new area.
"He grew up in Newcastle and we moved here to start building our life together. There's been so many challenges since we moved but the main thing that affected me for the first couple of years was the loneliness," she said.
Ms Wild said she only knew her husband's family and having left her close friends back home she was starting from scratch.
"I had so much anxiety around making new friends. I worried that I'd feel out of the loop joining a group that had been friends since childhood," she said.
It was through the trial-and-error of a friendship app that she managed to find one friend who became her best friend and a major part of her wedding.
"It took almost three years after moving to find just one person I really clicked with," she said.
She said at times she felt like she was back in high school and struggled to strike up conversation with new people.
"Making conversation felt really awkward sometimes, I found it so different to making friends as a child when it's so easy to pick up on common interests and we haven't fully established our values and morals yet," she said.
"I'm a very open person and will happily dive into deep and meaningful conversations so the small talk felt unnatural and I found it tricky to gauge whether or not I was meeting a long term friend or not. I did find some people I met to be very cliquey."
Ms Wild said she discovered that she was not destined to have a big group of friends and believed it was something unattainable in your 20s.
"I had gone into the friend making stage hoping to find a group of girls I'd have a big group chat with and catch up regularly and it's just unattainable in your 20s when we all have such strong feelings and values that can so easily clash in a group setting," she said.
Dr Cook said loneliness is being called an 'epidemic', experienced by a surprisingly high proportion of young people.
"We think of loneliness that it's only experienced by older people, you might think of people in Aged Care homes for instance but it's not really true," she said.
"A lot of young people are experiencing loneliness, on average we have less friends than we did in the past and it has been really accelerated by COVID."
Dr Cook conducted a study which found that 44 per cent of young people aged between 19 and 29 were the age group who were most likely to experience an increased sense of loneliness during lockdown.
Rachel Walter-Mannah, 24, moved from Brisbane in peak 2021 lockdown.
"COVID stopped a lot of things. I was a social netball player and couldn't do that and social gatherings weren't happening as much - there was no way of meeting new people," she said.
Ms Walter-Mannah said she was intimated by not knowing the 'local norms' of how to pronounce certain suburbs, where to go for hair and doctors appointments and approaching people in general.
"Making friends in general is hard. How do you meet people in an area you don't know?"
"I definitely think Newcastle is cliquey especially location wise. Everyone in the Bay area knows each other, everyone in Maitland knows each other, everyone in Cessnock knows each other and so on," she said.
As 20-something year-olds continue to navigate new connections, Dr Cook said it was an interesting question to consider whether forming friendships was going in the same way as romantic relationships through using online apps and social media.
"Sports teams and work is generally how you make friends when you're past your education [years]," she said.
"But we have all these online options and there's less culture of talking to strangers, even when you look at the statistics on how people meet their romantic partner - it used to be through mutual friends of randomly in a bar, now it's primarily online."
Ms Wild said her experience on friendship apps had been negative with many connections tending to 'ghost' her.
"I had so many fails with girls disappearing mid conversation or dropping off the face of the earth after catching up which really knocked my confidence," she said.
"It felt so similar to my experiences on dating apps before I met my husband, and I'm not sure if it was naivety or sheer hope but I thought finding friends would be different and there'd be more respect involved."
Social media groups on Facebook and friendship apps also became an option for connection for 24 year-old Alexa Hillard, who moved from the Central Coast.
"I've had an interesting time so far navigating making friends," she said.
She joined a book club and has made friendships through a Facebook social group and is about to embark on the app journey.
"I'm starting to process using the apps, I've been a little hesitant to so far but feel like I am ready to give it a go," she said.
Helping to break the barrier for young people to find friends in a new area, Newcastle's Tiana Jarvis started creating her own social events which led her to run a business out of it.
"I found adults have limited ways to meet new people. So I created my own event for it. I think people need an ice breaker and something to use as a buffer between face to face communication with a stranger," she said.
Her passion sparked Lawn Liaison where she invites people to take part in lawn bowls or tennis while mingling.
"I've witnessed many people make new friends from coming to events frequently and establishing a base relationship," she said.
"These events aren't magic or a miracle. Like all relationships, friendships require effort and time. It takes time to establish trust and understanding. That's why consistency in going to events and venues is key.
"These events might not be magic but they are a starting point. They are a safe, inclusive and fun place for adults to be themselves."
