Lisa Collins and Sophie Curthoys love their female friendship groups.
They’ve known some of their best friends since school. But, like many child-free women, they’d prefer if the conversation at gatherings wasn’t always focused on babies and weddings.
“Life comes at you fast,” Collins told Business Insider. “You go from 28, and all your friends are around, and you’re going out, and everyone’s kind of free to just hang out on a Tuesday.”
Then, she said, when you get to your mid-30s, “everyone’s got two under two, and it takes six months before you get to see them.”
In your 30s and beyond, it becomes increasingly difficult to get everyone in the same room, given conflicting schedules, childcare, and other commitments.
Many women find themselves in this situation at some point, either after moving, getting divorced or just feeling like their circle has moved on.
“How do you meet people your age if you don’t have kids and you don’t meet people through that group?” Collins said.
That’s why Collins and Curthoys started Women Who Walk, a community in the UK city of St Albans that meets on Sundays for a leisurely 5km walk and occasional cocktail hours and socials.
Women Who Walk is a nonprofit, so the walks are free. But Collins and Curthoys are keen to find ways to cover their costs, as they are running everything themselves. They sell beanies and socks on the website and tickets to extra events, such as kayaking and paddleboarding days and a summer party.
At the first Women Who Walk event in September 2023, 80 women showed up.
“It’s snowballed,” Collins said. “In a great way. We are proud of it, but it’s got so big so quickly.”
Child-free millennials and Zoomers are on the rise
Millennials aren’t having as many kids as previous generations, with some being child-free by choice and others putting it off because they can’t afford a family.
According to data from the US National Center for Health Statistics, total births in the US in 2023 fell to 3.59 million — the country’s lowest figure in more than 40 years.
In the US in 2022, there were 21.9 million women aged between 20 and 39 who did not have children, which is 4.7 million more women than anticipated, according to the Carsey School of Public Policy.
Gen Zers cite the economy and the climate crisis as reasons they are considering not becoming parents.
Still, many find themselves the odd one out in a friendship group that is full of weddings and babies. With lifestyle changes and friend groups dispersing far and wide, life can suddenly get lonely.
A crop of startups have sprung up to tackle the “loneliness epidemic,” BI reported, helping people to make friends in real life.
The WSJ reported that investor money is fueling some of these initiatives since loneliness could be costing the economy $154 billion a year due to work absences caused by loneliness-related stress.
For example, SoulCycle’s founders raised $7.2 million in their wellness center, Peoplehood, which aims to improve relationships, and 222, which organizes dinner parties, raised $2.5 million.
‘A bit of a beast’
Women Who Walk has branched out to two more British cities, Guildford and Brighton, and Curthoys and Collins would love to take it further.
Now, Collins and Curthoys have 2,000 on their mailing list of all ages, from Gen Zers who have just left university or are starting their first jobs to women in their 30s and 40s to retirees.
“It is becoming a bit of a beast. It’s a great beast, but it’s a beast,” said Curthoys.
They often receive emails from woman who feel socially anxious, who have recently lost their partner or a loved one, or who have moved to the area and feel a bit lost.
“Some of the women that come, it takes months to come,” Collins said. “Some of them turn up and they’re literally, you can see them visibly shaking.”
Within seconds, they relax, Collins said, because one of the group will have welcomed them and started talking to them.
“I think those interactions are everything,” she said. “I think they come and they have one little chat with somebody, and it makes them realize that they can do it and that actually the next time won’t be so scary.”
This type of “light” socializing is so much more important than Collins and Curthoys ever thought.
“You don’t realize what that little interaction does for somebody in their life at that point,” Curthoys said. “You see the change from the beginning of the walk to the end of the walk.”
It’s accessible for neurodivergent people too, Curthoys said, because having a conversation while walking along with a group is less intense than sitting down and being face to face.
Making friends can be a difficult skill to master in adulthood, especially since working from home has become so normalized.
For this reason, Curthoys and Collins never expected the women who joined up to be so vulnerable immediately.
“I didn’t expect how candid and open and honest people are,” Curthoys said. “They share so much with us. It is a privilege when you think they’re not probably doing anything else, but they are coming to Women Who Walk, which is amazing.”
