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Larry lives in Clairemont, and Miles is a third grader in North Park
76, Retired Illustrator, Clairemont
I go to the YMCA to do some water workouts. I go by myself in the mornings, and my wife joins me in the afternoons. We’ve been together nearly 30 years.
To feel your frustrations, yell it out if you need to, and talk about what’s going on. Then let it go.
I was a scientific illustrator, so I like taking community college art classes and trying out different media, like watercolor. It was always a mystery to me how to avoid making a muddy mess.
I illustrated for a company in Sorrento Valley that was contracted by the federal government for the nuclear weapons tests in Nevada. Then I did the same for the US Geological Survey for 17 years.
I have lived in Clairemont my whole life. I actually still live in the duplex my folks bought in 1959. There used to be a runway for a little airport off Clairemont Drive, before Balboa Avenue existed.
9, Third Grader, North Park
I’ll play with my sister and our goldendoodle, Ziggy. Ziggy is super strong, so we’ll play tug-of-war until she knocks me over. I also like to go outside and just watch the cars go by.
I like Mustangs and an old one… I think it’s called a station wagon. My first car will be a Mustang in all black.
If you have a little sister like I do, maybe help her when she falls down and give her a Band-Aid.
Don’t turn the inside car light on when you’re driving at night. They say it’s illegal.
My dad says if I read five chapter books we can get a PS5. I’m reading my second book right now—I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871. It’s really good.
Larry (left) and Miles
Jenny Siegwart
Waypoint Public makes once-novel beer pairing dinners an everyday thing
Waypoint Public
Waypoint Public
Knowing that wine goes with food is like knowing guitars go with rock ’n’ roll. Pairing beer with dinner, on the other hand, takes a newish kind of faith. It’s not like Escoffier made his name serving his peach melba with Belgian ale. Until the current craft beer boom, there simply wasn’t enough variety to make the experiment very exciting. (“And for course three through six, we’ll just leave this pony keg of Heineken at your table.”)
Even during craft beer’s first couple of decades, pairing it with food was a pretty awful idea. To differentiate from watered-down mainstream lagers, upstarts like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada made heavy, palate-wrecking beers. Instead of gracefully accentuating the briny oceanic flavor of a scallop, they gracefully beat the crap out of it.
But things have changed. Lighter, subtler, “session” craft beer is in. It’s a friend of food. And there’s no better place to integrate beer into the meal plan than San Diego, which is to craft beer what Napa is to angry Cabernets.
Po’boy tacos
Po’boy tacos
Chefs have tinkered with beer-pairing dinners for the last few years. Some longer than that. But the time is ripe for a full-on craft beer bistro—one with a real-deal chef and an exhaustive beer list that pretends it’s a 300-bottle wine list from the ’90s. After all, we know what to expect of wine and food. Beer and food is a largely uncharted, exciting new direction. It may not be the future, but it is a future.
And Waypoint Public is it.
Owner Brian Jensen first had success with Bottlecraft, a craft beer specialty shop. News broke last year that The Linkery was calling it a day. Loved, loathed, and highly discussed, The Linkery was the leading voice of San Diego’s farm-to-table movement. Its iconic location—a cavernous garage-style building on a prominent corner of 30th Street—is like the Sears Tower of San Diego’s most progressive part of town. Jensen took it over. Jensen is not a Starbucks franchisee, so he was already off to a good start.
Pappardelle
Pappardelle
All guesses were that he’d open yet another craft beer bar with “small plates” (read: half-assed nibbles to fulfill the “food” requirement of a liquor license). But then Jensen partnered with chef Amanda Baumgarten, a talent who’d worked as a sous in four Michelin-starred restaurants (including Melisse and Patina in L.A.) before coming to San Diego for a year at Herringbone. Their plan was a very intentional marriage of craft beer and top-notch bistro fare.
They smartly blew out the building’s last street-facing wall, making Waypoint completely roll-up garage doors on both sides. It’s just all light and air—like a yeasty greenhouse that grows stylish 30-somethings—and it’s terribly welcoming. One wall is fake shrubbery. There’s a chandelier made of antlers. And the entire southern wall is like an art gallery dedicated to this decade’s fascination with reclaimed wood. There’s door-wood, construction zone wood, fence wood, dresser drawer wood, wood wood. Above the bar are three TVs: One for the requisite ESPN, and two for the ever-changing, massive beer list, with 28 on tap and about 50 by the bottle. It’s like a NASDAQ ticker for beerheads.
Bartender Ben Marquart
Bartender Ben Marquart
Baumgarten’s menu is—well, what can we say about styles in the modern, globalized kitchen? Let’s try California-beer-French. Not many beer bars do blood sausage, and hers is made with pork blood, Belgian quad (a fancy beer), brandy, bacon, cream, and all sorts of spices. Served over toasted levain with apple butter, roasted apple, and creamed cabbage, it’s excellently sweet, with the spreadable texture that makes boudin noir so appealing (and polarizing). I try Jensen’s suggested pairing of a wee heavy Scottish Ale, and it’s a nice call—big blow for big blow. If that sounds too Michelin-starry, the excellent fried oyster tacos—with aioli, French fries, spicy slaw, and smoked tomatillo salsa—prove Baumgarten’s also adept at Louisiana pier-fishin’ food (suggested pairing: Belgian Ale, rauchbier).
Waypoint Burger
Waypoint Burger
For another app, the menu offers a warm “charred” octopus. But the crust of the single tentacle—cooked sous vide for nine hours—is the blackest I’ve ever seen. It’s a tad too close to a house fire for my tastes, even if the interior meat is perfectly tender (suggested pairing: Berliner Weisse, Gose). And with only walnut oil, lemon juice, feta, and walnuts, her kale salad feels more like a kale pile (pairing: saison, lager). Baumgarten smartly realizes that any respectable burger program should cater to the two camps—minimalists and topping-stuffers. The Waypoint has a protein load with beef patty (short rib/chuck/brisket), fried egg, mozzarella, and pulled pork (slow-braised in OJ, caramelized apples, and jalapeños). It could be overwhelming, but pickled carrots, radishes, and more jalapeños give it ample acid. For less fuss, they serve it “Public style,” which involves beef, a bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mozzarella. The best things on the plate, though, are the thick-cut fries—cooked three times (boiled, blanched, fried). The menu tells me to wash it down with an IPA. I do what menu says.
Waypoint Public
Waypoint Public
Ordering a dinner entrée at a pub isn’t chief among the natural impulses in life simply because, in the past, people who cared so much for beer didn’t have time to care for dinner. That’ll be a main challenge for Waypoint: overcoming the pub crowd’s instinct for finger food. But I’ll say this: The kitchen served me two of the better dinner entrées I’ve had. First, the most perfectly cooked piece of sturgeon—brilliant sear, medium-rare inside next to duck fat forked potatoes (suggested pairing: IPA, American Wild Ale). Second, the housemade pappardelle, with a made-to-order sauce of veal jus, oyster mushrooms, butter, and Parm. It’s simplicity executed perfectly, with separated, al dente pasta ribbons and a shockingly flavorful à la minute sauce (pairing: American Brown, Belgian Dubbel).
Pan-seared roasted sturgeon
Pan-seared roasted sturgeon
The Aspen Ridge flatiron steak isn’t as successful. A friend’s order of medium-rare is served rare, and the compound butter—made with blue cheese, bacon, and sundried tomato—comes in an enormous, un-melted terrine that almost covers the entire steak. The reality is that every steak house is a butter bath. But seeing the cold, hard truth—before you dig in—is a little jarring. So maybe I’m a little too butter-dainty. For a steak pairing, Jensen recommends the Quadruple or Belgian Strong Ale.
With a full play section for kids, Waypoint has also joined the reproductive hipster movement. Nice to have a place to take our kids that doesn’t have a mascot or servers with seven-minute birthday songs. This is definitely better than your usual beer pub. And it’s a major testing ground for beer’s arrival on the dinner scene.
Waypoint Public makes once-novel beer pairing dinners an everyday thing
Waypoint Public
Waypoint Public
Knowing that wine goes with food is like knowing guitars go with rock ’n’ roll. Pairing beer with dinner, on the other hand, takes a newish kind of faith. It’s not like Escoffier made his name serving his peach melba with Belgian ale. Until the current craft beer boom, there simply wasn’t enough variety to make the experiment very exciting. (“And for course three through six, we’ll just leave this pony keg of Heineken at your table.”)
Even during craft beer’s first couple of decades, pairing it with food was a pretty awful idea. To differentiate from watered-down mainstream lagers, upstarts like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada made heavy, palate-wrecking beers. Instead of gracefully accentuating the briny oceanic flavor of a scallop, they gracefully beat the crap out of it.
But things have changed. Lighter, subtler, “session” craft beer is in. It’s a friend of food. And there’s no better place to integrate beer into the meal plan than San Diego, which is to craft beer what Napa is to angry Cabernets.
Po’boy tacos
Po’boy tacos
Chefs have tinkered with beer-pairing dinners for the last few years. Some longer than that. But the time is ripe for a full-on craft beer bistro—one with a real-deal chef and an exhaustive beer list that pretends it’s a 300-bottle wine list from the ’90s. After all, we know what to expect of wine and food. Beer and food is a largely uncharted, exciting new direction. It may not be the future, but it is a future.
And Waypoint Public is it.
Owner Brian Jensen first had success with Bottlecraft, a craft beer specialty shop. News broke last year that The Linkery was calling it a day. Loved, loathed, and highly discussed, The Linkery was the leading voice of San Diego’s farm-to-table movement. Its iconic location—a cavernous garage-style building on a prominent corner of 30th Street—is like the Sears Tower of San Diego’s most progressive part of town. Jensen took it over. Jensen is not a Starbucks franchisee, so he was already off to a good start.
Pappardelle
Pappardelle
All guesses were that he’d open yet another craft beer bar with “small plates” (read: half-assed nibbles to fulfill the “food” requirement of a liquor license). But then Jensen partnered with chef Amanda Baumgarten, a talent who’d worked as a sous in four Michelin-starred restaurants (including Melisse and Patina in L.A.) before coming to San Diego for a year at Herringbone. Their plan was a very intentional marriage of craft beer and top-notch bistro fare.
They smartly blew out the building’s last street-facing wall, making Waypoint completely roll-up garage doors on both sides. It’s just all light and air—like a yeasty greenhouse that grows stylish 30-somethings—and it’s terribly welcoming. One wall is fake shrubbery. There’s a chandelier made of antlers. And the entire southern wall is like an art gallery dedicated to this decade’s fascination with reclaimed wood. There’s door-wood, construction zone wood, fence wood, dresser drawer wood, wood wood. Above the bar are three TVs: One for the requisite ESPN, and two for the ever-changing, massive beer list, with 28 on tap and about 50 by the bottle. It’s like a NASDAQ ticker for beerheads.
Bartender Ben Marquart
Bartender Ben Marquart
Baumgarten’s menu is—well, what can we say about styles in the modern, globalized kitchen? Let’s try California-beer-French. Not many beer bars do blood sausage, and hers is made with pork blood, Belgian quad (a fancy beer), brandy, bacon, cream, and all sorts of spices. Served over toasted levain with apple butter, roasted apple, and creamed cabbage, it’s excellently sweet, with the spreadable texture that makes boudin noir so appealing (and polarizing). I try Jensen’s suggested pairing of a wee heavy Scottish Ale, and it’s a nice call—big blow for big blow. If that sounds too Michelin-starry, the excellent fried oyster tacos—with aioli, French fries, spicy slaw, and smoked tomatillo salsa—prove Baumgarten’s also adept at Louisiana pier-fishin’ food (suggested pairing: Belgian Ale, rauchbier).
Waypoint Burger
Waypoint Burger
For another app, the menu offers a warm “charred” octopus. But the crust of the single tentacle—cooked sous vide for nine hours—is the blackest I’ve ever seen. It’s a tad too close to a house fire for my tastes, even if the interior meat is perfectly tender (suggested pairing: Berliner Weisse, Gose). And with only walnut oil, lemon juice, feta, and walnuts, her kale salad feels more like a kale pile (pairing: saison, lager). Baumgarten smartly realizes that any respectable burger program should cater to the two camps—minimalists and topping-stuffers. The Waypoint has a protein load with beef patty (short rib/chuck/brisket), fried egg, mozzarella, and pulled pork (slow-braised in OJ, caramelized apples, and jalapeños). It could be overwhelming, but pickled carrots, radishes, and more jalapeños give it ample acid. For less fuss, they serve it “Public style,” which involves beef, a bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mozzarella. The best things on the plate, though, are the thick-cut fries—cooked three times (boiled, blanched, fried). The menu tells me to wash it down with an IPA. I do what menu says.
Waypoint Public
Waypoint Public
Ordering a dinner entrée at a pub isn’t chief among the natural impulses in life simply because, in the past, people who cared so much for beer didn’t have time to care for dinner. That’ll be a main challenge for Waypoint: overcoming the pub crowd’s instinct for finger food. But I’ll say this: The kitchen served me two of the better dinner entrées I’ve had. First, the most perfectly cooked piece of sturgeon—brilliant sear, medium-rare inside next to duck fat forked potatoes (suggested pairing: IPA, American Wild Ale). Second, the housemade pappardelle, with a made-to-order sauce of veal jus, oyster mushrooms, butter, and Parm. It’s simplicity executed perfectly, with separated, al dente pasta ribbons and a shockingly flavorful à la minute sauce (pairing: American Brown, Belgian Dubbel).
Pan-seared roasted sturgeon
Pan-seared roasted sturgeon
The Aspen Ridge flatiron steak isn’t as successful. A friend’s order of medium-rare is served rare, and the compound butter—made with blue cheese, bacon, and sundried tomato—comes in an enormous, un-melted terrine that almost covers the entire steak. The reality is that every steak house is a butter bath. But seeing the cold, hard truth—before you dig in—is a little jarring. So maybe I’m a little too butter-dainty. For a steak pairing, Jensen recommends the Quadruple or Belgian Strong Ale.
With a full play section for kids, Waypoint has also joined the reproductive hipster movement. Nice to have a place to take our kids that doesn’t have a mascot or servers with seven-minute birthday songs. This is definitely better than your usual beer pub. And it’s a major testing ground for beer’s arrival on the dinner scene.
From tacos to tailors and trainers to travel, these are the businesses, people, and places that earned San Diego readers' votes
San Diego Aesthetics and Med Spa
Elicia Soltesz, Elicia Marie Beauty
Ashley Fierro, Ashley Fierro Makeup
Michelle Langston, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, HNB-BC, Starlite Aesthetics
Alysa Espiritu, Afterglo Beauty Lounge
Ronnie Page, Gold Comb Barbershop North Park
Ryleigh Hunter, Headbang Salon
Ann Teresa Degischer, Maen the Salon
Lindsay Axelrod, Pixiedot Salon
Lauren Skinker, Lucky Cat Tattoo
Father Joe’s Villages Turkey Trot
The Camp Transformation Center, West Chula Vista
Singing Hills Golf Club at Sycuan
Camila Casanueva, The Yard Gym
Austin Harrington, Captain’s Quarters
Bivouac Ciderworks, Savoy Dry Apple Cider
Missi Burns, Et Voila
Prospera Internal Medicine and Aesthetics
Behind every beautiful space is a thoughtful process, and ASID San Diego is helping homeowners understand the value of professional design.
A perfectly designed home rarely happens by accident. Those kitchens that feel effortless and rooms that seem to tell a story the second you walk in? They’re usually the work of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
It’s knowing which ideas will actually work, which materials will hold up over time, and how to turn a collection of choices into a space that feels intentional. That’s where a professional interior designer comes in.
For the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) California San Diego Chapter, the goal is to help people see interior design as more than just the finished look. Behind every well-designed space is a process built on technical expertise. Designers are educated in everything from professional software and construction details to building codes, space planning, materials, and functionality.
“People don’t always realize how much goes on behind the scenes,” Kirsten Recce , current president of the ASID California San Diego Chapter, says. “Our designers are not just doing furniture placement and color selection and picking out new fluffy pillows. That’s not what they’re trained for.”
ASID members bring formal education, continued learning, and industry knowledge to their projects, helping create spaces that are not only beautiful, but designed to work. A paint color that changes completely depending on the lighting. A material that looks beautiful in a showroom but doesn’t make sense for everyday life. A layout that photographs well but doesn’t function for the people living there. These are the details where professional guidance can make all the difference.
Still, one of the biggest misconceptions about hiring an interior designer is that it’s reserved for massive renovations, luxury homes, or people who already know exactly what they want. The process can feel intimidating. Where do you begin? Is a designer worth the investment? What if you only need help with one room?
ASID’s answer: start with one hour.
ASID’s Spruce Up events break down one of the biggest barriers between homeowners and professional design: knowing where to begin. Held twice a year, the community program gives homeowners the chance to work directly with an ASID designer through a one-hour, $125 consultation in their own home. Whether you’re looking for advice on furniture placement, window treatments, kitchen and bath updates, remodeling ideas, vacation rentals, color selections or something else entirely, the upcoming September 2026 event offers an approachable way to get expert guidance before committing to a full project. Signups are open through Sept. 7, with consultations taking place Sept. 21 through Oct. 31. Proceeds benefit ASID San Diego’s educational and community programs. Register here!
“It’s a great opportunity for people who are in that exploratory phase,” Recce says. “Maybe they’re not sure they want to hire an interior designer yet, or they think it sounds daunting or expensive. This gives them a chance to discover what working with a designer is actually like.”
Design is personal. A good designer isn’t just creating a beautiful room; they’re helping create a space that fits the way someone lives.
“We’re a resource to all of San Diego County,” Recce says. “It doesn’t cost anything to pick up the phone and call and ask. We’ll answer.”
Follow ASID San Diego on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook for updates on upcoming events, or connect with the chapter directly at [email protected] or 619-548-8847.
After Captain Keno's closed, pro surfer Benji Weatherley gave its tables, dishes, and memories a second life at Breakers Cafe Bar & Grill
Captain Keno’s No. 8 special—pancakes, sausage, toast, home fries, and eggs for $2.99—was the fuel that powered Benji Weatherley for surf competitions as a teenage pro. A couple decades later, tears were shed when the Coast Highway dive-slash-eatery called it a day after 54 years. Usually, the guts of a shuttered restaurant go to liquidation auctions or straight to the dump to decompose along with its legend. Instead, Weatherley took in Keno’s spare parts—plus other relics from Encinitas’ past—and used them to build the newest community hangout.
Every single piece in the place is from somewhere in this town,” Weatherley says about Breakers Cafe Bar & Grill. “I’m not going to settle for anything less.”
Breakers is a Hawaiian hideout in an uncool part of the coastal surf town, but it’s got the set design of an Encinitas superfan. The plates, silverware, and coffee mugs are from Keno’s. So are the tables and booths. There’s a bench made from the last table preserved in The Derby House (a building that, for over a century, was a hotel, then became a hospital, a religious retreat, and a private home). Weatherley’s not performing CPR on old upholstery because he’s a fan of antique furniture. It’s a method to bring people together.
“Representing nostalgia in this town is the only way to grasp a hold of the community,” Weatherley says. “Everyone wants to touch and feel something different from what they’re experiencing on their phones.”
Every week, locals bring him photos, artifacts, and bits of paraphernalia from Encinitas’ past and ask Weatherley to give them a new home. “I’ve had ladies who were there when [Captain Keno’s] opened cry in my arms and say, ‘This table is where I had my second birthday with my grandma,’” he says. “They tell me these stories, and I tell them I have all the same stories about my mom.” (Weatherley’s mom first brought him to Keno’s and helped raise the young surfers from the Momentum Generation documentary—Weatherley, Taylor Steele, Rob Machado, Kelly Slater, etc.—as they surfed some of the world’s most dangerous waves at Pipeline in Hawaii. Back then, she owned Breakers Restaurant & Bar in Haleiwa. Name sound familiar?)
Weatherley has always been the funniest man in the room. He calls Breakers “the Chuck E. Cheese of Encinitas.” The restaurant hosts hula dancing classes, open-mic comedy nights, and evenings bartended by longtime Captain Keno’s barkeep Vaka Kaufusi. Cult-loved reggae band Steel Pulse hit the Breakers stage recently to perform a new song that Weatherley also helped write. His longtime friend Jack Johnson has dropped by to sing a few, too.
Despite not having a fancy location along the 101, people are catching on. Fire stations and hospitals have held staff parties there. Weatherley also currently sponsors four sports teams.
“Last night, I had a girl say, ‘I want my birthday party at Breakers,’” he says. “That, to me, is community in a nutshell.”
Emma Veidt is an editor at San Diego Magazine. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism. She loves running, hiking, and rock climbing, but really, she mostly loves encounters with the street cats around North Park.
Meeting new friends is a scary and sweaty venture—that’s where the city's social event planners come in
Walking into a room full of strangers isn’t high on the fun index for most. It’s inherently awkward: Everyone’s standing in closed-loop clusters, deep in conversation, and, depending on your social aptitude, the feeling is somewhere between light apprehension and burning alive from the inside out. The pull to retreat or reflexively look busy on your phone is stronger than the drink you now deeply crave. Having friends is nice, but making friends can be brutal.
There’s plenty of commentary on the loneliness epidemic. Last year, the American Psychiatric Association reported that one in three adults feel lonely at least once a week; those aged 18 to 34 are more likely to feel isolated and even more likely to turn to social media as a result. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s “My Parting Prescription for America” cautioned that “being socially disconnected increases our risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, anxiety, and premature death.” So it’s not just an emotional need; it’s nearly nutritional—chit-chat and the occasional wine-fueled, emotional deep-dive are just as important as Pilates and a reasonable amount of kale.
Finding social connections in any city is hard, but San Diego has very specific challenges. This is largely a transient population that acts as a temporary hotspot for many and a permanent home for few. Pick your reason: high rent, surreal gas prices, housing shortage, meh job opportunities (ranked 71st in the country in 2025), or the fact that active military is a sizable chunk of us (110,000-ish)—stationed here for a stretch, then gone. This constant flow of departees sucks out the potential for deeply established families and friend groups, leaving a good share of nomads, searchers, and plenty of people feeling socially awkward.
“There’s an underlying loneliness in all of us,” says Ramel Wallace, the host of monthly meetup CreativeMornings. “There are not a lot of San Diegans who are born and raised here, so [even those] San Diegans end up being just as lonely as the person who just got here.”
Every month, in local libraries, breweries, and small businesses, there are ambitious social architects who have made a career out of undoing social sads. Extroverted champions of the awkward and searching, they’ve struck gold on in-person connection.
The first moments in a social situation are crucial. Sets the tone and cools the nerves.
At Pitch-A-Friend, singles recruit their close friends to present a slideshow of their dating green flags. The entry points for connection at Pitch-A-Friend are simple, old tech: stickers. Each colored sticker indicates if the wearer is single or taken, queer or straight, or practicing ethical non-monogamy (in a partnership but open to others under a mutual understanding).
At the helm of each showcase is Arielle Fuller, aka Chief Wingwoman, who is making dating hopeful again. As Fuller explains, this takes some of the fear of rejection out of a first interaction. “Putting a sticker on immediately means, ‘I wanted to leave my house and talk to someone, and I am a safe space to come and speak to me,’” she says.
Of course, not all of San Diego’s events designed to make connections are romantic. On the last Friday of every month, hundreds gather at San Diego Central Library for the local chapter of CreativeMornings—an org formed to unite creatives in various cities across the world (designers, artists, writers, producers, performers, architects, etc.).
These aren’t your standard business card swaps, though. Coming from a hip-hop background, host Wallace uses call-and-response to break the fourth wall. “This is not my stage at all, this is our stage,” he says.
In your standard lecture-based meetup, the crowd silently faces the host and acknowledges nobody except those they came with. At CreativeMornings, everyone is encouraged to look around, pay attention to the strangers in the audience—not just the host. Wallace will pull volunteers to read the CM manifesto aloud, and he passes the mic to creatives, who make 30-second pitches to the community about projects they’re working on—and there’s always an invitation to connect and collaborate with the presenters whose ideas struck a chord.
The U.S. Chamber of Connection (yes it exists) says people experience life transitions nearly every year, and in these stretches are more open to forming new habits, relationships, and communities. In a revolving-door city like ours, the transition often comes when someone moves away. In 2023, the Census Bureau reported San Diego had the ninth-highest rates of domestic out-migration in the US.
This poses an issue for friendships that IRL SD addresses in monthly friend-making events called 619 Night.
“San Diego isn’t a place a lot of people stay forever,” says Alex Hunter, the creator of IRL SD. “They leave, and people [who stay] lose that community, so they’re hungry for community again.”
Their website describes the vibe as “backyard party meets college fair meets networking event meets happy hour.” Each follows a theme—wellness, sports, refresh and reset, etc.—with related community groups joining as well.
“The people I encounter are trying to get a fresh start in some capacity, so they’re more open, receptive, and ready to meet new friends,” Hunter says. “They need the circle.”
Another way adults can break out of this disconnection is to revert in unison, says artist Elisa Summiel-Bey. The 2015-ish adult coloring book moment in the US was based on some real science, with multiple studies finding coloring has a noticeable meditative and stress-release effect by taking the brain away from anxieties and mental inventories, and focusing it on a simple, easy art. Summiel-Bey’s company Illustrated Melanin throws “Color & Chill” events, turning that trend into a group exercise, along with live DJ sets, wellness experts doing sound baths, and food and drink from BIPOC-owned local businesses. “I tend to think of coloring as your way to tap back into your childlike play,” she says. “As adults, I think we’re almost scared to let loose and have that unabashed joy.”
All of these social meetups attract crowds of likeminded connection-seekers, but high attendance is not the only thing that matters. Metrics nuts can track RSVPs, but spreadsheets can’t capture intangible wins: friendships made, innovative ideas sparked, collaborations kicked off. At CreativeMornings, Wallace redefines ROI as Return On Imagination. Resounding success means thoughtful inquiries over coffee, curiosity about the monthly meeting themes, and requests to take the microphone.
A simple, observable ROI is an increased number of window shoppers to the experience—on the periphery, watching from afar, looking for the right way in. Hunter from IRL SD sees the anxiety in her DMs. “The scariest part for you right now is not meeting new friends: It’s the unknown,” she says. “It’s the gap between ‘I’m here’ and ‘That’s where I need to be.’ If I can help you understand, or get a little bit of a shape around that unknown, it’s much more approachable.”
Being able to bridge that gap, however, depends on your ability to step out of your own mind. “It’s not a connection crisis; it’s a courage and confidence crisis,” says Fuller. The first hello could be as easy as, “Hey, cool shirt.” These are the types of things she includes in her confidence lab reels on Instagram and weekly newsletters.
Ever left a social event and shot straight into a spiral? Was I being weird? Why did I tell that story? I hope that person moves to another state very soon.
The experts say that post-event self-interrogation is a standard-issue part of being alive.
“I love awkward people, and I love being awkward myself,” says Wallace. “It’s humbling to experience: ‘I’m not alone. Finally someone is not put together.’ So give yourself that grace.”
Jeannine Boisse (she/her) is a freelance writer and professional creative with a background in Radio & Television. Based in sunny San Diego, Jeannine spends her time exploring the city's vibrant brewery scene, cooking up new recipes in the kitchen, and connecting with new people.
How local orthopedic specialists are pioneering the future of foot and ankle care
Your feet and ankles probably aren’t something you give much thought to—until something goes wrong. Orthopedic surgeons at Scripps Clinic are on the leading edge of foot and ankle reconstruction, treating patients with sports injuries, deformities, traumatic injuries and other conditions. That includes repairing torn Achilles tendons with a minimally invasive procedure that shrinks the incision site to less than a centimeter, and performing advanced ankle replacement on some patients with ankle arthritis. Read more about Scripps’ innovations in foot and ankle care here.
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