Friend Matching: Connection, Belonging, and Quality of Life

This blog post is part of a weekly newsletter written by Elizabeth, founder and CEO of Welbi. Subscribe to get this newsletter every week.

Home is Where Your People Are

I’ve heard it said that “home is where your people are.” Our people are family, of course, but also our friends and the small relationships in our daily lives.

Moving to a new location challenges our sense of home because our people have changed. The people we’ve known for a long time may not be as physically present, and our new people… we don’t know them yet!

Our VP of Marketing, Marko, recently moved across Canada, moving to a new province with very few connections there. It’s a scary thing, to move your life away from your existing people. When Marko shared online that he was moving, a friend of his introduced him to a potential friend before the move. She thought they had mutual interests (cooking), career backgrounds (tech industry), shared values, and community affiliation (LGBTQ+).

On getting to the new province, Marko met this potential new friend right away. It was a great match for friendship. This friend has since introduced him to many new other friends, brought him to social events, and helped him embed very quickly into a new community. In short order, this new province has felt like home because of the people.

This friendship has changed the course of Marko’s life. Without this friend, Marko’s move would have been very different: more isolated, more alone, and struggling to make real connections into the community. It may not have been a successful move, or it would have taken years instead of months to truly feel like home.

Instead, after some excellent friend matching, Marko is thriving in his new province.

This instinct to connect, to belong, to find people who resonate with us. That ability to spark a friendship is life-changing.

And it's too often overlooked in senior living.

Why Friendships Matter More as We Age

There’s a mountain of evidence showing that friendship is a foundational driver of health and happiness for older adults:

• Decades-long studies like the Harvard Study of Adult Development show quality relationships at age 50 forecast health at age 80 (Cambridge University Press)
• Social connection works to buffers stress, strengthens immune response, and supports emotional well-being while "social isolation or loneliness in older adults is associated with a 50% increased risk of developing dementia, a 30% increased risk of incident coronary artery disease or stroke, and a 26% increased risk of all-cause mortality."  (NASEM meta study),
• What matters isn’t the number of friends: it's how meaningful those friendships are, especially for older adults (Psychology & Aging)

In later life, we often shed the superficial and lean into friendships rooted in shared values, interests, or history. These bring emotional satisfaction in ways other relationships can’t.

Friend Matching is About Belonging

When someone moves into a community, they’re often asking an unspoken question: Will I belong here?

Friend matching answers that question before they even ask.

At Welbi, we see our clients take assessments beyond resident interests, to capture the heart of who someone is: their career, hobbies, ways of connecting, their life story. Not just facts. That enables us to pair them with residents who make them feel seen and included.

It’s not matchmaking for matchmaking’s sake, but emotional alignment that fosters confidence, boosts mood, and turns “newcomer” into “neighbor” into “friend.”

How It Works

Here’s how thoughtful friend matching can be built into your process:

• Capture what matters early via assessments: life story including career, language, religion, favorite pastimes, music, sense of humor, or whether someone prefers small groups versus one-on-one chats. The small details matter here.
• Use your insights: Identify patterns with residents (our customers use Welbi for this), then introduce newly matched residents during tours, coffee hours, or activities.
• Keep it evolving: Friend matching is a key part of onboarding, but it is also a key part of a resident’s experience with you over their years in a community. As resident populations change (and people settle into their new communities), make sure that long staying residents continue to have vibrant friendship.

Community-Wide Benefits

The range of benefits aren't only for individual benefits, but in creating social norms and cohesion: the culture of your community. The results helps everyone:

• Stronger retention: Residents engaged through friendships stay happier and tend to stay longer.
• Better wellbeing: Social connection delays cognitive decline, improves mood, and even extends lifespan.
• A more welcoming culture: When your community normalizes connection, it's something that can be felt from prospective residents to families to staff. This place feels like home.

At the end, it’s not activity, it’s humanity reminding us we belong.

Thanks for reading,
Elizabeth Audette-Bourdeau
CEO, Welbi