Why this exists
We have never been more geographically close, or more socially distant.
We pass hundreds of people every day in the street and know none of them. Worse, we never feel we have permission to say hello. Everyone is busy, everyone has earphones in, and walking up to a stranger feels like a thing you need a reason for.
So we made the reason. OK, team. is a board that gives people permission to say hello. Not creepy overtures, not weird vibes. Shared interests and things to do. Somebody says "I run on Tuesdays and I'd love someone to run with", and that is the whole invitation.
It is not a dating app. There are no profiles, no photos, no messages, and nothing that tells you whether anyone is coming. It is an "I'll be at the pergola with my knitting at ten, come if you like" app. If running isn't your thing, there's pick-up soccer, or knitting, or reading, or something really radical like sitting quietly in the park admiring the view. Somebody is already doing it. The board just tells you where.
What we believe
- Loneliness is poison, at every age, and the cure is not another screen. It is a bench, a beach, a library, and one person who says hello.
- The places already exist. Parks, foreshores, libraries and community centres are free and public. What was missing was a way to know something is happening in them today.
- Nobody should be made to feel unwanted. So there are no RSVPs, no counts, no "seen by", and nobody is ever asked whether anyone came.
- Nobody should be tracked or trapped. No account needed to look, no tracking, no data mining, no advertising to the people who use it, public places only, and a verified mobile behind every account so a real person is accountable.
- Going anyway. Every notice is someone doing a thing they were going to do regardless. Turning up is welcome, never expected.
It started on Hobart's eastern shore, made by a local GP and the people around him who were tired of watching loneliness walk into the clinic. It is free, it has no ads, and it is run by a community association that answers to its members. If it ever can't be run on those terms, it should stop.