A familiar face can become important before a friendship has had time to form.

Belonging often begins below the level of friendship. The person at the bus stop, the neighbor you nod to: none of them know anything about your life, and yet their presence is part of what makes a place feel like yours. You notice how much they mattered when one of them stops appearing.

Give the familiar faces in your week a little more than a nod. A name, a sentence, a comment about the weather that is slightly more real than usual. You are not obliged to turn any of it into friendship. A neighborhood is made mostly of people who recognize each other.