The loneliness isn't a feed problem

Published May 22, 2026 · HMNTY — Find things to do. Meet people who go.

Most weeks I hear some version of the same thing from someone in Omaha:

> "I have friends. I just don't see them."

It's the tell. Loneliness in 2026 isn't really about not knowing anyone. The people you'd love to spend a Wednesday night with are alive, well, employed, and within a fifteen-minute drive. You scroll past them every morning.

The gap isn't relationships. The gap is plans.

Feeds are the wrong tool

When people feel disconnected, the apps love to point them at more content. More posts. More stories. More algorithmic suggestions of who they should be jealous of next.

That's not a fix. That's the thing that broke it in the first place.

Watching curated moments from twelve different friend groups gives you the texture of a social life without any of the substance. You log off knowing what everyone did this weekend and having done nothing yourself. The feed is the cheap food. It fills you up, then leaves you tired and slightly worse off.

The honest answer is that nobody ever felt less lonely from scrolling. People feel less lonely from being somewhere, in a room, with other people, for a stretch of time long enough that someone says something honest.

The math is simple and a little embarrassing

The thing that fixes the friend you "haven't seen in forever" is the same thing that fixed it in 2004: somebody picks a place and a time, somebody texts about it, and people show up.

The only reason that has gotten harder is that the surface area for picking the place and time has scattered. It's in three group texts, two Facebook events, an Instagram DM, a Discord, and a calendar invite a coworker sent that you forgot to RSVP to. Nobody is in charge of the plan. So the plan dies.

That's the entire problem HMNTY is built around. One place. One list. One tap to say "I'll be there."

What "real plans" actually mean

We talk a lot about "real plans with real people" and it's not just a tagline. It's a forcing function for what does and doesn't go in the app.

• A picture of someone else's dinner is not a plan. ❌
• A 90-second video of a stranger's vacation is not a plan. ❌
• "Trivia at Beercade, Tuesday 7pm, six chairs open" is a plan. ✅
• "Pickup soccer at Memorial Park, Sunday 10am, bring water" is a plan. ✅
• "Run club, 6am at Aksarben, slow pace, all welcome" is a plan. ✅

We don't show you what people did. We show you what's about to happen and how to be there.

That's a small distinction in product terms. It's a huge distinction in how the next month of your life feels.

A short, awkward truth

I built HMNTY because I needed it. I moved back to Omaha, I had a couple close friends here, and I still had three or four weeknights a week with nothing on them. The problem wasn't that Omaha was boring. The problem was that the boring was me, sitting on a couch, opening an app, and being told what was already over.

The first version of HMNTY I shipped was just a list of things happening in town this week and a button that said "I'll be there." The second the button existed, my Tuesdays got better. Not because the app was clever. Because there was now a place where the plan lived.

We're a long way from done. But that's the bet. The loneliness isn't a feed problem. It's a plans problem. And plans are something a small, focused app can actually fix.

Find things to do. Meet people who go. That's it. That's the whole thing.

HMNTY is live in Omaha. Free. Available on the App Store. Android is coming.

If you're in Omaha and you want a hand getting your first plan on the calendar this week, write to me at support@hmnty.app. I read everything.

— Michael, Founder