SAM DINGMAN: Last week, I spoke to KJZZ contributor Amanda Kehrberg about why Phoenix can be a tricky place to make friends. It's a question I started thinking about, in part because of the significant number of people I'd seen on social media platforms posting callouts for community, just openly asking the Internet for friends.
Jalen Layfield noticed this, too. And he decided to do something about it — here’s a clip from a video he posted on his TikTok channel, Jay’s Conversations, back in December:
JALEN LAYFIELD: "If you live in the Phoenix area and you've been looking for something to do, I got just the thing for you. In 2026, we are launching a conversations club. Each month between January and May, we'll read some sort of literature, watch some sort of media source on our own, and then we'll have an experience that we'll do together.
For January, for example, we're gonna go to a museum, and then afterwards we'll meet up to talk about it.
DINGMAN: Layfield lives and works here in Phoenix — he moved here about two and a half years ago. His conversation club is now in its fourth month — and Jalen takes it very seriously.
On his website, he posts a monthly syllabus — articles to read, movies to watch — he’s hosting an upcoming screening of "Judas and the Black Messiah," for example.
And starting this weekend, he’s opening the brick-and-mortar Jay's Conversations Bookstore in Tempe’s Culdesac neighborhood, where he’ll have books for sale that the club has talked about, and host gatherings.
It’s a lot to manage, but as Jalen told me recently, he welcomes the challenge. He said he knew from the response to his TikTok video that people were craving something like this.
JALEN LAYFIELD: The response was amazing. I had about like 900 responses on like, a Google form.
SAM DINGMAN: Nine hundred responses?
LAYFIELD: Nine hundred.
DINGMAN: So that to me suggests a significant desire for something like what you're doing in Phoenix.
What has been your experience of the process of making friends, getting social groups together in Phoenix? Have you found it difficult, personally?
LAYFIELD: Yes, I found it very difficult personally. So I'm from Georgia and then I moved to LA to go to school, and after school I graduated and I moved to Phoenix and I didn't know anybody in Phoenix and I started working in corporate America and I was like, OK, like, where are my people at?
And people, for some reason don't seem to be as open to engage in community, although everybody here seems to want it.
DINGMAN: Did you try when you started your corporate job to seek out this kind of interaction with coworkers or did it seem like they just weren't into it?
LAYFIELD: I have very like, strict boundaries when it comes to like, work personal. So like, I don't seek out, let's say, like these sorts of interactions with coworkers.
DINGMAN: Tell me more about that.
LAYFIELD: Yes, it's just something that I have maybe learned or something that I've put up for myself in terms of just like, hey, when I'm at work, I don't want to bleed into my personal life too much just because if we're being honest, like my club and like, what I represent and like what I talk about are things that are not typically supposed to be talked about at work.
DINGMAN: So the theme for the first month of the conversation club was resisting fascism. I can see where that might be the kind of thing where if you bring that up to somebody at work who maybe doesn't, does not agree that there is fascism to be resisted, that could be awkward for you.
LAYFIELD: Yes, very much so.
DINGMAN: Gotcha. Can I ask, you don't have to be specific, but what kind of corporate environment do you work in?
LAYFIELD: Actually, can we not?
DINGMAN: Yeah, yeah, that's fine. The reason I'm interested is I have found this — I don't know how old you are ...
LAYFIELD: I'm 26.
DINGMAN: You're 26. OK. I am 43. And something that has come up for me a lot in the conversations I've had about this issue that we're driving at here is how much. Speaking very generally, folks from my generation, millennials, have historically looked to coworkers for friendship.
LAYFIELD: Oh, now this is something we could talk about. Sorry, you just ignited something out of me.
DINGMAN: OK, so tell me more about that.
LAYFIELD: Yes. So this is actually something that I find to be very interesting and something that I see is millennials looking to coworkers for friendships. And I think it is also one of the reasons why I don't do that. And it's because I feel like when we work in an environment where like, we have to rely on each other and we rely on each other to like, fend for ourselves.
Like we need our paychecks, like, you know, mortgages and bills are paid, then I think you're more willing to let some things slide. Like if I don't agree with something that you're saying, not saying that we can't disagree, but if I have like a fundamental kind of like, boundary that I have in place of like, hey, I believe in this thing and you don't. I still have to, like, try to be friendly with you, and it's not something that I want to have to do.
And one thing that a lot of people mentioned is that they, like, start to become maybe friends with someone, or they start to kind of talk to someone, and then they find out that they have this view, viewpoint that they fundamentally don't agree with.
And people wanted a space where it's like, OK, we have a baseline. Like, I know everyone here believes in human rights, or I know everyone here believes in these fundamental things.
DINGMAN: And this is actually copy that you have on your website, correct?
LAYFIELD: It's like, basically, if you're a Trump supporter or if you're someone who doesn't believe in fundamental, like, human rights, then this will not be the most productive space for you.
Everybody is welcome. This is not, this is something I'm very clear about. This is not just an echo chamber of, like, oh, yes, and we all just agree with each other. We disagree with each other, but we do it in a respectful manner. And we also don't disagree with people's fundamental right to exist and just live.
DINGMAN: Can I ask, how has that played out in the gatherings you've had so far? I know you're only, as we're talking right now, this would be month four, but has there been any friction about that, or have you found it to be an echo chamber? How has that gone?
LAYFIELD: Yeah, it's literally been no friction. Like, we do disagree with each other.
DINGMAN: About what? Like, what are some things people have disagreed about?
LAYFIELD: Basically, somebody said something along the lines of they think that something is, like, physically, mentally wrong with, like, Trump supporters in the way that they believe in things. And I made the assertion that I don't think that's the case. I think that it's an active choice for people to support a president who is known to be an offender, like, to be a terrible human being at their core. I think it's a choice.
DINGMAN: That does sound like a very interesting conversation, I have to say.
LAYFIELD: Yes. Yes. And it all, like, it wasn't the start of the conversation.
DINGMAN; No, of course.
LAYFIELD: Yeah, we just kind of like. And then we got there, and I was like, OK.
DINGMAN: Did that come out of one of the books or the movies that you were discussing?
LAYFIELD: Yeah, it came out of a book. We were talking about "Blackdom." It was a community in New Mexico, like, a Black community in New Mexico. And we were reading a book on that, and that came out.
DINGMAN: So you've been doing this for we were just saying this is. You're entering month four. You are curating multiple events a month. You're maintaining a curriculum. You're opening a bookstore ... You also have this 9 to 5 job. Are you losing your mind?
LAYFIELD: Absolutely. Like, genuine, like, genuinely. Absolutely. My boyfriend, like, yells, not yells at me, but I drink a Celsius, like, every day, and I should not, and I need to stop, but I'm genuinely. I'm so tired.
DINGMAN: Well, part of the reason I ask is because I could imagine a version of this where you start a club like this because you kind of ultimately want it to be obsolete. You know what I mean?
Like, you start a club like this as a way of fostering a bunch of connections, and then hopefully those become organic and don't necessitate the infrastructure that you've built up around this anymore. But you're really leaning into building what sounds like a really sustainable infrastructure around this.
LAYFIELD: Yes, I want both things to happen. Like, what happens is I want to build this infrastructure where, like, hey, this is a community space for you all to come into, to enjoy, to engage. But also when we're doing club events or we're around each other, exchange information and exchange numbers and Instagrams and go out and do things, and that's what's been happening, which is really nice, and it's even happening on my part.
I'm going out. I'm going to dinner with a couple from one of the club events. So I really like them, and I feel like we could be friends. And I'm going to dinner at their house, and I've gone to lunch with some other people, and I've, like, done things with people, and I want that to happen. And this is outside of the club, quote, unquote, like, environment.
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Recently, a company called Timeleft has been targeting 30-something folks on social media, showing attendees laughing and toasting at cocktail bars and restaurants. -
For the last couple weeks, The Show's Sam Dingman has been exploring the various ways people find friendship and community here in the Valley — a place where it’s not always easy to do that. -
Jalen lives and works here in Phoenix — he moved here about two and a half years ago. His conversation club is now in its fourth month — and Jalen takes it very seriously. -
If you spend enough time scrolling through TikTok, you might stumble into a curious corner of the algorithm: people making videos of themselves openly asking the internet to help them find friends
