Convenience Is Stealing Our Community (And We’re Letting It)
Delivery apps, AI, and “frictionless” everything promised to give us time back - but what we traded away were the very skills and social rituals that make life feel full. This piece looks at how we’ve started choosing convenience over connection, why de-skilling is a queer issue as much as a cultural one, and what it would look like to rebuild a life that requires us again.
What a Year of Pitching and Starting Get Out Actually Taught Me
Twelve months of putting Get Out in front of rooms, investors, founders, and friends looked impressive from the outside - Enterprize pitch, community calendar, volunteer tool - but under the surface it was messier, slower, and more human than launch-day narratives ever admit. This is the story of how the idea evolved, where it stalled, what I learned about my own capacity (and limits), and why I’m bringing someone in to help grow what I still believe in.
Why I Run (and Why I Keep Going)
After losing eight friends in six years, I wasn’t suicidal — but I wasn’t really living either. Running gave me a reason to move again. It became meditation, therapy, and a quiet rebellion against despair. Every kilometre said, “You’re still here.”
What True Wealth Looks Like (and How I Forgot It for a Minute)
For a while, I kept Get Out running on autopilot - ticking boxes, doing the right things, but feeling the spark fade. Then I read new research on purpose and realised I’d stopped doing the one thing that made all this feel alive: contributing. Happiness, it turns out, isn’t found in chasing more. It’s in giving something meaningful away.
The Art of Staying After the High
There’s a kind of silence that follows transformation — the hush after the confetti, the stillness after the summit, the hangover after the hope. When I first got sober, no one told me the hardest part wouldn’t be quitting. It would be staying.
Learning to Belong to Myself
Coming out was freedom - but what came after? We explore belonging, authenticity, and the quiet courage of becoming yourself.
What Regret Taught Me (So You Don’t Have to Learn the Hard Way)
Coming out was never the hard part - staying true once the noise began was. I spent years chasing belonging through busyness, mistaking visibility for value. When the mask cracked, I learned something quieter but more enduring: peace isn’t found in being everywhere, it’s built by being honest somewhere. Sobriety, structure, and small rituals didn’t make life smaller - they made it real.
National Coming Out Day: The Year I Stopped Performing (and Started Telling the Truth)
Coming out isn’t just about disclosure - it’s about honesty. In this deeply personal reflection for National Coming Out Day, we explore what happens after the big reveal: the quiet unlearning of performance, the rebuilding of trust, and the courage to stop editing yourself for approval. From Sydney socialite nights to sober mornings that finally feel real, this piece celebrates truth-telling as the ultimate form of self-care - and community as the place where that truth can breathe.
Stop Waiting for a Sign: How to Build Meaning (and Guard Your Life) Without Magic
Coincidences feel like winks from the universe. “Find your passion” promises a perfect fit. Both can keep us stuck. Meaning isn’t discovered; it’s developed. Passion isn’t a soulmate; it’s a relationship you build through reps, friction, and identity. This essay trades omens for agency: shrink the unit of decision, pick a place, invite one person, and practice consistency. There’s a harm-reduction edge too—daylight plans and shared containers protect queer lives from drift and chemsex pressures. Signs can delight you; they just don’t get to steer.
The Companionship Effect: Why Doing Life With People Beats Hustle, Hacks, and Heroics
Most self-help advice is a solo sport: get up earlier, grind harder, optimise smarter. But a huge time-use study shows something simpler—and kinder: almost everything feels better when you don’t do it alone. From co-working to co-errands to low-key “parallel play,” shared rhythms lift mood, make habits stick, and protect mental health (especially for queer folks navigating loneliness or chemsex pressures). This piece swaps lone-wolf optimization for social fitness—tiny, repeatable touch points that make ordinary weeks easier, lighter, and more human.
The Mindful Miles: How Exercise Teaches Us to Slow Down, Breathe, and Be
Exercise doesn’t just strengthen the body - it can quiet the mind. Slowing down into zone 2 running or mindful movement offers a rare stillness in motion, a state where stress eases and presence takes over. This piece explores how mindfulness and exercise intertwine, from scientific evidence on mood-boosting neurochemicals to the lived reality of finding peace through steady effort.
The Myth of Earning Love Through Work
Many of us grow up believing love must be earned through achievement, effort, and endless work. But this belief often leaves us exhausted, lonely, and disconnected from what matters most. Drawing on psychology, personal finance wisdom, and end-of-life reflections, this piece explores the myth of “earning” love, why so many of us fall into the trap, and how to choose differently — reclaiming joy, connection, and presence in the process.
Love, Out Loud (Even When We Disagree)
What if happiness isn’t found in the dream house, the perfect partner, or the algorithm that promises you connection, but in something far less glamorous? A coffee shared with strangers. A difficult truth spoken with kindness. A ritual repeated often enough that it becomes belonging. We think joy is a climax — a wedding, a promotion, a viral moment. But the science (and the stories of ordinary people) keep showing us that happiness is much quieter, more human, and infinitely closer than we realise.
Forty, Without the Filter: Notes on Getting Older, Getting Real, and Getting a Life
Turning forty feels less like joining the “This Is 40” Instagram brigade and more like finally meeting myself. I don’t have the dream house, a partner on my arm, or thirst traps to prove I still “look good for my age.” What I do have is sobriety, friendships that last longer than a weekend, and a body and mind I can actually trust. This isn’t about being “blessed.” It’s about being real, reflective, and quietly proud of progress over perfection.
The 4:30 a.m. Club: Why Early Starts + Hard Effort Changed My Brain (and Might Protect Your Health)
Exercise isn’t just “good for you” — it may directly change your blood chemistry in ways that suppress cancer cell growth. We unpack new findings from exercise-oncology, why high-intensity intervals spike helpful myokines, and how resistance work builds the muscle that makes those signals stronger. Add the mental edge of early starts — better mood, cleaner focus — and you’ve got a morning protocol that’s about more than abs; it’s agency. Practical templates included, whether you’re rebuilding or levelling up.
The Partner Plot Twist: What If Dating Isn’t the Main Story?
If every conversation ends with “So, seeing anyone?”—you’re not imagining it. We’re culturally obsessed with coupling, even as apps turbo-charge snap judgments and fuel loneliness. This piece makes the case for stepping off the treadmill: prioritising friendship, purpose, and community over performance dating. With fresh research on swipes, AI “companions,” and why stated preferences rarely match real choices, here’s how to choose connection that lasts—whether or not it leads to a relationship.
Where to from here?
When I started Get Out in Hobart, I was lonely, part-time, and determined to build a simple bridge between people and their local communities. We’ve built it — and it works. What comes next depends on you. Should we add people, add time, or add investment? Tell us how you connect, what you care about, and where we should focus so Get Out serves real needs, not assumptions. Help shape the next chapter.
Am I OK? A True Answer for R U OK? Day
For years my answer to “R U OK?” was no. I numbed, I spiralled, and I couldn’t picture life getting better. One honest sentence — “I’m not OK” — led to 30 days in hospital and a slow rebuild built on therapy, movement, and showing up. Today my answer is yes. If yours isn’t, borrow my belief and start with one conversation. I’ll listen.
Wear It Purple, Wear It Proud
Wear It Purple isn’t about cupcakes — it’s about belonging that saves lives. Growing up in Tasmania, I learned to mask fear by overachieving. Today, I wear purple so rainbow young people see what I couldn’t: ordinary, safe, proud futures. This piece shares the why, the youth reality, and simple ways schools and workplaces can make it real.
How to Rebuild Friendship: Small Habits That Stick
I tried to optimise my way out of loneliness; it didn’t work. What has: being kinder to my brain and treating friendship like a practice. This field note blends neuroscience (micro-delights, cognitive appraisal), queer midlife reality, and six repeatable habits that make showing up easier — and connection stick.