The case for hanging out(slate.com)
slate.com
The case for hanging out
https://slate.com/culture/2023/02/hanging-out-sheila-liming-book-friendship-crisis.html
182 comments
I think things were going that way for a while, but in recent generations (millenial and Z) this is going the opposite way where the third place is emerging again.
So many people I know are doing stuff, like joining a pickup soccer league, rock climbing, board gaming, video gaming, gardening, surfing, knitting, hacking, making, etc. All of these interests come with their own new circle of friends you meet, who I then meet through knowing you when you invite your soccer team to your birthday party. People will keep up these things even when they have kids.
My parents generation never seemed to do any of this. They were contented with basically not socializing or engaging much beyond what they already knew, never taking personal trips or even eating out even though they can afford it, just staying busy with the house making tasks for themselves, since there is really no limit of potential repairs or projects to do around a house if you don't limit yourself (e.g. you don't need to polish the floors that many times a year). In my generation it seems like everyone has something they are really into that isn't work or their immediate family. You see this starting to shift how these suburban towns you grew up in look like, too. Main street suburbia is no longer dead antique shops. There's now an arthouse cinema, axe throwing, duck pin bowling, and a brewery.
So many people I know are doing stuff, like joining a pickup soccer league, rock climbing, board gaming, video gaming, gardening, surfing, knitting, hacking, making, etc. All of these interests come with their own new circle of friends you meet, who I then meet through knowing you when you invite your soccer team to your birthday party. People will keep up these things even when they have kids.
My parents generation never seemed to do any of this. They were contented with basically not socializing or engaging much beyond what they already knew, never taking personal trips or even eating out even though they can afford it, just staying busy with the house making tasks for themselves, since there is really no limit of potential repairs or projects to do around a house if you don't limit yourself (e.g. you don't need to polish the floors that many times a year). In my generation it seems like everyone has something they are really into that isn't work or their immediate family. You see this starting to shift how these suburban towns you grew up in look like, too. Main street suburbia is no longer dead antique shops. There's now an arthouse cinema, axe throwing, duck pin bowling, and a brewery.
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> In my generation it seems like everyone has something they are really into that isn't work or their immediate family.
Not all zoomers. I pretty much confine myself to work, lurking online, occasional periods of HN commenting, drinking, and the occasional walk or hike. Just biding my time and collecting my tech TC. When I get into late 20s and am rich, then I'll think about doing those things.
> Main street suburbia is no longer dead antique shops. There's now an arthouse cinema, axe throwing, duck pin bowling, and a brewery.
I always hear junior tech workers and interns saying how much they do these rock climbing/top golf/etc. type of activities. I always assumed they were signaling. Maybe it's great and more people should try axe throwing.
Not all zoomers. I pretty much confine myself to work, lurking online, occasional periods of HN commenting, drinking, and the occasional walk or hike. Just biding my time and collecting my tech TC. When I get into late 20s and am rich, then I'll think about doing those things.
> Main street suburbia is no longer dead antique shops. There's now an arthouse cinema, axe throwing, duck pin bowling, and a brewery.
I always hear junior tech workers and interns saying how much they do these rock climbing/top golf/etc. type of activities. I always assumed they were signaling. Maybe it's great and more people should try axe throwing.
>When I get into late 20s and am rich, then I'll think about doing those things.
This is pretty unhealthy honestly. As I got out of my early 20s my worldview on a lot of this sort of "hole up and just grind, rest later" has changed a lot. Who knows what your late 20s will be like? I've seen them end up going all sorts of ways for different people. Maybe you will end up with some expensive medical condition, maybe you will just be older and not have the body you had in the early 20s. Some of your friends and loved ones will have died by then, you might even die, who knows? Live today for today, because there's no guarantee for a tomorrow. If this lifestyle makes you happy then by all means do what makes you happy, since avoiding stress is very important to a healthy long life, but don't ever defer enjoyment or happiness to some later time you assume will happen.
This is pretty unhealthy honestly. As I got out of my early 20s my worldview on a lot of this sort of "hole up and just grind, rest later" has changed a lot. Who knows what your late 20s will be like? I've seen them end up going all sorts of ways for different people. Maybe you will end up with some expensive medical condition, maybe you will just be older and not have the body you had in the early 20s. Some of your friends and loved ones will have died by then, you might even die, who knows? Live today for today, because there's no guarantee for a tomorrow. If this lifestyle makes you happy then by all means do what makes you happy, since avoiding stress is very important to a healthy long life, but don't ever defer enjoyment or happiness to some later time you assume will happen.
> [your lifestyle] is pretty unhealthy honestly
I still vaguely remember this discussion from Walden from when I read it 10 years ago:
> "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
> The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day’s solitude...
> ... He wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and “the blues;” but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
> Consider the girls in a factory,—never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.
There is more than one way to live, and it's not a sickness not to eagerly participate in social axe throwing et. al. I think it's great that some people like it. But I don't think not doing it is missing too much. Life is long.
I still vaguely remember this discussion from Walden from when I read it 10 years ago:
> "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
> The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day’s solitude...
> ... He wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and “the blues;” but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
> Consider the girls in a factory,—never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.
There is more than one way to live, and it's not a sickness not to eagerly participate in social axe throwing et. al. I think it's great that some people like it. But I don't think not doing it is missing too much. Life is long.
I'm not telling you to go throw axes if that's what you aren't into. I was just honing in on your point that you'd make time for your life after you are older and rich, and how that isn't a great mindset because things can sometimes change dramatically from your expectations. That's all. Again, if you are happy with how you live your life, by all means, its just that your initial comment indicated to me that you were perhaps putting off some happiness and living for a later date that comes with expectations that might not get met. Life is long, if you luck out and live long, but you will learn eventually how temporary life and good health really are.
As someone who did what you talk about for quite some time, life is not long. There is a reason that carpe diem is a durable enough phrase to have survived millennia.
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It has a long tail but all the fat is in the beginning.
Depends on how you live life. I have seen people even in their 60s and 70s have a very rich life, especially as money can buy things that are usually not accessible for those in their 20s who are still building their wealth.
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Hopefully, I think the generation after Gen-Z will rebel against a lot of that on your list. I'm already noticing my nieces and nephews make a point to spend time with their real-life friends even when their parents are glued to their phones.
They are a generation who collectively "lost" a year because of zoom home schooling and so they all seem to make a point to have other outside activities to connect with their friends on. I know most of us had that too, but for some reason it seems more important to them than it did even for me.
They are a generation who collectively "lost" a year because of zoom home schooling and so they all seem to make a point to have other outside activities to connect with their friends on. I know most of us had that too, but for some reason it seems more important to them than it did even for me.
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> - Needlessly intense working conditions and / or working remotely has taken away the "second place", where you would typically "hang out" with your co-workers.
> - The digital age has moved the location of many common past-times from a public "third place" to your private bedroom.
Rent a co-working space with your friends!
> - The digital age has moved the location of many common past-times from a public "third place" to your private bedroom.
Rent a co-working space with your friends!
This hurt to read because it's so true. Not sure there's any good solution to these though as they ultimately stem from changing socioeconomic pressures.
The problem imo is simply that there is no need for "rallying points" anymore.
Before cellphones, I had to go hang out at the coffee shop if I wanted to catch my friends in person so we could all go do something.
Before the internet, I had to go to the coffee shop and read event flyers off of the community board if I wanted to find out what was happening around town.
The coffee shop became a hub of social activity in and of itself partly out of necessity, and it was awesome. I had probably a hundred friends back then and they were all just people who hung out at the coffee shop.
Nowadays everyone can just veg out in their pod until their friends call them on-demand. The result is missing out on all the opportunities to make friends by accident.
Before cellphones, I had to go hang out at the coffee shop if I wanted to catch my friends in person so we could all go do something.
Before the internet, I had to go to the coffee shop and read event flyers off of the community board if I wanted to find out what was happening around town.
The coffee shop became a hub of social activity in and of itself partly out of necessity, and it was awesome. I had probably a hundred friends back then and they were all just people who hung out at the coffee shop.
Nowadays everyone can just veg out in their pod until their friends call them on-demand. The result is missing out on all the opportunities to make friends by accident.
Something happened with the pandemic.
Before Covid, I was finally starting to get my social life together, I had a group of people I could hang out relatively regularly, close enough to my age. We would go out on the weekends, have a few drinks, talk, maybe go dancing or something.
Post pandemic everything is drastically different. Suddenly, no one can organize. If someone tries to get a group together, everyone flakes last minute. Certain people don’t like each other anymore, and in general people feel more antagonistic, myself included at times.
I used to go out by myself a lot too. It used to be fun. I could go out and by the end of the night I would meet cool people, have some interesting conversations, maybe fuck around and hop bars all night Now, no one talks to me, people seem less… amicable and going out by myself now means “sit and drink for hours because it’s still better than sitting around at home doing basically nothing”.
Hanging out hasn’t really been fun since Covid.
Before Covid, I was finally starting to get my social life together, I had a group of people I could hang out relatively regularly, close enough to my age. We would go out on the weekends, have a few drinks, talk, maybe go dancing or something.
Post pandemic everything is drastically different. Suddenly, no one can organize. If someone tries to get a group together, everyone flakes last minute. Certain people don’t like each other anymore, and in general people feel more antagonistic, myself included at times.
I used to go out by myself a lot too. It used to be fun. I could go out and by the end of the night I would meet cool people, have some interesting conversations, maybe fuck around and hop bars all night Now, no one talks to me, people seem less… amicable and going out by myself now means “sit and drink for hours because it’s still better than sitting around at home doing basically nothing”.
Hanging out hasn’t really been fun since Covid.
Whenever I read things like this I feel like I must be an alien or have something pathologically wrong with me or something like that. I can hang out with people, I think. I just don't like to. I have been in an exclusive romantic relationship for decades, and I am reasonably social when it comes to task-based things, but gathering with people in unfocused social situations is best case an obligation and worst case fills we with something approaching dread.
I am very happy working on my own things, discussing things on the internet, hanging out with spouse, etc. I am also happy to participate in things that revolve around getting something productive done, or communicating asynchronously in a way that allows consensual focus - when people can send me a message that I can respond to whenever I want, and vice versa.
To me, it seems like society is just slowly starting to adapt to communicating in the way that I like to communicate. Selfishly, it's great. I have tried and failed to understand how it's a bad thing, but I have trouble doing so.
I am very happy working on my own things, discussing things on the internet, hanging out with spouse, etc. I am also happy to participate in things that revolve around getting something productive done, or communicating asynchronously in a way that allows consensual focus - when people can send me a message that I can respond to whenever I want, and vice versa.
To me, it seems like society is just slowly starting to adapt to communicating in the way that I like to communicate. Selfishly, it's great. I have tried and failed to understand how it's a bad thing, but I have trouble doing so.
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I used to think that I was like this until I moved somewhere that forced it to be my only way to socialize. Ultimately it ended in a lot of depression and moving again. Learned a lot about myself during that time and in the end I feel like I know much more about myself than I did before.
On a similar note, I've noticed that a lot of my friends are more willing to hang out post-pandemic as they all feel like we lost too much time being stuck at home.
On a similar note, I've noticed that a lot of my friends are more willing to hang out post-pandemic as they all feel like we lost too much time being stuck at home.
On a very similar boat, I can relate to what you’re saying. I would just like to hang out with some pals a few times a year (so not every week like many). But it can be difficult to keep relationships close seeing each other not that often, but I guess technology can help us with that.
"Hanging out" has been the resting state of humans for 99% of humanity [1] [2].
That is to say, most of our time as humans has been spent sitting around with other people telling stories and sharing our feelings and thoughts. Full stop.
The fact that loneliness is so pervasive is a symptom of the larger social crisis that will certainly be our ruin.
Simply hanging out with strangers, being vulnerable, giving and receiving emotional and physical care in platonic ways with no social expectations, is one of the key things we need to do to get humanity onto a safe trajectory.
[1] Chan, E.K.F., et al. (2019) Human origins in a southern African Paleo-wetland and first migrations. Nature 575, 185–189
[2]Sahlins, Marshall (2009). Hunter-gatherers: insights from a golden affluent age. Pacific Ecologist. 18: 3–8
That is to say, most of our time as humans has been spent sitting around with other people telling stories and sharing our feelings and thoughts. Full stop.
The fact that loneliness is so pervasive is a symptom of the larger social crisis that will certainly be our ruin.
Simply hanging out with strangers, being vulnerable, giving and receiving emotional and physical care in platonic ways with no social expectations, is one of the key things we need to do to get humanity onto a safe trajectory.
[1] Chan, E.K.F., et al. (2019) Human origins in a southern African Paleo-wetland and first migrations. Nature 575, 185–189
[2]Sahlins, Marshall (2009). Hunter-gatherers: insights from a golden affluent age. Pacific Ecologist. 18: 3–8
> most of our time as humans has been spent sitting around with other people telling stories and sharing our feelings and thoughts.
We replaced that with spending most of our time listening to made-up narratives by massive media companies who share portfolios with financial scammers and military contractors.
We replaced that with spending most of our time listening to made-up narratives by massive media companies who share portfolios with financial scammers and military contractors.
Podcasts especially scratch this itch of "hanging out" with other people in the most alienated and commerce intermediated way
Can all this pent-up trauma be undone?
I think so but it's going to take centuries of serious dedicated work by millions of patient, sophisticated and persistent non-violent pro-social volunteers.
This is the path in my view:
1. Mutual cooperatives become the dominant form of labor organization over corporations (definitely possible)
And
2. Mutual Aid Communities become the dominant form of social organization over Churches and Families (harder but I think still possible)
This is the path in my view:
1. Mutual cooperatives become the dominant form of labor organization over corporations (definitely possible)
And
2. Mutual Aid Communities become the dominant form of social organization over Churches and Families (harder but I think still possible)
Great ideas!! Especially the concept of mutual aid communities, I bet they could be implemented right now. If only we could get a bunch of engineers to build a worldwide, decentralized, nonprofit platform to organize them...
As a society, we need to grieve. We need time to grieve, yes, but we also need a process. We need permission to grieve: we need to let ourselves grieve.
Not just for the dead, but for the shocking loss of this or that imagined future.
And this process is going to be weird, and we'll hardly recognize ourselves, but of course nothing fundamental will have changed.
Not just for the dead, but for the shocking loss of this or that imagined future.
And this process is going to be weird, and we'll hardly recognize ourselves, but of course nothing fundamental will have changed.
This is something I've been struggling with myself. I remember how easy it was to just kill time with friends in high school, but now as an adult it feels so much harder. Thankfully, I think I've found a solution (or at least part of one): poker. Poker is like social crack. It makes players directly engage with each other, acts as a conversational centerpiece, and provides the perfect backdrop for shooting the shit. You start talking a smack after winning a hand, your buddy fires back, and people start laughing. Someone starts a sentence with "that reminds me of..." and suddenly you're all hanging out. As people get more comfortable (and inebriated) the game slows down. Add in some music or a game on TV, some snacks, drinks, and maybe some weed, and the entire experience becomes sublime. It's also easy to invite new people. Maybe you've always thought your coworker was a cool guy, but you've never been able to find a non-awkward way to start the transition from work-friends to just friends. With poker it's as easy as "hey, I'm hosting a poker game this Friday. Want to come?"
I was inspired by my Dad; he and his poker buddies (mostly other dads in the neighborhood) have been playing together for over a decade. They take trips to cities like Vegas every couple of years for milestones like 50th birthdays, and occasionally meet up on lazy sundays at sports bars. I started my own poker group with my friends after my dad brought me to one of his games.
A few tips for your first game:
I was inspired by my Dad; he and his poker buddies (mostly other dads in the neighborhood) have been playing together for over a decade. They take trips to cities like Vegas every couple of years for milestones like 50th birthdays, and occasionally meet up on lazy sundays at sports bars. I started my own poker group with my friends after my dad brought me to one of his games.
A few tips for your first game:
- make sure at least one person has the rules down pat
- play with a small amount of money at stake (I do a $20 buy in). Without money on the line it's way to easy for people to lose interest and play recklessly, derailing the game
- start the game late if you're worried about the group not gelling together. Starting late (I'd recommend 9 pm, YMMV) makes it feel more intimate, lessens the pressure to sustain a good time for hours, and reduces the suffering if the game flops
- if the game is a success reach out within a couple of days to schedule the next one
- you only need about two friends to put together a poker game. If they each bring a buddy then you've got a 5 person gamesounds interesting and well thought out. do you have any viable alternatives for people who don't gamble or drink?
Board games serve this purpose for a lot of people. YMMV though, not everybody likes them. (I would put myself in the "manages to have fun but wouldn't bother if my husband didn't love them" category.)
Alcohol is optional! Money is too. I know I recommended playing for money, but as long as people respect the game and don't play overly recklessly you don't need money. I will note however that there's a big difference between gambling for a small amount of money with friends, and gambling for real stakes in a casino.
If poker is completely off the table then board games are a great alternative. Make sure to pick a game that forces players to regularly interact with each other. I would recommend Wits and Wagers or the classic Settlers of Catan. If you're looking for a more serious strategy game (and if your group can tolerate the emotional highs and lows) I would strongly recommend Diplomacy.
Pen and paper RPGs like D&D can be great fun too, but they're harder to get started with and require the same group of people to play every time. If someone can't make it to a session the entire group can't play, and it's hard to bring in new people. But if you can get a game established with a good group it's amazing. I'm still friends with the people I played with in high school.
If poker is completely off the table then board games are a great alternative. Make sure to pick a game that forces players to regularly interact with each other. I would recommend Wits and Wagers or the classic Settlers of Catan. If you're looking for a more serious strategy game (and if your group can tolerate the emotional highs and lows) I would strongly recommend Diplomacy.
Pen and paper RPGs like D&D can be great fun too, but they're harder to get started with and require the same group of people to play every time. If someone can't make it to a session the entire group can't play, and it's hard to bring in new people. But if you can get a game established with a good group it's amazing. I'm still friends with the people I played with in high school.
Catan or DND has a similar competitive yet low stakes vibe.
Here’s my secret: I host a night about once every two months and I bake soft pretzel bites with varying dipping sauces. People know I’m going to bake pretzels and this familiarity is comforting, but they also come to see what sauces I’m gonna have. I try to make them exotic at times
Here’s my secret: I host a night about once every two months and I bake soft pretzel bites with varying dipping sauces. People know I’m going to bake pretzels and this familiarity is comforting, but they also come to see what sauces I’m gonna have. I try to make them exotic at times
Golf! Same thing really, a dedicated couple hours to socialize with your buddies. Plus you are enjoying the outdoors too, and if someone has mobility issues they can rent a cart.
You can set the poker stakes so low that it effectively isn’t gambling. And poker is a game of skill, where good players can be profitable long run.
Huge difference between playing for $10 vs nothing. In a free game people tend to be much more reckless.
But $10 is not remotely like playing blackjack in a casino
Huge difference between playing for $10 vs nothing. In a free game people tend to be much more reckless.
But $10 is not remotely like playing blackjack in a casino
Settlers of Catan? What's wrong with gambling $20? Everything you buy on Amazon is a freakin' gamble these days...
Main drawback: There are people who just need minutes to deliberate over their next action, this can kill a complete poker round.
To make this actionable: Invite only people where you suspect they're comfortable with uncertainty and don't want to optimize the s** out of every weak hand.
To make this actionable: Invite only people where you suspect they're comfortable with uncertainty and don't want to optimize the s** out of every weak hand.
Analysis Paralysis is a common affliction known in pretty much any gaming and it's one of main reasons to avoid people. Nothing ruins a social night like someone dragging a game out for 6 hours because they think the result of said game is worth pissing off everyone else at the table.
There are multiple people here recommending clubs and interest groups, but I think this is missing the point of the article. "Hanging out" as defined in the article is explicitly about not having anything specific to do or to talk about. It's unstructured socialization, being together with no particular goal in mind.
What struck me reading this is that our cultural obsession with productivity has bled over into our private lives—socializing has to be a calendar item in order for it to fit in, and if it's going to be a calendar item it should have a specific purpose. This is sad. We've lost something important: spontaneous, purposeless social interaction.
What struck me reading this is that our cultural obsession with productivity has bled over into our private lives—socializing has to be a calendar item in order for it to fit in, and if it's going to be a calendar item it should have a specific purpose. This is sad. We've lost something important: spontaneous, purposeless social interaction.
That is one thing I noticed about North American social culture, the relative lack of [semi-]public spaces to just exist.
In the UK there are countless nooks, crannies, parks etc to just kill time with people.
Even the pub is an institution expressly for this purpose. You go in, buy a pint when you want and are left alone to your friends/business. None of this “What can I get you? How is everything tasting? Anything else?” hyper-commodification of simply being somewhere just for the sake of it.
In the UK there are countless nooks, crannies, parks etc to just kill time with people.
Even the pub is an institution expressly for this purpose. You go in, buy a pint when you want and are left alone to your friends/business. None of this “What can I get you? How is everything tasting? Anything else?” hyper-commodification of simply being somewhere just for the sake of it.
This makes me think that non pushy spaces like UK pubs should be given advantageous tax treatment.
Are there any “coffee pubs”? I personally enjoy an occasional beer but I don’t know if I’d want to repeatedly invite folks to hang out for hours in a place that largely serves alcohol drinks in mixed male/female company. Seems like it could become a headache in the US.
One other issue in the US is that any third space becomes a long term hangout of all the local homeless, which causes people not to want to go there. Several local Starbucks have this problem and I stopped going there. It pushed me to drive 15 minutes to find one I can hang out without being distracted by people with obvious mental illness who need treatment.
Are there any “coffee pubs”? I personally enjoy an occasional beer but I don’t know if I’d want to repeatedly invite folks to hang out for hours in a place that largely serves alcohol drinks in mixed male/female company. Seems like it could become a headache in the US.
One other issue in the US is that any third space becomes a long term hangout of all the local homeless, which causes people not to want to go there. Several local Starbucks have this problem and I stopped going there. It pushed me to drive 15 minutes to find one I can hang out without being distracted by people with obvious mental illness who need treatment.
> One other issue in the US is that any third space becomes a long term hangout of all the local homeless, which causes people not to want to go there. Several local Starbucks have this problem and I stopped going there.
Yes. Our local Starbucks, at the Redwood City CA train station, removed all their furniture and closed their bathrooms. Now it's a big empty room with a bleak counter, where people sometimes come in and buy something.
Yes. Our local Starbucks, at the Redwood City CA train station, removed all their furniture and closed their bathrooms. Now it's a big empty room with a bleak counter, where people sometimes come in and buy something.
Almost all Starbuckses are bad, but you have several other options with plenty of seating near the Redwood City Caltrain.
Try La Tartine just around the corner, which has plentiful seating, decent prices, and closes pretty late.
Try La Tartine just around the corner, which has plentiful seating, decent prices, and closes pretty late.
Also, the Philz down the street and Coffeebar further down the street (although both have higher prices and worse hours than La Tartine).
Terrible. It's almost like if Starbucks could invest in the police, the benefits would be win-win.
> Are there any “coffee pubs”?
Agora in Houston is a Greek-owned coffee shop that operates as a coffee shop day and night but also offers alcohol at night, and sometimes has belly dancers and such. It's pretty unique - I don't think I've ever found anywhere else like it (in the US anyway).
Agora in Houston is a Greek-owned coffee shop that operates as a coffee shop day and night but also offers alcohol at night, and sometimes has belly dancers and such. It's pretty unique - I don't think I've ever found anywhere else like it (in the US anyway).
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That's just a cultural difference on the expectation of service. Europe is more towards the "I'll summon you when needed". The US it's expected they'll check in on you and to some extent that you'll wait until they check in to ask for something.
The US has bars and parks and coffee shops too. Plenty of places to just go and be
The US has bars and parks and coffee shops too. Plenty of places to just go and be
And Japan has both. Either you don't have time to look at the menu before they show up taking your order or people shout "SUMIMASEN!" over the whole restaurant.
Eh, so far in my experience nobody's been shouting across the restaurant or hole-in-the-wall place; normally it's a hand wave or signal, or often a button or bell.
Maybe I haven't been going to exciting places...
And as for taking my order before reading the menu, depends how fast you can decypher the translation of whatever app you use :) (assuming a non-Japanese speaker)
Maybe I haven't been going to exciting places...
And as for taking my order before reading the menu, depends how fast you can decypher the translation of whatever app you use :) (assuming a non-Japanese speaker)
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A huge part of that is IMO the absurd lack of free time. 40 hours plus commute, overtime and on-call (=total 60-80h) is bad enough in a single-earner household where a spouse keeps up with chores, but two full-time employees or singles not living with parents? They're all but drained in the evening, and when you only have time on Saturday between dealing with leftover chores (=laundry, actual cleaning beyond letting the Roomba roam around) or catching up on sleep, the rare four spots for social life in a month have to be carefully planned. And no surprise either that people don't have children as a result - hard to have them when you're working all the time.
The 40 hour work week needs to go. Now.
ETA and don't forget so many restaurants and pubs either closed down completely, cut opening times or hiked prices thanks to inflation and exploding rents over the last years. It's not just the pandemic that fucked things up.
The 40 hour work week needs to go. Now.
ETA and don't forget so many restaurants and pubs either closed down completely, cut opening times or hiked prices thanks to inflation and exploding rents over the last years. It's not just the pandemic that fucked things up.
This is true :) However...I'd argue that in tech, you needn't put up with this. There's plenty of demand for tech workers who aren't expected to work insane hours, and can have time for kids and hobbies. Not being expected to work insane hours often correlates with not being paid as much. But a poor tech salary is the same as a good salary in many other jobs. You can have a good lifestyle without the big bucks. Doesn't involve living in a big house somewhere posh or having new/large cars etc. Does involve having a meaningful life. :)
> There's plenty of demand for tech workers who aren't expected to work insane hours, and can have time for kids and hobbies.
Even without insane hours and ordinary 40 hours, the problem is: out of 24 hours, you lose 9 hours to sleep (8 hours + 0.5/0.5 to fall asleep and wake up), 3 hours for eating (including making the food and cleaning up), 8 hours to work, 1 hour to commute... that leaves you with just three hours a day of theoretically "free" time, of which you'll set aside at least an hour to decompress from work, one hour to interacting with your spouse - and now you're left with one hour a day of actually "free" time.
No way to fit hobbies or even any meaningful social activity in there and any unplanned events (e.g. a traffic jam, something comes up at work so you need to stay a bit late) completely throw everything off.
Even without insane hours and ordinary 40 hours, the problem is: out of 24 hours, you lose 9 hours to sleep (8 hours + 0.5/0.5 to fall asleep and wake up), 3 hours for eating (including making the food and cleaning up), 8 hours to work, 1 hour to commute... that leaves you with just three hours a day of theoretically "free" time, of which you'll set aside at least an hour to decompress from work, one hour to interacting with your spouse - and now you're left with one hour a day of actually "free" time.
No way to fit hobbies or even any meaningful social activity in there and any unplanned events (e.g. a traffic jam, something comes up at work so you need to stay a bit late) completely throw everything off.
I think your job doesn't sound very nice - needing at least 1 hr to decompress, having to stay late because something "came up". Dunno if cycling to/from work would help with de-stressing quicker? (of course, cycling may or may not be feasible where you live). Certainly being stuck in a traffic jam after a hard day at work is no fun either. I'd rather spend longer on public transport if that means read a book, message some friends, even chat to a friend in person that does the same run. WFH even if only 2 days a week, is a game-changer, if you could achieve that. Working 4-days weeks is another big game-changer. I do that and its totally worth the salary hit. Seems a great shame if people feel unable to have kids and/or a social life just due to the demands of work. People also aren't going to be productive employees either if they're unhappy because of that. I think people need to push back against their employers, and the irony is, by doing so they're actually helping their employer because burnt-out people are not useful. But to have the nerve to push back, or switch jobs, one may need some money saved up. Which is very do-able for reasonably frugal people on tech salaries. I hope you manage to get to a better situation somehow :)
I'm not always basing my comments out of my own life - I don't have kids and work mostly from home, but I have a lot of friends not as lucky as I am.
Just bringing back an actual "9-5" would help. None of this "8-5" (because breaks don't count) shit.
As one of the club-recommenders, this is specifically because socializing for the sake of socializing is boring. One phone call every few months or a few hours in person a year are enough to be completely up to speed with someone. Any more than that and it gets awkward unless you have very good chemistry.
I don’t want to give the wrong vibe: I love said phone call or in-person hours.
The activity, even if it’s a meal or a walk, make it infinitely better and something that can happen on a more regular basis with less-close friends. Golf gets a lot of flak for being a game that men play because they’re too toxically masculine to ask their friends to just hang out. My perspective: there’s something to be said for people being too boring to just hang out with as often as you would be willing to play golf with them.
This might be an extrovert/introvert divide. Extroverts being driven to have more casual friends where you need an activity to avoid awkwardness while introverts limit their friends to those with whom just existing is entertaining enough. The club attendance would be for extroverts here.
I would tend instead to think that it’s a transition in civilization where we just have more fun things to do and don’t need to sit around “talking shit” as the article mentions. Roman gladiator events were a big deal and everyone attended, now you pick what sporting events you want to watch from home. Why would I sit around doing nothing when I can find people and make relationships while simultaneously having fun doing something I enjoy? Your comment portrays them as mutually exclusive and they aren’t.
I don’t want to give the wrong vibe: I love said phone call or in-person hours.
The activity, even if it’s a meal or a walk, make it infinitely better and something that can happen on a more regular basis with less-close friends. Golf gets a lot of flak for being a game that men play because they’re too toxically masculine to ask their friends to just hang out. My perspective: there’s something to be said for people being too boring to just hang out with as often as you would be willing to play golf with them.
This might be an extrovert/introvert divide. Extroverts being driven to have more casual friends where you need an activity to avoid awkwardness while introverts limit their friends to those with whom just existing is entertaining enough. The club attendance would be for extroverts here.
I would tend instead to think that it’s a transition in civilization where we just have more fun things to do and don’t need to sit around “talking shit” as the article mentions. Roman gladiator events were a big deal and everyone attended, now you pick what sporting events you want to watch from home. Why would I sit around doing nothing when I can find people and make relationships while simultaneously having fun doing something I enjoy? Your comment portrays them as mutually exclusive and they aren’t.
This sounds so alien to me.
Even as an adult I still hang out with my college buddies at least once a week, to do absolutely nothing, sometimes we'd go to bars, often just chat. My parents also do it with their limited circle of friends. Same with my sister and her group of friends, sometimes they include me too.
I don't know where I stand on the extrovert/introvert continuum but boring clubs are definitely 10x more boring than just hanging out for me. And interesting ones aren't exactly for "just hanging out".
Even as an adult I still hang out with my college buddies at least once a week, to do absolutely nothing, sometimes we'd go to bars, often just chat. My parents also do it with their limited circle of friends. Same with my sister and her group of friends, sometimes they include me too.
I don't know where I stand on the extrovert/introvert continuum but boring clubs are definitely 10x more boring than just hanging out for me. And interesting ones aren't exactly for "just hanging out".
I have a small network (I think science says it averages 6 people for most) with whom I’m comfortable killing time doing nothing. Unfortunately there aren’t really any mutual ties among them.
It’s about the next tier of friends/acquaintances. Just hanging out with the next tier, for me, sucks. I have SO many things I would rather be doing than hashing out surface level conversations with anyone outside the network of 6 friends (who include my parents in my case). At the same time, social interaction of any kind is nice. If I can combine the things I like with “people” I will.
Your comment strikes me as you being fortunate to have a group of close college friends around, and your parents/sister similarly being fortunate to have groups of people who mutually like each other enough to have fun hanging out.
It’s also very relative. Before I developed the hobbies and interest that took me away from kicking it with roommates etc., kicking it was better than nothing. I say “sucks” in this relative sense. I just have stuff I really like doing now.
It’s about the next tier of friends/acquaintances. Just hanging out with the next tier, for me, sucks. I have SO many things I would rather be doing than hashing out surface level conversations with anyone outside the network of 6 friends (who include my parents in my case). At the same time, social interaction of any kind is nice. If I can combine the things I like with “people” I will.
Your comment strikes me as you being fortunate to have a group of close college friends around, and your parents/sister similarly being fortunate to have groups of people who mutually like each other enough to have fun hanging out.
It’s also very relative. Before I developed the hobbies and interest that took me away from kicking it with roommates etc., kicking it was better than nothing. I say “sucks” in this relative sense. I just have stuff I really like doing now.
Well, I'm fortunate, yes, but to be fair I'm up for hanging out with pretty much everyone. I hang out at work, at the co-working space we have with people I never talked before, with my neighbors, with my sister's acquaintances, with my dad's people. And all those people also seem to love "just hanging out", because they do.
I also have plenty of hobbies, I have a band, soccer weekly with some folks, I also have a garden, I play video games with another buddy...
My point I guess is that some people have a higher tolerance for hanging out with others, even unknown folks. I find that almost everyone has interesting stories to tell if you let them, and I enjoy hearing. I have my share of funny anecdotes too. I thought that's down to the introvert/extrovert spectrum but from your post it seems to be something else.
I also have plenty of hobbies, I have a band, soccer weekly with some folks, I also have a garden, I play video games with another buddy...
My point I guess is that some people have a higher tolerance for hanging out with others, even unknown folks. I find that almost everyone has interesting stories to tell if you let them, and I enjoy hearing. I have my share of funny anecdotes too. I thought that's down to the introvert/extrovert spectrum but from your post it seems to be something else.
Ah, I have identified our disconnect.
Our definition of hanging out is different. I’m going with “killing time” in a sense of hours at a time, which you definitely don’t do at work. Similarly, I doubt you often kill hours at a time with random people you don’t know or your neighbors. And your dad/sister’s people are different too if your dad/sister are there.
Folks like me aren’t sociopathic lol. I like a good casual conversation with a neighbor when you happen to be getting the mail at the same time. I had a great conversation today with a stranger about Apple watches.
It’s sitting in the garage with your roommates (and whoever else) for 6 hours on a Saturday smoking cigarettes talking shit that I’m highlighting as boring. (And the article is praising.) It’s not “lost” as the article states, I just have better things to do. And that used to be every Saturday for me (pandemic aside).
Our definition of hanging out is different. I’m going with “killing time” in a sense of hours at a time, which you definitely don’t do at work. Similarly, I doubt you often kill hours at a time with random people you don’t know or your neighbors. And your dad/sister’s people are different too if your dad/sister are there.
Folks like me aren’t sociopathic lol. I like a good casual conversation with a neighbor when you happen to be getting the mail at the same time. I had a great conversation today with a stranger about Apple watches.
It’s sitting in the garage with your roommates (and whoever else) for 6 hours on a Saturday smoking cigarettes talking shit that I’m highlighting as boring. (And the article is praising.) It’s not “lost” as the article states, I just have better things to do. And that used to be every Saturday for me (pandemic aside).
Nope. I definitely do kill hours at a time with people from work or people I never talked with. :D
My team has weekly happy-hours which are obviously after hours (I honestly thought every team did it!), my landlady often invites us tenants a monthly dinner that goes into the night, I attend random Meetups and just stay for several hours chatting, I participate in our co-working space "parties" and stay until late with people I never seen. Heck, yesterday I went to a restaurant with my (recent) language class and we stayed until 2AM.
Of course you can claim "this is not really hanging out, this is other stuff". I hate cigarettes and don't have a garage, but I guess drinking and random location is equivalent, as long as we chat for hours, so why not?
But I definitely do not consider "chatting while picking up the mail" as hanging out. Not even in the same ballpark.
In Germany we have a thing called "Men's day" where we get a cart of beer and go to the middle of the forest just to do nothing at all for a whole day. Now THIS is what I call hanging out. I wonder if the culture is where the disconnect is coming from.
EDIT: Although honestly pretty much every other country I lived in my life had a similar culture and... it was the rule as far as I could tell.
EDIT 2: I also don't think you're a sociopath! Far from it! I just think you're someone who doesn't enjoy long aimless chats with unknown people.
My team has weekly happy-hours which are obviously after hours (I honestly thought every team did it!), my landlady often invites us tenants a monthly dinner that goes into the night, I attend random Meetups and just stay for several hours chatting, I participate in our co-working space "parties" and stay until late with people I never seen. Heck, yesterday I went to a restaurant with my (recent) language class and we stayed until 2AM.
Of course you can claim "this is not really hanging out, this is other stuff". I hate cigarettes and don't have a garage, but I guess drinking and random location is equivalent, as long as we chat for hours, so why not?
But I definitely do not consider "chatting while picking up the mail" as hanging out. Not even in the same ballpark.
In Germany we have a thing called "Men's day" where we get a cart of beer and go to the middle of the forest just to do nothing at all for a whole day. Now THIS is what I call hanging out. I wonder if the culture is where the disconnect is coming from.
EDIT: Although honestly pretty much every other country I lived in my life had a similar culture and... it was the rule as far as I could tell.
EDIT 2: I also don't think you're a sociopath! Far from it! I just think you're someone who doesn't enjoy long aimless chats with unknown people.
Me too. If someone always needs some activity/entertainment happening, that's just too high maintenance for me and I lose interest in spending time with them.
That’s a good way of putting it. I enjoy a board game once in a while, or doing some random sport, but when an activity is “mandatory” and the person is averse to anything else, it can be a bit much. In the end those relationships just fizzle out.
Unstructured is uncontrolled, and uncontrolled is anathema to a culture that obsessively quantifies everything.
I feel like a lot of religious activities at temples/churches/whatever serve this purpose.
The ceremony or whatever is an excuse to get together, and most people might not really care about the beliefs portion, but it provides a backdrop to hang out as a community.
The ceremony or whatever is an excuse to get together, and most people might not really care about the beliefs portion, but it provides a backdrop to hang out as a community.
That's true of a lot of things. People ostensibly go to conferences and the like to learn stuff. In practice, I think a lot of the structure of conferences exists to give people an excuse to attend whereas, I'm going to mostly go hangout with professional peers in some nice city wouldn't.
Most of the time, social clubs and interest groups serve as an excuse to hang out. When I hang out with my friends, we play board games, work out, try out new breweries. There's always a reason, but the reason we find a reason is because we want to hang out. There are a lot of specific, structured things you can plan to do together that leave your social interactions completely unstructured.
Even in the case of something that also serves a practical purpose, such as working out, the fitness purpose exists in symbiosis with the socializing purpose. Sometimes the reason I get a workout is that I want to hang out with my friend, and sometimes the reason I spend time with my friend is because I wanted to work out.
Having another reason to hang out also helps friendships endure through times where you don't have much to say to each other.
Even in the case of something that also serves a practical purpose, such as working out, the fitness purpose exists in symbiosis with the socializing purpose. Sometimes the reason I get a workout is that I want to hang out with my friend, and sometimes the reason I spend time with my friend is because I wanted to work out.
Having another reason to hang out also helps friendships endure through times where you don't have much to say to each other.
I wonder if there are any "just hanging out" groups on Meetup.
There's often meetups for going to bars.
Thing about bars is that they suck ass, though.
Well, they're great here. There's probably meetups to go to other random locations, maybe restaurants, I'm not sure.
Either way, I wish there were more public places for random people to meet other than commercial establishments.
Either way, I wish there were more public places for random people to meet other than commercial establishments.
I think of clubs and interest groups as a good way to make friends that you can then hang out with.
What if you already have lots of friends? I think the crux of the issue is that there's lots of clubs and a lot of purpose but not enough "just hanging out".
Then you probably are hanging out with them plenty already. Start inviting them over to your place to hang out if you feel like you don't have enough hanging out time.
The best clubs are the ones where you can hangout. It is just a way to gather like minded people.
Pushed further into isolation by the pandemic, we’re all losing the ability to engage in what I view as the pinnacle of human interaction: sitting around with friends and talking shit. I agree with Liming that no one is down to hang out anymore, and agree with her that it’s a “quiet catastrophe.”
A tad strong, no? It seems like there is this whole niche or genre of sociologists and commentators who go around catastrophizing things, looking for anything that is wrong or as reason for society failing.
A tad strong, no? It seems like there is this whole niche or genre of sociologists and commentators who go around catastrophizing things, looking for anything that is wrong or as reason for society failing.
Slate readers are the only people who would rather read a book called "Hanging Out" instead of just... hanging out.
Programming meetups are pretty cool, I haven't been to one for ages but if anyone's ever looking for something to do and make some good connections most major cities have one. Where I'm at has a pretty nice and growing infosec scene which is highly appreciable too, most of it is organized around discord but there's plenty of in-person stuff happening.
I've been going to a few and I even have one of my own that I run twice a month at a local co-working space.
I don't know why anyone comes to either my meetup or the ones I go to, but they are 100% not people I want to hang out and drink with. Mostly middle-aged Asian and Indian men who are polite, quiet, socially distant, usually with no particular enthusiasm for the topic of the meetup. I don't know why they're there or why they're so numerous, but they're definitely not there to socialize and have fun.
I don't know why anyone comes to either my meetup or the ones I go to, but they are 100% not people I want to hang out and drink with. Mostly middle-aged Asian and Indian men who are polite, quiet, socially distant, usually with no particular enthusiasm for the topic of the meetup. I don't know why they're there or why they're so numerous, but they're definitely not there to socialize and have fun.
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I totally agree -- especially grabbing drinks somewhere else after the meetup talks are done
I love the ones in Berlin. There's always more Pizza and Drinks than needed, so the post-talks hanging out can go on for pretty long.
There are plenty of social clubs, guaranteed to exist in your town, that are looking for members.
Masons, Rotary, Lions, Elks, Knights of Columbus.
Optimists, Eagles, Moose, Odd Fellows, Kiwanis.
Sons of Norway, Daughters of America, Active 20-30...
I joined a social club when I moved way out to work remote. The members are a bit older. They have good stories and great advice, and they're experiencing a resurgence of membership applications from people just like me. There are plenty of clubs that focus on friendship and community service that are waiting on your application!
A question I see asked _all the time_ is "How do you even make friends, now?" People have been asking that for a long time -- one answer is definitely to try out a social club near you.
Masons, Rotary, Lions, Elks, Knights of Columbus.
Optimists, Eagles, Moose, Odd Fellows, Kiwanis.
Sons of Norway, Daughters of America, Active 20-30...
I joined a social club when I moved way out to work remote. The members are a bit older. They have good stories and great advice, and they're experiencing a resurgence of membership applications from people just like me. There are plenty of clubs that focus on friendship and community service that are waiting on your application!
A question I see asked _all the time_ is "How do you even make friends, now?" People have been asking that for a long time -- one answer is definitely to try out a social club near you.
Many of our local clubs include, in their charter, a requirement that the members be religious.
Now, I'm sure they don't check. They probably don't pray, they won't quiz me about what church I go to. I could lie.
But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.
Now, I'm sure they don't check. They probably don't pray, they won't quiz me about what church I go to. I could lie.
But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.
And there are some that don't! There're options for everyone.
Specifically the membership-based fraternal private societies, like the ones you mentioned? They were started at the same period of American history, and I only know of one exception that doesn't have "faith in a higher power" as a tenet of good citizenship. Heck, even the Jaycees, who explicitly target younger people.
The exception is the Rotary Society. The average Rotarian is male, white, and 58 years old.
The exception is the Rotary Society. The average Rotarian is male, white, and 58 years old.
Rotary has been open to women since 1989, and it welcomes anyone who fits the membership requirements - "adult persons who demonstrate good character, integrity, and leadership; possess good reputation within their business, profession, occupation, and/or community".
I was actively involved in Rotary in the 90s/00s via a Rotaract Club (for 18-30yos), and even then, there were many women, many non-white members, and plenty of people under 50 in the Rotary clubs I visited.
If some clubs/areas are still dominated by white, older males, it is mostly due to the difficulty in attracting any new members into volunteer organisations these days (mostly as it's unfashionable and people have other things to do), not due to any exclusionist policies.
I was actively involved in Rotary in the 90s/00s via a Rotaract Club (for 18-30yos), and even then, there were many women, many non-white members, and plenty of people under 50 in the Rotary clubs I visited.
If some clubs/areas are still dominated by white, older males, it is mostly due to the difficulty in attracting any new members into volunteer organisations these days (mostly as it's unfashionable and people have other things to do), not due to any exclusionist policies.
Do you know of any clubs that attract younger people? I'd prefer to not be 40 years younger than everyone at these clubs.
This is one of the biggest problems I see for getting new friends as a millennial. About a year ago I got my amateur radio license. I started to talking to a few people locally and eventually went to club meetings and lunches. I'm in my mid-30s; almost everybody else involved in amateur radio in my area is old enough to be my parent or grandparent.
Well I'm in my 50s and wouldn't consider a single one of the clubs listed in the GP as I feel like the people in those clubs would all be older than me. (Plus I hate religious and quasi-religious organizations like those.) On the other hand, I've considered going to some meetups and usually don't because I'm sure I'd be the oldest person there. (Plus the few meetups I've gone to were mostly attended by people who were desperate for attention and socialization, or who were trying to sell stuff to the other members. But that may just be where I live.)
Thanks for unlocking the memory I have of getting my radio license in my early 20s. Got a lot of questions about why I was interested in radio, but in the sort of way that you might ask an alien what the purpose for their visit is.
Also if anybody is reading this and interested in radio - take the test! It's cheap and you can cram the material in a day.
Also if anybody is reading this and interested in radio - take the test! It's cheap and you can cram the material in a day.
I’ve visited a board game club before and there were only a few people over 30. And a lot of younger. Very fun if you like board games. Literally just people there to have fun. Some cute girls too if that’s what you’re looking for.
I have tried to participate in dozens of board game and programming clubs in my region, and while sometimes it turns out alright at first (as in I went back several times), every single one of them got derailed by identitarianism; mostly trans[whatever suffix is appropriate] people making the entire thing into drama about themselves, with a small spattering of political ideologues (of all bents) and race. All it takes is one bad apple and a bunch of others desperate to not offend to make a gathering shift from "we were just here to play scrabble" to "everyone needs to sign this petition about drag shows/police brutality/tenants rights/etc. if you want to be welcome in this diverse and inclusive group."
I don't want to go to the geriatric clubs who lament about how woke things are, either.
Just leave your bullshit at home, please.
I don't want to go to the geriatric clubs who lament about how woke things are, either.
Just leave your bullshit at home, please.
That's a great idea! I've seen these pop out of local game shops pretty often.
I made a few friends through Reddit and LinkedIn. I build in public and it attracts some people. In other cases I was the one reaching out.
If you consider small online communities as a sort of club, you can make a few friends there.
Otherwise Meetup.com was a good place to find groups of people. Dog owners and parents tend to find their peers at the park. There are WhatsApp and Facebook groups for just about anything else, but many of them spread through word of mouth.
If you consider small online communities as a sort of club, you can make a few friends there.
Otherwise Meetup.com was a good place to find groups of people. Dog owners and parents tend to find their peers at the park. There are WhatsApp and Facebook groups for just about anything else, but many of them spread through word of mouth.
Voluntary organisations like the Scouts have been a good choice for me. It's tricky to get into if you're in the US because of all the dogma, but Scouting is an awesome thing to get into as an adult leader.
If not the Scouts, then any voluntary org with a cause at its centre is great for forming connections.
If not the Scouts, then any voluntary org with a cause at its centre is great for forming connections.
If you're interested in a service organization, Active 20-30 looks pretty cool. It aims to help out kids.
https://www.active20-30.org/Get-involved
https://www.active20-30.org/Get-involved
At least in my area (SW Michigan), the Jaycees seem to be a fairly big thing. They require member ages to be in [18,40] - so "40 years younger" is not a risk.
What prevents me from going to those clubs is a lock of understanding of the structure. I can understand something like a soccer team, but a “social club” gives me “networking event” vibes which are a huge turnoff.
So I see what you mean -- some clubs definitely have "networking event" vibes. Others have "sit around and chat" vibes, "go have a drink and maybe some fries" vibes, "volunteer at a local org" vibes, etc. It all depends on what you're looking for, and it all depends on what you're interested in. There's no real set agenda that we can apply to all of these clubs -- as similar as they may seem, they do have a diverse set of goals that they try to achieve.
Not to sound ungrateful, but they tend to be exclusively occupied by senior citizens. I do enjoy spending time with the elderly, but it's no replacement for peers in one's own life stage.
> Not to sound ungrateful, but they tend to be exclusively occupied by senior citizens.
One solution to that would be for younger people to join.
One solution to that would be for younger people to join.
Exactly :)
That's a totally fair assessment, and not everyone's into that. I am sure, though, that if you look locally, you'll find a club or group that matches your age range more closely!
Meetup can be this for younger folks, but you have to be willing to put in the work to organize and be the first-mover. Find things you want to do, then make open events, effectively inviting random people to them. Bar trivias, karaoke, hikes, etc. are all fairly easy to coordinate and they will attract other people who are also wondering “how do I even make friends now?”
EDIT: Also, always make an effort to talk to the new people that join your events, because other people in the group will tend to mostly talk with those they feel comfortable with. It makes new folks feel welcome and they’ll want to come back :)
EDIT: Also, always make an effort to talk to the new people that join your events, because other people in the group will tend to mostly talk with those they feel comfortable with. It makes new folks feel welcome and they’ll want to come back :)
I've really enjoyed joining a local volunteer fire company.
Otherwise I'll just sit at home working remote on solo projects all day, so responding to a call or two a day gets me (running) out of the house, and after the call we usually sit around the station and shoot the breeze for a while which is fun. When I get bored of that, I walk back home and get back to work. Sure it's hard work, but that really helps balance the tedium of just pushing tiny plastic buttons for 12+ hours a day.
Otherwise I'll just sit at home working remote on solo projects all day, so responding to a call or two a day gets me (running) out of the house, and after the call we usually sit around the station and shoot the breeze for a while which is fun. When I get bored of that, I walk back home and get back to work. Sure it's hard work, but that really helps balance the tedium of just pushing tiny plastic buttons for 12+ hours a day.
That's really awesome!
I was looking into a bunch of these recently. Many of them were white, male, Christian-only affairs within living memory. Took some of the sheen off.
Sure, I get that. There are many out there that aren't, though, and I definitely encourage you to keep digging to look for clubs and groups near you that more closely align to the kind of social environment you're looking to engage in -- it's worth the effort, in my opinion. I think you'll be surprised by what you find!
If the history of an organization(and not it's current goals and practices) is going to be prevent you for being able to join, then life must be very difficult.
What?
Do you notice a trend in the membership of your named organizations, mainly that they seem filled with old conservative men?
Re: "daughters of the america"
"Council of the Daughters of America, a patriotic fraternity, which seeks to aid in preserving and perpetuating the Public School system; to instill a spirit of patriotism into the youth of our land; to place our flag over every schoolhouse; to promote the reading of the Holy Bible therein; and to protest against the immigration of paupers, criminals, and the enemies of our social order"
Ugh, yeah, my queer self is not really looking for that kind of engagement and I doubt they're looking for me.
It has to be noted that there is absolutely an increasing poverty of community life and hyper individualization. It's kind of incentivized in currently existing systems.
Do you notice a trend in the membership of your named organizations, mainly that they seem filled with old conservative men?
Re: "daughters of the america"
"Council of the Daughters of America, a patriotic fraternity, which seeks to aid in preserving and perpetuating the Public School system; to instill a spirit of patriotism into the youth of our land; to place our flag over every schoolhouse; to promote the reading of the Holy Bible therein; and to protest against the immigration of paupers, criminals, and the enemies of our social order"
Ugh, yeah, my queer self is not really looking for that kind of engagement and I doubt they're looking for me.
It has to be noted that there is absolutely an increasing poverty of community life and hyper individualization. It's kind of incentivized in currently existing systems.
I felt this way after losing my religion. Your situation is different for sure.
But I joined a group workout gym with a local owner and a good community, it’s helped a lot with isolation.
I’m in the process of joining a BNI and, being surrounded by people motivated enough to run their own small business, it’s helping a lot.
I’m going to be meeting up with some folks who run a local hackerspace and do a weekly “coffee and code” - that seems promising and I’m hopeful it’ll help a lot.
All of these have something in common:
* A local business owner decided to start a BNI chapter and get a group of like minded individuals together to talk about business and share referrals
* An employee at a gym was disappointed in how gyms operate and wanted to do better, so started a space to bring people together around their interests.
* A smallish group of local hackers got together to create a shared space where they can geek out together
If you look at that list of social groups and say “I only see spaces for old conservative men” and “there is a poverty of community life” - maybe start a space or group for people like you? Or find people who are already doing that. Unless someone creates that space and brings people in it’s not going to exist.
Having the spaces OP listed isn’t mutually exclusive with the existence of any other social group.
But I joined a group workout gym with a local owner and a good community, it’s helped a lot with isolation.
I’m in the process of joining a BNI and, being surrounded by people motivated enough to run their own small business, it’s helping a lot.
I’m going to be meeting up with some folks who run a local hackerspace and do a weekly “coffee and code” - that seems promising and I’m hopeful it’ll help a lot.
All of these have something in common:
* A local business owner decided to start a BNI chapter and get a group of like minded individuals together to talk about business and share referrals
* An employee at a gym was disappointed in how gyms operate and wanted to do better, so started a space to bring people together around their interests.
* A smallish group of local hackers got together to create a shared space where they can geek out together
If you look at that list of social groups and say “I only see spaces for old conservative men” and “there is a poverty of community life” - maybe start a space or group for people like you? Or find people who are already doing that. Unless someone creates that space and brings people in it’s not going to exist.
Having the spaces OP listed isn’t mutually exclusive with the existence of any other social group.
This is awesome, I love to hear about groups like what you've posted.
So a conservative organization is not for you!
Perhaps you could join the local Democratic party? Participate in the process and help candidates campaign!
Or if that is not for you, you could volunteer as a poll worker. While not strictly a club, it is generally the same people very time and the goal is very noble.
Some gyms are great for meeting people. I would say independent bookstores as well!
Good luck!
Perhaps you could join the local Democratic party? Participate in the process and help candidates campaign!
Or if that is not for you, you could volunteer as a poll worker. While not strictly a club, it is generally the same people very time and the goal is very noble.
Some gyms are great for meeting people. I would say independent bookstores as well!
Good luck!
These were just some examples. There are hundreds of social clubs to be sifted through, and I'm sure that there are some that would love to have you / align with your personality better than the ones which I've posted! Take a look around your town and see what might be available, you might be surprised at what you see.
I'm going to be transparent: I'm interested in a structural analysis as to why there's a crisis of loneliness.
Humans are wired for sociality and interdependence. Our brains pretty much literally wither away, in ways, without meaningful social stimulus.
Given this, I can't immediately simply lay the blame at the feet of individuals as to why people seem increasingly lonely and thirsty for meaningful connection. So what might be some other causes for this type of isolation that seems increasingly common?
Humans are wired for sociality and interdependence. Our brains pretty much literally wither away, in ways, without meaningful social stimulus.
Given this, I can't immediately simply lay the blame at the feet of individuals as to why people seem increasingly lonely and thirsty for meaningful connection. So what might be some other causes for this type of isolation that seems increasingly common?
It's the modern stuff we have.
People prefer binge watching a 10 episode Netflix show on a weekend rather than hanging out. Or playing video games. Or Youtube. I know some streamers and some people spend 5 hours a day watching them play video games on Twitch. Others spend 2, 3 hours an evening on TikTok or Instagram. Or are on Twitter all day, that's their hang. Or Reddit and 4chan. Or Hacker News!
Even older generations are spending an awful amount time on messaging apps. My father isn't much into that but he's all day on news websites looking for whatever important thing. I know some Guitar web-forums where the average age is between 50 and 60 and they complain all day about kids these days and they Polyphia guitars.
Back when TV was king I remember only going out when the boring stuff started. Whenever I hear the Full House theme song I get the urge to go hang out with my friends. I was really really lucky there was enough boring stuff.
I also remember a teacher jokingly answering why he had 10 or so siblings to a classmate when we were in our teens: "well my parent's didn't have TV".
I remember going to random shops with friends as a teenager to play guitars we couldn't afford, think of video games we wanted to buy, or which anime figures were cool. If we were kicked out, we would go hang in a park, or at the front of a specific building that had cool looking stairs we could sit. Can I even do this today? I can still do the other stuff, but as an adult it seems that this is only possible with my significant other. Whenever I visit, there's no groups of friends in those hobby shops anymore, it's only couples or solo people.
Everything was a social activity back then. Today you gotta call people before you go to their houses because they're incredibly busy with Netflix or some video game.
We need more boredom. Not you and me, but society.
People prefer binge watching a 10 episode Netflix show on a weekend rather than hanging out. Or playing video games. Or Youtube. I know some streamers and some people spend 5 hours a day watching them play video games on Twitch. Others spend 2, 3 hours an evening on TikTok or Instagram. Or are on Twitter all day, that's their hang. Or Reddit and 4chan. Or Hacker News!
Even older generations are spending an awful amount time on messaging apps. My father isn't much into that but he's all day on news websites looking for whatever important thing. I know some Guitar web-forums where the average age is between 50 and 60 and they complain all day about kids these days and they Polyphia guitars.
Back when TV was king I remember only going out when the boring stuff started. Whenever I hear the Full House theme song I get the urge to go hang out with my friends. I was really really lucky there was enough boring stuff.
I also remember a teacher jokingly answering why he had 10 or so siblings to a classmate when we were in our teens: "well my parent's didn't have TV".
I remember going to random shops with friends as a teenager to play guitars we couldn't afford, think of video games we wanted to buy, or which anime figures were cool. If we were kicked out, we would go hang in a park, or at the front of a specific building that had cool looking stairs we could sit. Can I even do this today? I can still do the other stuff, but as an adult it seems that this is only possible with my significant other. Whenever I visit, there's no groups of friends in those hobby shops anymore, it's only couples or solo people.
Everything was a social activity back then. Today you gotta call people before you go to their houses because they're incredibly busy with Netflix or some video game.
We need more boredom. Not you and me, but society.
That but I would also add:
We feel that it is taboo to approach others, rather than try and start a conversation and seem weird we all stare at our phones.
We are also hesitant to try something new, when we were young we had parents who would push us but now when we are independent we no longer have that push.
The thread started gave a list of social clubs, the reply is that all of them are old white men who would not be accepting. Perhaps they had visited each club and experienced rejection but the Eagles and the Odd Fellows don't strike me as particularly conservative organizations. Neither do the Optimists, Kiwanis and Active 20-30.
In order to meet people, you must step out of your comfort zone!
We feel that it is taboo to approach others, rather than try and start a conversation and seem weird we all stare at our phones.
We are also hesitant to try something new, when we were young we had parents who would push us but now when we are independent we no longer have that push.
The thread started gave a list of social clubs, the reply is that all of them are old white men who would not be accepting. Perhaps they had visited each club and experienced rejection but the Eagles and the Odd Fellows don't strike me as particularly conservative organizations. Neither do the Optimists, Kiwanis and Active 20-30.
In order to meet people, you must step out of your comfort zone!
Yeah, I strongly agree. These factors you mention are probably bigger than than the ones in my post, haha.
This. Somebody I read noted that streets in Polish villages started becoming empty in the evenings in the same period of time when the windows of houses there began to glow with the light of the TV screens. TV is just easy companionship and entertainment (even if ultimately unsatisfying), and we're a huge sucker for easy.
Why is loneliness more common? Look at the work week. Everyone is working long hours, doesn't get time off, or is too broke to spend it doing social stuff in America or other countries. Lots of fear increases this too, with people working too much social skills go down and mental health issues become an issue. And lack of interactions with others increases fear in general.
Now if you are lucky enough to be well off enough not to have that issue then the second thing is tech replaces people in a lot of areas - food, entertainment, health, ways we connect with others etc. If you had to rely on others more I bet most people would be less lonely in general. Isolation becomes easier the more tech you have available - be it cars or computers it can easily isolate you if you don't purposely avoid isolation. Now tech can bring people together, I'm in a long distance relationship and tech makes it very easy nowadays but it's still not the same, as in person face to face experiences.
But I also think people will always face loneliness in every generation, it just might go by other names.
Now if you are lucky enough to be well off enough not to have that issue then the second thing is tech replaces people in a lot of areas - food, entertainment, health, ways we connect with others etc. If you had to rely on others more I bet most people would be less lonely in general. Isolation becomes easier the more tech you have available - be it cars or computers it can easily isolate you if you don't purposely avoid isolation. Now tech can bring people together, I'm in a long distance relationship and tech makes it very easy nowadays but it's still not the same, as in person face to face experiences.
But I also think people will always face loneliness in every generation, it just might go by other names.
But people worked a lot more in the past. The 5 day work week is a relatively recent invention. The 8 day work hour is also relatively recent. Why are we having a crisis of loneliness now and not when 18 hour workdays 7 days a week was the norm in a factory somewhere?
The 5 day workweek and 8-hour workday weren't won that long after unvarying (same job every day, same amount every day, no seasonal variation) optimized cog-in-a-machine industrial wage labor started to not just exist, but be common.
Incidentally, a ton of early cinema (1900-1930, say) is very concerned about the dehumanizing effects of industrial (and office!) work, and the anti-social lost-in-the-crowd effects of cities (usually contrasted with rural or small town living) which nonetheless draw the masses with promises of money and glamor. Those seem to have been their major anxieties, in this realm of thinking.
Incidentally, a ton of early cinema (1900-1930, say) is very concerned about the dehumanizing effects of industrial (and office!) work, and the anti-social lost-in-the-crowd effects of cities (usually contrasted with rural or small town living) which nonetheless draw the masses with promises of money and glamor. Those seem to have been their major anxieties, in this realm of thinking.
I think it mostly boils down to how trivial it is to entertain yourself these days with a smartphone.
I was just on a weekend beach trip with friends and, at the end of the day, we considered playing some card games, but frankly we all wanted to just chill on our phones in bed for the last hour of the day, and we chuckled that we would have opted for the card games back in the days without smartphones.
It’s hard for going out and socializing to compete with solitary smartphone time. And it’s easy to avoid ever doing the former, especially once you need it the most.
I was just on a weekend beach trip with friends and, at the end of the day, we considered playing some card games, but frankly we all wanted to just chill on our phones in bed for the last hour of the day, and we chuckled that we would have opted for the card games back in the days without smartphones.
It’s hard for going out and socializing to compete with solitary smartphone time. And it’s easy to avoid ever doing the former, especially once you need it the most.
Agree.
This is chilling to hear. Sometimes I really hate the industry I work on. We're really destroying mankind, and it's not in the ways most people predicted. Even Huxley's Brave New World looks optimistic compared to what we're doing.
This is chilling to hear. Sometimes I really hate the industry I work on. We're really destroying mankind, and it's not in the ways most people predicted. Even Huxley's Brave New World looks optimistic compared to what we're doing.
Smartphones are just the final nail to the coffin. Before smartphones, TV had already killed a of people's sociability (and radio did a lot of damage before TV as well). The book "Bowling Alone" was written well before the era of smartphones.
> Lots of fear increases this too, with people working too much social skills go down and mental health issues become an issue. And lack of interactions with others increases fear in general.
I think fear is an important thing to bring in here, because it's easier than ever to go down a path of "only the specific subculture on this subreddit/discord/whatever understands and accepts you, if you go to the Elks lodge the elderly crypto-nazis will literally murder you. Best to stay inside and post more about how scary those other people probably are"
I think fear is an important thing to bring in here, because it's easier than ever to go down a path of "only the specific subculture on this subreddit/discord/whatever understands and accepts you, if you go to the Elks lodge the elderly crypto-nazis will literally murder you. Best to stay inside and post more about how scary those other people probably are"
Marketing.
If you recognize my user name at all then you've heard me bang this drum a few times before, but marketing is among the top reasons Everything Sucks in modern society.
Your attention is constantly being assaulted by people who want to sell you something. In order to sell you something, they have to convince you that you need it, but chances are you don't need it, so they exploit your insecurities.
You're not manly enough, buy our pickup truck.
You're not pretty enough, buy our makeup.
You're not working hard enough, buy our productivity enhancement programme.
You're not healthy enough, buy our fad diet.
You're entitled to money because of a minor screw up, join our class action.
Everything sucks because of that other political party, vote for us instead.
We're encouraged to treat each other as competitors and seek the material above all, because that makes it easier for companies to sell us shit.
We're encouraged to be entitled, because that makes us get angry when we don't get things, like the stuff they're trying to sell us.
Carl's Junior: Fuck you, I'm eating.
The side effect is we isolate ourselves, but that's just fine by them because they are selling us the junk we try to fill the hole in our lives with anyway.
The message fucks us up on a personal level, and that radiates out to the sociological level. It forces us to be defensive with the systems we put in place to keep people connected (email, phone calls, the web, search results, etc.) because they will exploit any opportunity to hijack your attention. Is it any wonder we're wary of connecting with people too?
If you recognize my user name at all then you've heard me bang this drum a few times before, but marketing is among the top reasons Everything Sucks in modern society.
Your attention is constantly being assaulted by people who want to sell you something. In order to sell you something, they have to convince you that you need it, but chances are you don't need it, so they exploit your insecurities.
You're not manly enough, buy our pickup truck.
You're not pretty enough, buy our makeup.
You're not working hard enough, buy our productivity enhancement programme.
You're not healthy enough, buy our fad diet.
You're entitled to money because of a minor screw up, join our class action.
Everything sucks because of that other political party, vote for us instead.
We're encouraged to treat each other as competitors and seek the material above all, because that makes it easier for companies to sell us shit.
We're encouraged to be entitled, because that makes us get angry when we don't get things, like the stuff they're trying to sell us.
Carl's Junior: Fuck you, I'm eating.
The side effect is we isolate ourselves, but that's just fine by them because they are selling us the junk we try to fill the hole in our lives with anyway.
The message fucks us up on a personal level, and that radiates out to the sociological level. It forces us to be defensive with the systems we put in place to keep people connected (email, phone calls, the web, search results, etc.) because they will exploit any opportunity to hijack your attention. Is it any wonder we're wary of connecting with people too?
Additionally:
We don't email with friends because our inboxes are overflowing with marketing so we don't use it to communicate anymore.
We don't answer phone calls because most of the time it's just marketing calls (or scams)
And so on.
We don't email with friends because our inboxes are overflowing with marketing so we don't use it to communicate anymore.
We don't answer phone calls because most of the time it's just marketing calls (or scams)
And so on.
TL;DR: I was stuck in a local optimum where the screen provided so much relative value, and leaving the screen required so much relative energy and vulnerability, that I’d opt for screen time.
I can only share my experience, can’t do a structural analysis.
For me, it was screens. Not anything in particular about the screen being bad in and of itself, but that the screen was so easy and efficient.
I can do my work better on a screen. I can create more value on a screen. I can have a meeting more efficiently on a screen. I can communicate more efficiently on a screen. I can entertain myself more efficiently on a screen.
Going out requires effort. I have to “get ready.” I have to go somewhere. I might not know people so I have to be vulnerable to cross a threshold of familiarity. I have to either be comfortable with myself and how others see me or I have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. These things pretty much aren’t a problem for me on a screen.
So my default is to wake up, go to a screen to work (I WFH because it’s more efficient), get done with work and find entertainment on another screen. Go to bed and start over again. I just bounced from screen to screen.
Being social. Taking care of my body. Taking care of my mind. These all require effort above that baseline.
It took me a long time to realize and appreciate that I was stuck in a local optimum and being inefficient in the short term was necessary to break out of it.
I can only share my experience, can’t do a structural analysis.
For me, it was screens. Not anything in particular about the screen being bad in and of itself, but that the screen was so easy and efficient.
I can do my work better on a screen. I can create more value on a screen. I can have a meeting more efficiently on a screen. I can communicate more efficiently on a screen. I can entertain myself more efficiently on a screen.
Going out requires effort. I have to “get ready.” I have to go somewhere. I might not know people so I have to be vulnerable to cross a threshold of familiarity. I have to either be comfortable with myself and how others see me or I have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. These things pretty much aren’t a problem for me on a screen.
So my default is to wake up, go to a screen to work (I WFH because it’s more efficient), get done with work and find entertainment on another screen. Go to bed and start over again. I just bounced from screen to screen.
Being social. Taking care of my body. Taking care of my mind. These all require effort above that baseline.
It took me a long time to realize and appreciate that I was stuck in a local optimum and being inefficient in the short term was necessary to break out of it.
The commodification of social spaces? If you can’t spend time in places without paying (in the cost of coffee, beer, gym fees, etc ) then that excludes big chunks of people, or they alert ration their social times to some extent
I'm gonna trot this one out again: I read somewhere that people reflexively choose convenience over happiness, and I don't have a source for that but I find that it explains nearly everything about modern life. Sitting at home watching Netflix fails to fulfill all kinds of basic needs, but it's _easy_. Similar patterns are everywhere; our lives are so filled up with the path to least resistance, there's very little room for intentional effort to do things that are actually fulfilling.
The current economic system - capitalism - and the philosophy and behavior patterns that it enforces on people. I saw how the system changes a society first hand when the free market ideology took over the society I grew up. People started to compete with each other, everybody was pushed to make more money, a 'good' career, the youth were pushed to study hard for getting good jobs to acquire such good careers, even as the society started to prioritize monetary/wealth gain before everything else. Social relations, from friends to relatives get loosened as everybody was immersed in his or her own survival and self gain. Worst impacted were the youth, who were pushed to drop social concerns and work harder to secure their future. It caught the youth in their early teenage years by them being pushed to prioritize studying and success over any social relation.
So, in such a society, you enter a rat race very early in your life by starting to study hard for qualifying for a good college, and it chains forward from there on while destroying any social connections that you might have built. You already move to another city when going to college. Then the college itself quite short, merely 4 years, without enough time to create and solidify bonds. That is if the students can even find enough time to socialize in between the classes. Whatever bond was forged gets immediately broken by people moving to different cities, regions or even countries after graduation, to maximize their income and career chances.
By this point the person is already hampered in the social department. Not only he or she was not able to socialize with his or her peers and the system already forced him to isolation and alienation from the peers to compete, but also because his peers have been brought up and educated with the same competitive mentality, the human social traits that our species have developed are already hampered or repressed. The peers are competition, not people to cooperate, collaborate, less, live together to support each other. The co-workers or acquaintances frequently leaving their jobs for a better opportunity somewhere does not help - you know that even if you hit it off with some person you met in your job or locale, that person can move away tomorrow in a flash. Which makes you further wary of creating any social bond that can be broken by next week.
When the entire society is taken over by this mentality that enforces its behavior patterns, there is no escape - everybody is in a fight for survival or bettering his or her circumstances. Its a societal level alienation of people from each other and from what makes us humans a social species.
So, in such a society, you enter a rat race very early in your life by starting to study hard for qualifying for a good college, and it chains forward from there on while destroying any social connections that you might have built. You already move to another city when going to college. Then the college itself quite short, merely 4 years, without enough time to create and solidify bonds. That is if the students can even find enough time to socialize in between the classes. Whatever bond was forged gets immediately broken by people moving to different cities, regions or even countries after graduation, to maximize their income and career chances.
By this point the person is already hampered in the social department. Not only he or she was not able to socialize with his or her peers and the system already forced him to isolation and alienation from the peers to compete, but also because his peers have been brought up and educated with the same competitive mentality, the human social traits that our species have developed are already hampered or repressed. The peers are competition, not people to cooperate, collaborate, less, live together to support each other. The co-workers or acquaintances frequently leaving their jobs for a better opportunity somewhere does not help - you know that even if you hit it off with some person you met in your job or locale, that person can move away tomorrow in a flash. Which makes you further wary of creating any social bond that can be broken by next week.
When the entire society is taken over by this mentality that enforces its behavior patterns, there is no escape - everybody is in a fight for survival or bettering his or her circumstances. Its a societal level alienation of people from each other and from what makes us humans a social species.
> By this point the person is already hampered in the social department. Not only he or she was not able to socialize with his or her peers and the system already forced him to isolation and alienation from the peers to compete, but also because his peers have been brought up and educated with the same competitive mentality, the human social traits that our species have developed are already hampered or repressed. The peers are competition, not people to cooperate, collaborate, less, live together to support each other.
Students did the same in the Soviet Union. Graduation exams sorted not just who got which universities (if any at all) but which subjects they would spend their time in. Competition didn't disappear behind the iron curtain.
> The co-workers or acquaintances frequently leaving their jobs for a better opportunity somewhere does not help - you know that even if you hit it off with some person you met in your job or locale, that person can move away tomorrow in a flash. Which makes you further wary of creating any social bond that can be broken by next week.
In the Soviet Union, you never knew when your friends and family would "disappear" either. Many Soviet citizens lived in a state of fear that they'd be next. That also makes you wary about who you associate with.
Students did the same in the Soviet Union. Graduation exams sorted not just who got which universities (if any at all) but which subjects they would spend their time in. Competition didn't disappear behind the iron curtain.
> The co-workers or acquaintances frequently leaving their jobs for a better opportunity somewhere does not help - you know that even if you hit it off with some person you met in your job or locale, that person can move away tomorrow in a flash. Which makes you further wary of creating any social bond that can be broken by next week.
In the Soviet Union, you never knew when your friends and family would "disappear" either. Many Soviet citizens lived in a state of fear that they'd be next. That also makes you wary about who you associate with.
It should be noted that, empirically, all other economic systems that have been tried are even worse than capitalism as far as people's perceptions of their existence.
Capitalist countries have border guards to keep foreigners from coming in illegally. Socialist countries have border guards to keep their own people from escaping.
Capitalism does not enforce behavior patterns. You are free to opt out and be poor and not compete with others, if you want. You can be homeless, or subsist on minimum wage, or go on welfare benefits, and many do.
Compare this to socialist economic systems, where opting out is illegal and classifies you as a social parasite. "Being unemployed" is a felony that gets you ten years in a forced labor camp. "Complaining about how it is unfair that you are not allowed opt out" is also illegal, and also gets you a stint in the labor camp. That's "enforced behavior patterns."
Capitalist countries have border guards to keep foreigners from coming in illegally. Socialist countries have border guards to keep their own people from escaping.
Capitalism does not enforce behavior patterns. You are free to opt out and be poor and not compete with others, if you want. You can be homeless, or subsist on minimum wage, or go on welfare benefits, and many do.
Compare this to socialist economic systems, where opting out is illegal and classifies you as a social parasite. "Being unemployed" is a felony that gets you ten years in a forced labor camp. "Complaining about how it is unfair that you are not allowed opt out" is also illegal, and also gets you a stint in the labor camp. That's "enforced behavior patterns."
> It should be noted that, empirically, all other economic systems that have been tried are even worse than capitalism as far as people’s perceptions of their existence.
The modern mixed economy, which has displaced the system for which the name “capitalism” was coined during the early to middle 20th century in virtually every place that it existed at the time the term “capitalism” was coined for the dominant economic system of the industrialized portion of the West in the mid-19th century, has, empirically, not been worse than capitalism as far as people’s perceptions.
If you compare only precapitalist systems and Leninism and its derivatives, you’d be right.
> Compare this to socialist economic systems, where opting out is illegal and classifies you as a social parasite.
The modern mixed economy is the closest (though not a very close) thing to a socialist economy system that has been tried on any large scale basis (its even the closest thing – though again not a very close thing – to a Marxist system, despite Leninists trying to claim the name.)
Vanguardist elite authoritarian state capitalist command economies are not socialist, and not (despite the aspirational claims originally made for them) empirically an effective way of bypassing the need Marx identified to go through a period of private capitalist development on the way to a socialist system.
The modern mixed economy, which has displaced the system for which the name “capitalism” was coined during the early to middle 20th century in virtually every place that it existed at the time the term “capitalism” was coined for the dominant economic system of the industrialized portion of the West in the mid-19th century, has, empirically, not been worse than capitalism as far as people’s perceptions.
If you compare only precapitalist systems and Leninism and its derivatives, you’d be right.
> Compare this to socialist economic systems, where opting out is illegal and classifies you as a social parasite.
The modern mixed economy is the closest (though not a very close) thing to a socialist economy system that has been tried on any large scale basis (its even the closest thing – though again not a very close thing – to a Marxist system, despite Leninists trying to claim the name.)
Vanguardist elite authoritarian state capitalist command economies are not socialist, and not (despite the aspirational claims originally made for them) empirically an effective way of bypassing the need Marx identified to go through a period of private capitalist development on the way to a socialist system.
You hit the nail right on the head
> It should be noted that, empirically, all other economic systems that have been tried are even worse than capitalism as far as people's perceptions of their existence.
That's patently false. Socialist implementations like the USSR's lifted people from mud huts and being barefood to apartments and space age within the same generation. The only reason that it ran out of steam was because the US, who controlled 75% of world's resources at the time, started an all encompassing economic warfare and arms race to starve it of GDP by forcing it to allocate all to defense. Which is not something hypothetical or anything interpreted by historians - we have the Kennedy administration' internal memos and planning that envisaged this plan and implemented it. If ANYone did even a fraction of that to the US, the US would initiate a nuclear war as can be seen from the various examples during the Cold War. That the Soviets were way too less aggressive and they let themselves to be starved out of GDP has been a fortune for the human civilization for averting nuclear war.
> Socialist countries have border guards to keep their own people from escaping.
That's also a flat out lie that the system propagates to protect itself: Castro opened the doors of Cuba and told anyone who didnt want to stay to f... off in mid 1980. Yet the Cubans are there, except from a few who still think that the Muriel boatlift law is still in effect and they will be getting tens of thousands of dollars in US taxpayer money if they step into US soil from a boat. Otherwise they could just fly in. All the immigration from Cuba has been a few hundred thousand people, most of them people who had a good time during Batista and their relatives. Thanks to US taxpayer money, of course.
You could also leave the USSR at any time by paying back the free education and other services that the state, therefore the society, has given you for free. Which is not even an option in the US, for example - if you are born poor you just stay poor instead of someone giving you anything free.
> Capitalism does not enforce behavior patterns. You are free to opt out and be poor and not compete with others, if you want. You can be homeless, or subsist on minimum wage, or go on welfare benefits, and many do.
First, welfare benefits dont exist in capitalism. They are part of social democracy, first advocated by the socialists in the First Socialist International. So that's not the argument you want.
Second, all that you said do sound like enforcing of behavior. "You dont have to participate - you can just starve". Sounds utterly sociopathic.
> "Being unemployed" is a felony that gets you ten years in a forced labor camp.
There is no such thing anywhere. Don't make up falsities for argument. Doing the same in any country during wartime gets you the same kind of repercussion, including the 'democratic' ones who have all those written in as 'emergency laws'. If any rando like you ever knew what the 'emergency laws' in the most democratic countries involve, you would swiftly lose all the farcical illusions that you had about 'democracy'. Unfortunately such knowledge requires either special interest, or doing service in any NATO country's military or paramilitary tasked with enforcement of such laws. So that the masses like you can remain in blissful ignorance about the legal system that they live in...
...
So basically capitalism is the best system solely because people like you believe in a lot of falsities and lies. Which is of course the only way to sustain a system that kills people when they cant pay for healthcare etc...
That's patently false. Socialist implementations like the USSR's lifted people from mud huts and being barefood to apartments and space age within the same generation. The only reason that it ran out of steam was because the US, who controlled 75% of world's resources at the time, started an all encompassing economic warfare and arms race to starve it of GDP by forcing it to allocate all to defense. Which is not something hypothetical or anything interpreted by historians - we have the Kennedy administration' internal memos and planning that envisaged this plan and implemented it. If ANYone did even a fraction of that to the US, the US would initiate a nuclear war as can be seen from the various examples during the Cold War. That the Soviets were way too less aggressive and they let themselves to be starved out of GDP has been a fortune for the human civilization for averting nuclear war.
> Socialist countries have border guards to keep their own people from escaping.
That's also a flat out lie that the system propagates to protect itself: Castro opened the doors of Cuba and told anyone who didnt want to stay to f... off in mid 1980. Yet the Cubans are there, except from a few who still think that the Muriel boatlift law is still in effect and they will be getting tens of thousands of dollars in US taxpayer money if they step into US soil from a boat. Otherwise they could just fly in. All the immigration from Cuba has been a few hundred thousand people, most of them people who had a good time during Batista and their relatives. Thanks to US taxpayer money, of course.
You could also leave the USSR at any time by paying back the free education and other services that the state, therefore the society, has given you for free. Which is not even an option in the US, for example - if you are born poor you just stay poor instead of someone giving you anything free.
> Capitalism does not enforce behavior patterns. You are free to opt out and be poor and not compete with others, if you want. You can be homeless, or subsist on minimum wage, or go on welfare benefits, and many do.
First, welfare benefits dont exist in capitalism. They are part of social democracy, first advocated by the socialists in the First Socialist International. So that's not the argument you want.
Second, all that you said do sound like enforcing of behavior. "You dont have to participate - you can just starve". Sounds utterly sociopathic.
> "Being unemployed" is a felony that gets you ten years in a forced labor camp.
There is no such thing anywhere. Don't make up falsities for argument. Doing the same in any country during wartime gets you the same kind of repercussion, including the 'democratic' ones who have all those written in as 'emergency laws'. If any rando like you ever knew what the 'emergency laws' in the most democratic countries involve, you would swiftly lose all the farcical illusions that you had about 'democracy'. Unfortunately such knowledge requires either special interest, or doing service in any NATO country's military or paramilitary tasked with enforcement of such laws. So that the masses like you can remain in blissful ignorance about the legal system that they live in...
...
So basically capitalism is the best system solely because people like you believe in a lot of falsities and lies. Which is of course the only way to sustain a system that kills people when they cant pay for healthcare etc...
You prefer Holodomor?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Maybe he doesn't know enough queer people/isn't queer enough to frequent queer social clubs.
People are different.
People are different.
Yes, people are different, but you'd imagine that organizations promoting nativist ideology and religious education in schools might also very likely not resonate with a more highly-correlated-with-atheism hackernews crowd, no?
The point being, the offered easy solutions aren't undeserving of critique and we can discuss real reasons people might not be joining these dying institutions. There was an issue in framing and I discussed it.
A la the other conmments around not wanting to hang exclusively with senior citizens, or ham radio not offering the kind of bustling community one might want. Perhaps there's are reasons said organizations are struggling and a reason why people might feel the choice to find meaningful community isn't always easy, when it's disincentivised in society.
The point being, the offered easy solutions aren't undeserving of critique and we can discuss real reasons people might not be joining these dying institutions. There was an issue in framing and I discussed it.
A la the other conmments around not wanting to hang exclusively with senior citizens, or ham radio not offering the kind of bustling community one might want. Perhaps there's are reasons said organizations are struggling and a reason why people might feel the choice to find meaningful community isn't always easy, when it's disincentivised in society.
Yeah, that's all very fair. I think, though, that there are definitely organizations out there that align with different views. What I was going for in my original post was to give a whole bunch of examples to demonstrate that there are a whole bunch of organizations one might look into -- and there really are, if you look for social clubs, there are loads and loads of them.
I'm hoping that we don't necessarily lump all of these into one category, because social clubs are really very diverse, and I think they're very much worth trying out for those looking for social engagement.
Yeah, some of these clubs have musty old ideals, some are conservative or strictly religious. Then, there are other clubs out there -- perhaps not as wide in size or scale, but still looking for members -- that have ideals that might be more modern, less conservative, secular, etc.
I think a lot of people these days are strictly thinking of grandpa when they hear about these social clubs, or group organizations, so they immediately write them off. But there are good organizations out there, and it might be worth a second look.
I'm hoping that we don't necessarily lump all of these into one category, because social clubs are really very diverse, and I think they're very much worth trying out for those looking for social engagement.
Yeah, some of these clubs have musty old ideals, some are conservative or strictly religious. Then, there are other clubs out there -- perhaps not as wide in size or scale, but still looking for members -- that have ideals that might be more modern, less conservative, secular, etc.
I think a lot of people these days are strictly thinking of grandpa when they hear about these social clubs, or group organizations, so they immediately write them off. But there are good organizations out there, and it might be worth a second look.
> disincentivised in society
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society
You are society when you bring people together. You are isolated when you stay away.
I mean this literally: start a society that shares common values with yourself but is broad enough to include the values of others so you’re not standing on an island alone.
I might be wrong here, but generally when I’ve felt alone and tried to start a society for people like me, other existing societies that overlap shake out of the woodwork and I realize there was a rich network of people to join up with.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society
You are society when you bring people together. You are isolated when you stay away.
I mean this literally: start a society that shares common values with yourself but is broad enough to include the values of others so you’re not standing on an island alone.
I might be wrong here, but generally when I’ve felt alone and tried to start a society for people like me, other existing societies that overlap shake out of the woodwork and I realize there was a rich network of people to join up with.
>highly-correlated-with-atheism hackernews crowd
For what it's worth, I've definitely noticed an uptick in respect for religion in our type of crowd, often but not always channeling Jordan Peterson's ideas.
I think after losing the last culture war, religion has had to do some real soul searching and is beginning to adapt to the new, hyper-scientific world.
For what it's worth, I've definitely noticed an uptick in respect for religion in our type of crowd, often but not always channeling Jordan Peterson's ideas.
I think after losing the last culture war, religion has had to do some real soul searching and is beginning to adapt to the new, hyper-scientific world.
I’m quite sure those clubs are focused around community activity and do not restrict membership by a member’s political alignment or religion.
Clubs that do revolve around members’ politics and identity, honestly aren’t all that much fun.
Clubs that do revolve around members’ politics and identity, honestly aren’t all that much fun.
Whoa. I had no idea so I looked them up.
The bigger obstacle to joining the "Daughters of America" might be that Wikipedia calls it "almost nonexistent" due to dwindling membership. [1] Lol.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_America
The bigger obstacle to joining the "Daughters of America" might be that Wikipedia calls it "almost nonexistent" due to dwindling membership. [1] Lol.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_America
Conservatives want to dismantle the public school system, not preserve and perpetuate it.
Fancier (more expensive) versions of this are country clubs, private clubs of various sorts (fictional example: The Diogenes Club in Sherlock Holmes stories—but these are real things, see also "gentleman's club" when that's not being used as a euphemism for "strip club"), and rich-people service organizations—this latter sort is typically dominated by women.
Another mention here is Sailing Clubs. There are expensive and cheap Yacht Clubs. Many smaller clubs are entirely volunteer run. Sailing is an awesome social scene that’s surprisingly welcoming to beginners. Obviously there are the New York Yacht Club’s of the world, but also clubs like Chicago Corinthian Yacht Club which has a volunteer-run bar with prices set to just cover costs as well as catered casual food. Membership is under $1000 a year.
Oof, right, big miss there. Good call.
I moved to Melbourne, AUS for a year last year (moved back at the start of this year). My purpose was clear, find people to hang out with, and build a more social life.
I succeeded. It was all with the help of Meetup, just hanging out at bars with groups lead me to talking to more and more people, and usually afterwards, I'd talk to people outside of Meetups at different bars.
This led to gaining friends, and we'd just hit each other up to "hang out". It was the best year of my life due to this "hanging out" so I 100% relate to this whole article.
I succeeded. It was all with the help of Meetup, just hanging out at bars with groups lead me to talking to more and more people, and usually afterwards, I'd talk to people outside of Meetups at different bars.
This led to gaining friends, and we'd just hit each other up to "hang out". It was the best year of my life due to this "hanging out" so I 100% relate to this whole article.
meetup.com offers a large collection of interest groups to join. It probably is less useful for low density areas, and I don't know if they operate outside the US. If you live in a large urban area (I'm in Austin) there are literally hundreds of meetup topics. Knitting? Music? Hiking? Books? Psychedelics? Religion? Sports? Investing? Meditation? Learning a language?
There is no guarantee that you'll make a friend there, but the odds are much higher than watching TV at home.
There is no guarantee that you'll make a friend there, but the odds are much higher than watching TV at home.
I'm a member of 125 Meetup groups at the last count.
Most Meetup groups are zombie groups with thousands of members and no events.
The Meetup engagement algorithm drives people to keep joining groups and keep RSVPing to events, but very little to encourage repeat attendance or to prune zombie groups and events from your calendar. As a consequence, most groups have tons of inactive "members," and most events have tons of fake "attendees."
Even though I'm a "member" in over 100 groups, my Meetup calendar is mostly full of corporate Zoom events that are basically ads.
Most Meetup groups are zombie groups with thousands of members and no events.
The Meetup engagement algorithm drives people to keep joining groups and keep RSVPing to events, but very little to encourage repeat attendance or to prune zombie groups and events from your calendar. As a consequence, most groups have tons of inactive "members," and most events have tons of fake "attendees."
Even though I'm a "member" in over 100 groups, my Meetup calendar is mostly full of corporate Zoom events that are basically ads.
I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe I got lucky -- I joined a group ("Let's start a beginners band") and I could see that they had a recent history of meetups. It took only a month or so for the next one, I went, maybe 25 people were there, which is pretty good considering they mostly people don't repeatedly go -- they find some other like-minded people and try to make music happen later.
Indeed this is super scary. I see it growing among peers and a part of this trend myself. We simply no longer hang out unless there's some particular event or need to do so. People plain out lost interest in it. It's absurd how quickly the (rather mild, i'm not in say, UK where it was really strict) lockdowns killed the social gene in us.
What are some good places for 10-20 people to just hang out? Everywhere seems to involve a lot of spending or limited seating.
A sports bar or English style pub would work, but I’d rather without encouraging everyone to continuously consume alcohol.
A sports bar or English style pub would work, but I’d rather without encouraging everyone to continuously consume alcohol.
Parking lots, malls, outside of movie theaters, woods, riverbanks, people’s houses, old docks at lakes.
10-20 friends used to show up at this one lake easily off one group text. We’d spend hours talking, sitting on an old wood dock drinking beers and skipping stones we picked up from the loose gravel along the shore, and yelling to hear our echoes spread through the mountains. One time we hung up a rope on a thick tree branch and went swinging off the hill and flinging ourselves into the water. As the sun would begin to set we’d lite a small bon fire on the shore and sit around it staring into the flames philosophizing, occasionally some guys and girls might wander off into the woods to make out, smoke some weed or do who knows what. And when it got very late, we’d drive out to whatever burger joint was still open and sit on the curbs in parking lots eating greasy food. Always 10 or 20 people deep, just hanging out. Just another random day in our lives, oblivious to the dark shadow slowly crawling across our world.
10-20 friends used to show up at this one lake easily off one group text. We’d spend hours talking, sitting on an old wood dock drinking beers and skipping stones we picked up from the loose gravel along the shore, and yelling to hear our echoes spread through the mountains. One time we hung up a rope on a thick tree branch and went swinging off the hill and flinging ourselves into the water. As the sun would begin to set we’d lite a small bon fire on the shore and sit around it staring into the flames philosophizing, occasionally some guys and girls might wander off into the woods to make out, smoke some weed or do who knows what. And when it got very late, we’d drive out to whatever burger joint was still open and sit on the curbs in parking lots eating greasy food. Always 10 or 20 people deep, just hanging out. Just another random day in our lives, oblivious to the dark shadow slowly crawling across our world.
Knowing how litigious the USA is these settings make me very nervous. Good way to lose everything because someone trips on a rock and blames you.
Is that what makes you nervous, or is unexamined social anxiety making you nervous? Because it sounds like you're suggesting that, if you and 10 friends are hanging out down some forest service road in the woods, one of them might trip on a rock and decide to sue you... does that sound particularly likely?
If I'm trying to meet NEW people, not long-term existing friends, it starts to sound like more of a reasonable concern, right? If they're existing long-term friends you can meet anywhere, including in your own home, parks, wherever, but I assume third places would also be intended to expand your friend circle, not just hang out with whoever you happen to already know.
What a beautiful experience. Finally realizing what I've missed all these years damn
bowling is fun, maybe karaoke if you're in a city
if it's a group with a common interest, you can rent a room in a dance studio or something similar, set up tables/chairs there, and have a hobby night
if it's a group with a common interest, you can rent a room in a dance studio or something similar, set up tables/chairs there, and have a hobby night
- Your local park
- public library usually has rooms of various sizes plus you have the added amenities
- local high school gym/auditorium can be rented
- if you live in a house, your yard. if you live in an apartment, your rooftop
- parking lot
among others
- public library usually has rooms of various sizes plus you have the added amenities
- local high school gym/auditorium can be rented
- if you live in a house, your yard. if you live in an apartment, your rooftop
- parking lot
among others
Some kind of sports bar type environment (TV, drinks, food, lots of seating) would be ideal, but without the emphasis on it being a bar... if there were a place like that but with tea or coffee I'd definitely invite people there more.
Oh then I'd recommend cigar lounges and/or hookah lounges. You don't need to indulge in smoking, most I've been to serve meals, drinks, and especially tea and coffee.
GenZ here. 95% of my life so far has been spent alone lol. Prices for everything are crazy, a 1-BR apt cost 2-3K a month, and jobs barely pay enough to cover that while taking up half my waking hours. I've totally burned out
I can vouch for the La Quinta Inn mentioned in the article. It's a comfortable and affordable place to spend a night if you flew in to Burlington on the way to somewhere in the region (Lake Placid, in my case).
Living in the suburbs, I'm happy I can host the occasional bonfire, which is a great opportunity to get a lot of people together and do whatever.
I suspect if hanging out was as fulfilling as the author suggested, people would be doing it more.
I just know from experience, more often than not, I walk away from a hangout feeling worse than before.
Things like walking groups are great, but more often than not hangouts seem to be based around an activity that is as unhealthy as possible (staying up late, drinking, smoking, eating shit food) and the social interaction is pretty surface level.
I just know from experience, more often than not, I walk away from a hangout feeling worse than before.
Things like walking groups are great, but more often than not hangouts seem to be based around an activity that is as unhealthy as possible (staying up late, drinking, smoking, eating shit food) and the social interaction is pretty surface level.
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To me, it seems to be a death by a thousand cuts. Just a few challenges that come to mind:
- The housing crisis has made it very difficult to live close to your friends and just pop in throughout the week.
- Organized religion is in decline and nothing has yet taken its place as a "third place" for a community to congregate.
- Needlessly intense working conditions and / or working remotely has taken away the "second place", where you would typically "hang out" with your co-workers.
- Many people today choose not to have children, starkly dividing adults into mutually exclusive schedules and social personas.
- Many people move frequently throughout their young-adult and early-adult years, fragmenting their social lives and preventing mature friendships from forming.
- There is a significant cultural gap between older and younger generations, creating social friction within the nuclear family unit and across generational boundaries.
- The digital age has moved the location of many common past-times from a public "third place" to your private bedroom.
- etc, etc, etc