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‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

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Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#81

Post by smcameron »

footlose_3815 wrote: post #64

It's depressing when all the third spaces are bars full of miserable people

My third place is the local hackerspace. This has been the case since 2010, except, perhaps surprisingly, for the few years when I lived/worked in silicon valley. Weirdly, hackerspaces don't seem to work the same in silicon valley. Everybody is too busy at their tech job to have any energy left to spend free time building stuff purely for fun, and real estate is too expensive to allow for affordable memberships. When I went to the local hackerspace, the few people there were busy working on their own startup and nobody was talking to anybody, they weren't there for fun, they were there to work. Noisebridge and Ace Monster Toys were better, but too far away (SF and Oakland, respectively) to be convenient. In other places I've been (Texas, Virginia) hackerspaces seem to work a lot better as third places and be more fun oriented. I chalk this up to less intense work environments and cheaper real estate.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#82

Post by legerdemain »

afavour wrote: post #62
ryanklee wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still sounds like the things you claim are unique to NYC aren't. Maybe your strong preference rests on something else you aren't identifying. In my experience NYC has nothing in it that you can't find in dozens of other US cities for far cheaper. Edited to remove worthless snark.

> In my experience NYC has nothing in it that you can't find in dozens of other US cities for far cheaper. Then you haven’t truly experienced NYC, I’m sorry. It’s simply not a true statement. I’m not saying NYC is for everyone or that you even have to like it, but it having nothing you can’t find in dozens of other cities? To paraphrase Principal Skinner: “can it be that I simply don’t know NYC as well as I should? N…

I 100% concur with afavour that regularly running into acquaintances around town is magical, and wonderful, and pro-social, and a rare privilege.

I've had that experience only once in my life, when I lived literally in the center of town in Palo Alto, and ran into coworkers very regularly on the street, because our company gave us a subsidy of hundreds of dollars every month to live within a 10-block radius of the office. And these were misanthropic pale boys who mostly had no hobbies and avoided going outside and meeting other people if they could help it.

I've lived in 200k-sized cities and I've lived in college towns and I've lived in quaint, "walkable" suburbs. And nowhere have I had the experience of serendipity as a result of density, because in all those other places I would get in a car and drive to a specific destination point and meet no one either there or en route. And even if there were some amenities I could "easily" walk to within "only" a mile or so, no one else I knew walked there with any regularity, so I'd never see any friends around town.

Objections that go "but I'm happy with my life in XYZ location, how can you say that" are missing the point. If you haven't experienced the difference, it is as stark as night and day.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#83

Post by mortureb »

jurassicfoxy wrote: post #29
hypeit wrote: post #4

> We can see this shift everywhere. The characters of the biggest shows of the '90s — "Friends," "Seinfeld," "Cheers" — spent the overwhelming majority of their time hanging out at the café, diner, and bar, and work was either an afterthought or a running joke. These were television shows, not reality. Even in the 80s and 90s you couldn't spend all of your time in a Manhattan coffee shop or a bar (unless you were a d…

I don't know about Manhattan, but I can tell you in my small hometown, you can walk down to the pub any night and you'll meet up with some friends randomly, no planning required. It's actually amazing. Of course this is much more difficult in large cities, but it's something to work towards, and is clearly possible.

But speaking from experience, if you have a falling out you can’t really go back there anymore and choices are generally limited in small towns.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#84

Post by atoav »

doublerabbit wrote: post #51
atoav wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that fiction — especially sitcoms — should not be taken as a model of reality. I studied film and media science, but one doesn't need academic rigour to come to that conclusion. However I would still say the best way to avoid making friends is to avoid being in places where strangers hang out. Places where you come into low pressure contact with strangers are places where you get to know people — and where yo…

Add in regularity. Friendship doesn't happen overnight. I've just started taking up sword fencing again at a local club. It takes time for people to build up a rapport of yourself. If I look decent, and turn up each week that's the image I paint. They have no other image of knowing me outside the club so that's the image they'll judge you on. Also, subconsciously shoes are always the first thing a person will home-in…

Good addition to my post. People forget that when they originally made friends (involuntary) regularity was a big part of it. Your parents might have expectwd you to go to $SPORT, so you went and got to know people there, some of which might have become your friends. Same but even greater in magnitude for school.

Now some might have terrible memories of school ans maybe never found a decent friend there, but as someone with multiple silblings I can assure you that luck (or the lack thereof) plays a big role when it comes to theae things.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#85

Post by mortureb »

appleiigs wrote: post #28

I don't know if you need a third place. Home will do fine, just invite people to hang out to watch sports games, movies, BBQ, whatever. I lived separately, but I had a few friends living together and it was an open door policy like Seinfeld and Friends... just walk in. Another point is a lot of my friends, who have trouble meeting other friends, don't have hobbies. During the summer, I say "I'm going hiking every wee…

Eh I don’t like to have people over because then it becomes a regular thing, people pop in unexpectedly and I don’t really want to host and cleanup that often. Much simpler to go down to the bar and come back to a mostly private experience at home with the family.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#86

Post by atoav »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #57
doublerabbit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add in regularity. Friendship doesn't happen overnight. I've just started taking up sword fencing again at a local club. It takes time for people to build up a rapport of yourself. If I look decent, and turn up each week that's the image I paint. They have no other image of knowing me outside the club so that's the image they'll judge you on. Also, subconsciously shoes are always the first thing a person will home-in…

I don't look at people's shoes. Why should I care what they wear on their feet? I wear shoes to the point where they're falling apart. If people judge me on that, then I want nothing to do with them.

People will judge you on no matter what. That is normal. They don't know you after all.

You likely do that too — when someone approaches you on the street you very quickly and intuitively judge their whole being to know whether you need to be on the guard or whether you decide you can have a chat with them.

Now unless the rest of the persons appearance gives you other clues totally broken shoes are in my experience a bad sign, most of the time.

Of course that is shallow knowledge of a person, and you can't truly judge someone as a person by the clothes they are wearing — but unless you want to get to know everybody you meet deeply before deciding they are not worth your time, clothes can be a fast (but low quality) proxy.

That also means your appearance is a fast and low quality proxy based on which others decide whether to talk to you and how they should go into a conversation with you.

Thst isn't normative btw., so it doesn't mean you need to wear boring suits all day. You could line two punks up next to each other and have one looking interesting and worth talking to, and the other shady in a bad way.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#87

Post by bitschubser_ »

legerdemain wrote: post #43
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to spend all your time somewhere for it to become a decent third space. You just need to go regularly, at a similar enough time that you start building rapport with the people who also go at the same time. If you go to the gym or bar for an hour or two after work every weekday, for example, you'll quickly notice that the same people are there with you. Interact with them enough, and these people form t…

In threads like this, people often bring up gyms as social spaces. Hell. No. I've been using a gym for most of my adult life. Gyms are anti-social spaces. Big box gyms, sports clubs, the gym at the Y, campus gyms, the gyms that most people go to. Maybe boutique gyms and gyms where you always work with a personal trainer are different. Every gym I've been to: hell, no.

wow... for me gyms (or sports in general) was the #1 place to meet new people, here where I live and in my bubble (germany) it's quite common to spend a few hours in the local boulder gym, or climbing gym, drinking coffee, grep a pizza boulder/climb a bit and small talk, meet friends and new people, same on the local skate park or pump track, hang around, skate, talk, and meet new people, also the sauna/pool areas of some larger gyms are quite social, same goes for the local park, watch the kids at the playground, a coffee is always nearby and plenty of people to talk... and everything in walking or biking distance (I live in a small town)

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#88

Post by acchow »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #78
hypeit wrote: post #4

> We can see this shift everywhere. The characters of the biggest shows of the '90s — "Friends," "Seinfeld," "Cheers" — spent the overwhelming majority of their time hanging out at the café, diner, and bar, and work was either an afterthought or a running joke. These were television shows, not reality. Even in the 80s and 90s you couldn't spend all of your time in a Manhattan coffee shop or a bar (unless you were a d…

I think Friends showed us what we most deeply desire - a life without concern for work where we spend most of our time with our loved ones at a Third Place away from home and work. I agree it is not literally realistic, but it could be viewed as aspirational. Youtuber Andrewism made an excellent video about the Third Place last week that explains what various thinkers have written about these places, and considers ho…

I much prefer having people over at home or going to their home over a Third Place. I think the only Third Place I really like is a park with a view.

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#89

Post by 3seashells »

acchow wrote: post #88
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Friends showed us what we most deeply desire - a life without concern for work where we spend most of our time with our loved ones at a Third Place away from home and work. I agree it is not literally realistic, but it could be viewed as aspirational. Youtuber Andrewism made an excellent video about the Third Place last week that explains what various thinkers have written about these places, and considers ho…

I much prefer having people over at home or going to their home over a Third Place. I think the only Third Place I really like is a park with a view.

Suburbia poor - rich in materials, poor in people and experiences aka life

Re: ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ knew the cure for loneliness

#90

Post by dopidopHN »

> In Germany, they have a term for the beer you drink as you walk to the next bar, a "wegbier."

The US has that too, but in New Orleans mostly. It’s called a too go cup and it’s mighty convenient.

Also, New Orleans is full of third places and so tiny that a bike is plenty to move around

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