[1_player]

Look up "third place", it's a really fascinating concept which I've been obsessed with for a long time and I really want to solve it, at least for me. I feel my long-term sanity depends on it.

The gist is people used to have at least three social circles they'd hang out daily: family, work, friends outside of work. Note that I don't mean "participate in activities" with any of them, just be among these people, even without any goal.

We've lost the third place. It's only family, work and hanging out with friends sometimes, usually to _do_ something. I've noticed this big disconnect looking at older people in Southern Europe which spend their afternoon at a bar playing cards, or in the recent ages men hanging out in clubs and women in sewing/book/gossip clubs or when I visited family in central Africa where it's common to just hang out in the porch after dinner and chat with passers-by and just be there and _socialise_, without any goal in particular. I had the luck of experiencing something like that for a few years and it was incredibly nourishing and I miss it dearly.

Until we restore this third place, and find a way to make it work in the modern world, the loneliness and unhappiness epidemic can only grow, is my opinion.