[tmpz22]

Its easy to believe RTO would be a bandaid to a degraded social life or non-optimal at home situation. And for some it might even be true. But by large your social life can and should thrive outside your job. You just have to work for it.

[wredue]

Honestly, I don’t even really have much of a social life outside of work, aside from talking to the other parents at my kids rec activities.

For me, WFH has made giving my kids a great childhood just substantially easier. We’re not constantly in a rush to get the mandatory stuff for the day out of the way, so we can spend more time with rec activities or just having fun.

We’re also not beholden to terrible schedules. As an example, the range of swimming lessons times we can handle basically opened up drastically. The range of afterschool activities we can manage as equally opened up. Where previously it was soccer, now we’ve been able to try a bunch of things and let them land on what they like.

[Volundr]

I think this is a large part of it. For me certainly I realized during the pandemic that I was starting to feel really isolated and needed to make a conscious effort on my social life, but I also think this was a net win. True friendships are formed and strengthened by putting in effort. Ephemeral office connections are fleeting. I think if your social life dies when working remote it's a sign of a problem the office was papering over.

I also believe there are those for whom this is not enough and they really do need more time around people than can be obtained outside of work, but there are solutions for these people as well (ex co-working spaces)