[marginalia_nu]

Can't be overstated how good having a setting centered on some common activity with low stakes social interaction is for building relationships, romantic as well as platonic.

Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that it is has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony.

[treflop]

This is commonly referred to as your "third place," after your home and your work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Most kids have a third place growing up, being an extension of school or another place like the skate park. If you leave school and don't find a new third place, finding new friendships becomes difficult.

[etrautmann]

Yes, I’ve always loved the camaraderie around climbing gyms and the community that develops naturally when you go to a gym consistently. Romantically it’s quite hard though, if a relationship is built around an activity, there are a number of challenges if someone’s interest shifts or a big skill mismatch etc.

[hammock]

Just like work or school friendships, if you don’t shift those hangouts to other contexts (meals unconnected to the activity, family introductions, travel, etc) then they won’t stick outside of that initial context, however deep they feel at the time

[bee_rider]

Could that be a good filter-function? “How gracefully does this person handle our skill difference” seems like a nice thing to know about somebody.

[dgfitz]

More “how does someone handle a skill difference?” Because very rarely are two people at the exact same skill set at the same time. In the context of climbing the disparity can be enormous.

[maximus-decimus]

Not really, it's like playing Counter Strike with your friend, but you're a total noob and they're world champion. You try your best and yet, for you to have any semblance of fun, the other person had to play only with a knife, one hand behind their back and picking their nose with the other. It's just never gonna be as fun as if everybody is trying their best and are all on the same playing field.

[BobaFloutist]

Yes but climbing isn't inherently competitive. Counterstrike you can't win without someone losing. Climbing, everyone can win.

[andrepd]

Lack of third spaces mean people flock to those apps, especially when they're no longer in school or college. Clearly, those are poor replacements.

[wslh]

> Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that it is has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony.

I agree, and that's why I find it important to study and understand the social dynamics of hookup culture through research [1].

[1] What is Hooking Up? Examining Definitions of Hooking Up in Relation to Behavior and Normative Perceptions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3546226/

[anal_reactor]

I spent years attending various language courses where I literally sat and talked to people, but I never became friends with any of them. If anything, it usually felt like stepping into a world of individuals hand-picked to have nothing in common with me, except for the fact that they were trying to learn a language too.

[zeroCalories]

I have that feeling at work. I've spent years talking to people daily but never gotten to know them. But for stuff like hobbies I've never had trouble filling the time talking about the hobby. You don't find it interesting to talk about why you're both learning the language, or what books/media in that language you enjoy?

[robjan]

Language courses generally have a clear end date so it's not surprising that many people wouldn't be super invested in making or maintaining new relationships in them.

[bilsbie]

The only downside is I got injured and lost like 20 pickleball friends. They were good friends but we only bonded around one activity.

[mritchie712]

especially good when that common activity isn't: we're both drinking at this bar

[sublinear]

Easiest way to meet someone is for them to be a friend of a friend. I rarely date someone outside my extended circle even if I was trying to. We inevitably happen to know someone in common.

That said, bars are a great way to expand that circle. Dating is just one aspect of socializing. People who go to bars specifically just to "pick up" are creepy.

[nox101]

> Easiest way to meet someone is for them to be a friend of a friend

That assumes your friends have friends to introduce you too. Mine almost never have.

[tasuki]

> People who go to bars specifically just to "pick up" are creepy.

What does that mean?

[ethbr1]

That a lot of people go to bars to hang out with their friends, or especially hang out with their friends + meet some new friends of friends.

And it's kind of weird to just go to a bar, alone, and try and find other lonely people to fuck for a single night.

But hey, that's what some people are looking for.

[nox101]

you gotta love this idea that you're a creep if you're alone. Only show up if you already have friends. So if you have no friends there's no way to get any because you're a creep if you're alone

we need a new woke meme to shame people who shit on people who don't have friends

[NeoTar]

There’s a difference between going to a bar alone, and going alone with the sole intention to find a one-night-stand. It’s the latter people find creepy.

[2-3-7-43-1807]

I'd argue this isn't weird but anthropologically speaking the norm. This being considered "weird" in and off itself is more like a very recent social development.

[snarf21]

It is also extremely powerful for mental health. Having something to look forward and that anticipation has enumerable benefits. Also, every hobby has people who LOVE to help newbies and will talk infinitely about all the minutiae of all the things.

[consteval]

> Hookup culture just isn't for everyone, and the notion that it is has been the cause of a lot of grief and agony

I'm sorry, but how could you possibly think this is the case? Hookup culture is still very fringe, wildly looked down upon.

Humanity has had a purity culture for the past few hundred years. Sex has been a tool to oppress and shame. To this day, this purity culture continues. Women are slut shamed. Gay men are perceived as disgusting by proxy of their sexual inclinations. Kinks must never be spoken out loud.

Sex is still not talked about. We bead around the bush, play innuendos. Speaking directly about what you desire in the bedroom is almost unthinkable. Some married people endure years of subpar sex, when simple communication could fix it.

Where is this hookup culture? Because if I talk to 10 random people about my hookups, in even a very surface-level amount of detail, what responses would I get?

I get disgust, pearl-clutching. I am a whore, a slut, no cleaner than a pig and practically begging to get AIDS. In fact, AIDS might just be a good thing, to rid the world of immoral scum.

Do you see that same level of reaction to proclaims of marriage and romance? Because I don't. Not sure where you live, but if this is your definition of "hookup culture" and you truly believe it's been pushed on everyone... maybe I should move to wherever you are. But I've never seen or heard of such a place.

[dagelf]

Umm.. yes it can. Common interests are WAAAY overrated. It's barely even a starting point... asymmetry is there it's at, why "partner" with yourself, when you can partner with your literal compliment, someone who has what you lack.... to make not just a bigger half, but an actual whole?!

[Almondsetat]

It's not about common interests, it's literally just about showing up and being exposed to the same people for a prolonged amount of time. The activity is just an excuse.

[eska]

Sure, but there must be at least some common ground. Otherwise how are you going to spend time together?

[nogbit]

The point that is being made is that you do new things you haven’t done before. Explore!

For example, If you are a gym rat in the morning you can still do that yourself without the other person and then later in the day do the new things you never done before. The other person benefits as well. You don’t always have to be glued to the hip of the other.

[Sebb767]

So you argue that you should both enjoy exploring new things together in common.

No one is arguing that you should spend every minute with your partner, but if you want to spend time together, you should have an activity that you both enjoy (which might be exploring new things!), otherwise the relationship will be hard.

[dxbydt]

on the contrary, most relationships got started only because both partners enjoy exploring each other’s bodies. any other activities they might have in common is some afterthought that is tacked on after the relationship acquired a stable footing. i still don’t have any activity in common with my wife, and we’ve spent 2 decades & change…

[treflop]

It's not about common interests, it's about having a third place (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place).

A lot of interests need a common space.

[sim7c00]

fully agree with dagelf here. me andmy wife share nothing in common but the fact we enjoy eachothers presence. imho its really important to have your own thing. if it all revolves around some external commonality, its bound to fail once that thing is gone for either.

[notjoemama]

Cool. So online activists can become more engaged irl? Sounds great unless the activism is the kind you disagree with. Imagine this brining together a collection of white supremacists or antifa. Or pro-life versus pro-choice.

This is the problem with the tech world. They are so preoccupied with whether they can, they don’t stop to think if they should.

Yes, that's from Jurassic Park.

[SR2Z]

Look, even if it's white supremacists, it's still good for their mental health to meet up irl.

[ToucanLoucan]

Ummmmmmm gonna need some kinda citation there. Radicalized groups that meet increase one another’s radicalization as they bounce off of one another and egg each other on.

I want people to get together more, it’s absolutely good for them, but I think there’s certain groups that should absolutely be discouraged. Like sorry if the only thing that gets you going is fantasizing about obliterating ethnic groups but you might have to take one for the team and stay depressed. Or take up something better like model railroading.

[FredPret]

IRL interactions are more complex and nuanced in a way that tends to push people to the center.

There have been instances where people meeting IRL pushed one another further to one side (Marxists, Nazis) but in every other case IRL interactions help people have a more rounded view of the world.

In a social media world, you only get to see one facet of an opinion at a time, and it's always the simplest and most inflammatory view that makes the rounds.

[twixfel]

so how do you encourage everyone except white suprematists to get out more? What does that raising awareness campaign look like? Tbh getting out more is probably more necessary for such people than anyone else.

[ToucanLoucan]

> so how do you encourage everyone except white suprematists to get out more?

Shut down and disperse groups of white supremacists. Amend the right to free assembly to exclude hate groups, because we don't need to tolerate that if we don't want to.

And before you say "well who decides what's a ha-" there is a well articulated subjective process for determining that already, and most of the groups that meet the definition are indeed supremacist/nationalist groups of any sort. It is not perfect, because no human made system is, but I fail to understand why that then means we must tolerate all of these with zero effort put to police them. We know what's a hate group, just like we know what's a hate crime. The fact that idiots in the media and on the internet misuse or over-generalize the term doesn't change anything.

> Tbh getting out more is probably more necessary for such people than anyone else.

I would agree, just not for hateful reasons. Come up with something else.

[__turbobrew__]

> Amend the right to free assembly to exclude…

Im glad you are not in charge

[twixfel]

Problem is assembly could literally be just two guys in a quiet pub sitting at a table having a pint speaking quietly about white supremacy. So your idea of policing people meeting is kind of nonsense and I can't even fathom how you concluded it could possibly work.

[Der_Einzige]

Uhh, one of them bashes the skull of the other in when they meet up. Blunt force trauma is not good for mental health.

[ramon156]

Yeah and it's also not part of socializing. This is a nothing burger

[walthamstow]

While I agree that even racists need irl socialisation, I strongly disagree that violence is never a part of socialising. See soccer hooliganism for a prime example.

[peppermint_gum]

So we shouldn't make it easier for people to meet each other, because some of those people might be white supremacists?

I'm sorry, but I think you may be spending too much time online.

[marginalia_nu]

Yeah that's actually largely a good thing. A big problem is the political echo chamber these people live in online. In neutral activities that are not strongly politically coded, they'll meet people from outside that echo chamber, and will inevitably face contradictions to their world view.

[tiznow]

What's the problem exactly?