Not your house. Not your work. A third place where you can exist just for fun and bump into people you know.
Sound unfamiliar? I’m not surprised. Common third places like churches are emptying, and coffee chains fire you through like you’re being served by a pump action shotgun filled with espresso.
But a life without a third place is a life of loneliness and isolation. A life that exists only to work. Go home. Go to work. Go home. Go to work. Where does it end?
It ends with a third place.
The Days Before Cell Phones
Journalist Dan Kois regales us with tales of life before cell phones. Where you knew the three or four places after work your friends would be. If you went there, you’d usually bump into someone you know.
Think Central Perk from Friends. If Ross gets bored, he can head to Central Perk and just hang out till someone he knows shows up.
This isn’t a feeling I know. When I lived in Glasgow, I’d constantly want to try new places. I didn’t even go to the same Starbucks often enough to recognise the staff who were being churned through.
At the time, I thought it was great because I had this idea of being a lone wolf in my head. But I was just that.