If You Feel Lonely or Isolated, You Need a Third Place in Your Life
<p>Not your house. Not your work. A third place where you can exist just for fun and bump into people you know.</p>
<p>Sound unfamiliar? I’m not surprised. Common third places like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/22/us-churches-closing-religion-covid-christianity" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">churches are emptying</a>, and coffee chains fire you through like you’re being served by a pump action shotgun filled with espresso.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>It ends with a third place.</p>
<h1>The Days Before Cell Phones</h1>
<p>Journalist Dan Kois regales us with tales of<a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/06/life-before-cell-phones-internet-after-work.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"> life before cell phones</a>. 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.</p>
<p>Think Central Perk from <em>Friends</em>. If Ross gets bored, he can head to Central Perk and just hang out till someone he knows shows up.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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