Depends on the person. I think it was more common 20-30 years ago than now in some places.
I live in England, but maybe twenty years ago I’d go to my regular pub most days, have a couple of pints and maybe some food, socialise with people I’d got to know there.
Obviously that doesn’t happen anymore, it’s way too expensive now. Going to the pub or out for a meal is a rare treat these days.
Pub culture is definitely a thing in the UK though and I wish we had some of these neighborhood meeting places in the US too. They aren’t necessarily a place to get shitfaced but to get a simple meal and a beer.
Fraternal/Sororal organizations used to be a big thing up to the 60s with the Elks clubs, Odd Fellows, Shriners, etc. We’ve lost a lot of that community glue.
Car centric urban design and pub culture are incompatible.
though alcoholism is bad, the lack of thirst spaces is a much bigger problem
*Third spaces
thirst spaces
I can’t decide if this is a joke or a Freudian slip.
Such a vague question merits the default It Depends™.
Still do.
I’ve been alcohol free since 7th April 2023 but it’s a stop on the way home to see mates that don’t game online.
UK pub that’s part of the community. We organise canal cleans / litter picks / quiz nights / charity events etc…
Pubs can be good and you don’t HAVE to drink booze. Bars now… They are a different story I feel.
On a side note I feel the ability to ‘legally’ drink (without a meal) from the age of 18 stops a lot of the idiotic drinking stuff I always hear about from over the pond.
I was raised in a bar. My mother owned it for 40 years. Yes, same customers every day. They were all alcoholist but some of them stopped functioning. My mother Fed them, did their taxes, cut their hair. It’s terrible and sad. The functioning alcoholists had a family to turn home to. I used to be an alcoholist until 10 years ago. My wife had to make me realise that drinking every day, even just one beer a day, is alcoholism.
Is alcoholist(s) term that means something different than alcoholic(s)? Never seen it before
No, I suspect OP’s native language might not be English.
True, autocorrect switched alcoholic to alcoholist.
Alcoholist is an older word for alcoholic. They might be older, hence the older word
I’m old, but not that old :-)
Yeah I wasn’t sure if maybe it was a term they used in another part of the world, or if maybe it meant one who partakes in the use of alcohol but maybe isn’t an addict. It seems like it is a synonym like you are saying.
I think it’s alcoholism/alcoholic. Just a different translation.
Remember, no internet before this millenium, 3 to 7 television channels before cable, no TV before the 50s…
A lot of blue collar workers went straight to the bar after work 3-4 days a week.
I did sheet metal back in the 90’s for a year. Typical day… start at 6, off at 2:30, bar from 3-5. Pretty much everyday.
Yes, but bear in mind a lot of factory, construction, and industrial jobs are 7-3 or 8-4. So a working class laborer could go catch a happy hour with the coworkers or neighbors and be home by 5.
Also in the age of single income households men were often not expected to pull as much weight at home.
You guys are only working 8hrs? What a life to have. The company I use to work for extended their store hours in 6pm so 8-6 was typical with no overtime pay. Woww saying this out loud really makes me want to unionize.
These neighborhood bars in Boston were real. I had a GF who worked in a university lab where they would go to a bar after hours and she would bring me along. It was an old school Irish bar (even had pics of Sinn Féin members on the walls). I kept going after we broke up and ended up dating one of the woman who bartended. She would pass me free drinks. I was always a light drinker though, I just nursed them. This was mostly in my 20s. I did visit another Irish pub after night class in a different part of the city and the guy working there remembered what my usual meal order was. lol
Still is common, most bars have their regulars
I live a block away from my local bar. Go multiple times a week to play pool. There’s a lot of regulars so it’s like hanging out with friends/neighbors.
Yeah. Few times a week I go to mine to chat with all the locals over two or three beers then head home. It’s a nice way to wind down, be out, and socialise at a really low intensity. No organising is needed, just arrive and there’ll be someone there you know.
That was kind of the point of pubs (public house). A place for the community to meet up in any weather and have a good time together whether games, sharing stories, or having a meal. The smaller the town, the friendlier and more tight the patrons are too. Also great places to frequent when travelling, meeting new locals, getting great travel advice, making friends for the few days you’re there.
Yep, been a while since worked at a place like that, but there was definitely a crowed that would be there most days. This was mid 2000’s. Partly dried up when smoking indoors was banned, I think that was the last straw for a big part of the culture that was already drying up.
Worked in a pub in the UK.
Yes, we had regulars. They’d be there nearly every night after work for a quick pint before heading home.
Very few of them would stay for more than one or two though
Bartender from the US here. Im one of the few people i know in the industry that doesnt go out drinking almost every single night
Idk how common it was but it’s a good example of a “third place”. A spot that isn’t work or home where you can meet and socialize
I wish we could have third places that don’t involve fucking up your body.
Even with NA (low/non-alcoholic) beverages, it’d be nice to have third places that don’t come with an obligation to spend money.
To be clear, I’m not asking for places that ban spending money, but there are third places like parks (eg NYC Central Park) that are destinations in their own right, but one can also spend money there, such as buying stuff and having a picnic on the grass, or bringing board games and meeting up with friends. Or strolling the grounds astride rental e-bikes. Or free yoga.
Where there’s an open space, people make use of it. But we don’t really have much of that in the USA, that isn’t tied up as a parking lot, an open-space preserve (where people shouldn’t tred upon to protect wildlife), or are beyond reasonable distances (eg BLM land in the middle of Nevada).
Parks and libraries are really nice. Most other third places seem to want you to spend money, that’s my experience here in northern Europe anyway.
Also, in places with significant winters (including Northern Europe) parks aren’t an option in winter.
Northern Europe seems like the kind of place that would realize this is a problem and invent some kind of community building which was open in the winter and had a shared kitchen, a stock of board games, a court for indoor sports, etc. That’s certainly not going to happen in the US.
In Northern Europe, that’s called a library.
The one in Helsinki has board games, media stations for watching films or listening to music, gaming consoles, PCs with design and CAD software, VR rooms, 3D printers and other fabrication machines, conference rooms, study rooms, workshops for fixing things, recording and photo studios, a shared kitchen, a cinema, a playground…Oh, and books.
Wow. My local library mostly has books. No board games. No media stations – there are some (old) computers you can use to browse the web, so I suppose you could watch media there, but it’s set up as a desk, not a couch or something. You can borrow some games, but not game consoles, and there’s definitely not a spot to play the games on-site. Definitely no VR rooms. There’s one branch of the library in the city that has 3d printers. One branch that has a “music editing station” with a music keyboard attached to a computer. One branch has a high quality, large format scanner for scanning historic docs. Definitely no kitchen or playground.
The idea still seems to be that libraries are supposed to be quiet places where you can read books or study. Any media is meant to be consumed with headphones on, so obviously no shared listening of any kind. They do loan music, video games and movies, but they’re meant to be brought home. You can borrow a lot of musical instruments, but again, there’s no place to play them on-site because the library is a quiet place for reading or studying.
I think it would take a major mental shift for people here to consider libraries as places where you might do something non-quiet, and/or non-serious. And something like cooking on-site would be seen as completely non-librarylike.
The one in Helsinki is separated into 3 floors, 1 of them is for quiet reading.
You mean like the YMCA?
Well, definitely not a Christian association.
Nothing religious about the Y anymore. For many years
Everywhere I’ve lived in the US has had plenty of public parks. As a teenager I’d hang out with my friends in them. Hell I’ve been to big community picnics at a park.
The thing is it’s easier to hang out online all the time and people aren’t looking to socialize at parks when there aren’t events.
The problem is in parks everyone is too spread out to talk to strangers. There needs to be a park with a bar to bring everyone together.
I’d say the qualities of the average American park leaves much to be desired, when compared to NYC Central Park, San Diego’s Balboa Park, or SF’s Presidio.
In suburban areas, the municipal park tends to be a monoculture of grass plus maybe a playground, a parking lot, and if lucky, a usable bathroom. Regional parks are often nicer, with amenities like pickleball courts or a BMX park, though asking for benches (not rocks or concrete verges, but actually bench seats) and shade might be a stretch.
My point is that the USA has fewer parks and public squares than it ought to. I don’t mean just a place to go jogging or to push a stroller along, but a proper third space where people actively spend time and create value at. Where street vendors congregate because that’s also where people congregate. A place that people – voluntarily, not by necessity, eg a train station but not to catch a train – would like to be. A destination in its own right, where even tourists will drop by and take in the air, the sights, and the social interactions.
Meanwhile, some parts of the USA actively sabotage their parks, replacing normal park furniture with versions that are actively hostile to homeless people, while alienating anyone that just wants an armrest as they sit down. Other municipalities spend their Parks & Rec funds on the bare minimum of parks, lots that are impractically tiny. Why? Because a public park can be used to exclude registered sex offenders from a neighborhood, leading to the ludicrous situation where whole cities are an exclusion zone. Regardless of one’s position on how to punish sex offenses, the denial of housing and basic existence is, at best, counterproductive.
So I reiterate: the USA might have a good quantity of parks, but not exactly good quality of parks. People will socialize online unless they are given actual options to socialize elsewhere. And IRL options would build value locally, whereas online communities only accrue to the benefit of the platforms (eg Facebook, WhatsApp) they run on.
Are you talking more indoors as there are a lot of outdoor stuff but only the library and churches are indoor stuff I can think of and in the one case you need to keep quiet so not great for socializing and in the other you have to follow wierd precepts or whatnot.
Church
We need church without religion
Depending on the community near you, Unitarian Universalists sometimes have basically that. I’ve been an atheist since I was four, but I have no problem with other people being religious and it was perfect for me. If you’re the type to be annoyed by people talking about the universe in a way that suggests the supernatural, you might not want to deal with even the UU’s very mild language. When I went as a kid, we learned about volcanoes in Sunday School, as a gauge for how religious they are.
Or if you want evil church without religion, can I interest you in crossfit?
I jokingly asked my wife if she’d go to basically church but reading from Marx instead and despite neither of us being marxists it actually sounded like something we’d go to
But also seriously look into if you have a local community center or library and what events they host. Stuff like that often struggles to find attendees
I do think there’s a special thing about church that is this bigger than yourself experience that you share with your community that just isn’t quite replicated in events like art clubs or whatever, volunteering is probably closer
It’s the fact that church comes with an actual presupposition that it isn’t optional, while de facto being optional.
Going to church (in contexts where denomination shopping isn’t a thing at least) means going to a place where a person is not there to validate your particular perspective but instead often to tell you and everyone else in the group to do better, publicly, not because they’re better but because they appeal to higher principles whose correctness is taken for granted buly the congregation.
See also: the absolute brain lottery winners on the internet bitching that the pope isn’t a real catholic for telling them they’re bad catholics (arguably bad christians in general, definitely bad people) for dehumanising poor people and immigrants legal and illegal.
I’m far from a catholic (that is, I’m actually a lapsed catholic if you ask the church, but I was never a believer, just born into it) but there just isn’t a space where you’re going to participate, respect the ethics and morals, still fall short of them, be chastised, and be forgiven, that doesn’t involve some religious aspect.
I do think there’s a special thing about church that is this bigger than yourself experience
I’m pretty sure that’s only the case if you’re a believer. And, in general, people who aren’t believers don’t go to church, so you’re selecting for a group of people who want to believe in something bigger than themselves.
There are several non religious ethical groups to spend time with.
I tried to get you links but I ran out of time before having to do other responsibilities.
That’s like a car without wheels
We have those. They’re called boats.
That’s not a car
People downvote, but you’re not wrong and it’s probably the most common example in rural areas
It’s just an example- I’m not saying it’s the only alternative. Although the declining church attendance possibly causes people to seek third places (although I believe the declining church attendance is that it’s more socially acceptable to be a non believer these days. Would rather if someone come to Church that they’d be at least open to believing)
Even if you find one where there isn’t an emphasis on tithes or donation, that’s not exactly a space set up for public socializing. It’s a private space, used by a dedicated and defined group, for socializing within that group. Outsiders may be welcome, but they’re only welcome within that structure.
Aye, was just an example.
Okay, it was a bad one.
Okay then. Forest heroin den.
Depends, lots of churches welcome lay members of the community to the ancillary activities they organise. Catholic churches in my experience are much more embedded in their communities in southern europe regardless of the status of the people participating.
My father has been lapsed for 40+ years, never shows up for church and doesn’t participate in any of the religious aspects but he still runs free arts and crafts workshops in the parish buildings, for the local kids whether they’re part of the congregation or not.
Check your library. They do all kinds of activities.
I should tbh
Honestly I’m cool with fucking up my body to have a good time, I just wish it didn’t cost me $200 for the privelege.
Hacker/makerspace.Coffee/tea shops. Library. Community Center.
Your local gym? CrossFit box? Football/soccer club? Community centre? Library? Outdoor? Scouts?
Community center and library sure, I wouldn’t really consider the rest a third space.
Depending on the gym, some are a lot more third-spacey than others. I’ve been to a smaller gym where people just hang around after their workouts to socialize, with occasional impromptu dinner outings when the gym closed for the night. I miss that place. You still meet people at bigger commercial gyms, but it’s not the same.
For the non religious, that’s where clubs like the Shriners, or Lions come in. Social clubs that don’t revolve entirely around alcohol
It used to be the Mall. It was always a place to hang out, meet friends, window shop, eat, see a movie, etc.
When I was a kid, the local mall even included the local library. I thought that was a great idea, but I never saw another mall with a library.
May I introduce you to your lord and savior Jesus Christ? He’s got a third place for you.
N o
😂
On the reals, I have an atheist friend who started volunteering at a church literally for this reason. I totally understood where he was coming from. If I didn’t have a family and wanted a way to spend time with other people, I’d probably do the same.
Yeah I mean I have family who’ve worked at them before, I get it but I can’t support something I feel causes so much harm
I’ve never heard of a concept of a third place. Seems like everybody should have one.
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Sir Patrick Stewart’s autobiography has a heartbreaking account of his father’s nightly bar visits, and it sounds like he didn’t drink alone.
