well it beats going to a frigging bar or weirding random people out in public transport, like the good ol days. But of course that's just a personal preference.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/where-have-all-the-hitchhik...
It's a multi-step process:
1. Society has some kind of neutral/positive norm like hitchhiking or friendly chats with strangers
2. There are a few high-profile incidents of people abusing this norm. Fearmongering news stories, hurt/anxious people staying inside and venting on the internet, etc.
3. The message goes out: "Responsible people avoid [norm] for the sake of safety"
4. After the message goes out, people respond differently depending on how concerned they are with being prosocial. The people concerned with being prosocial tend to abide by the message and avoid the norm. The people less concerned with being prosocial tend to ignore the warning.
5. The norm is now a little bit riskier, because the people who engage in it are now disproportionately antisocial. This causes the per-capita rate of abuse to rise. Return to step 2.
Which is odd, really, considering it's literally ride-SHARING. It's far more social to hop in someone's car than to stand alone on the roadside.
Uber says the person's name, has their phone number, their car with make & model, license plate number, etc. If something happens there is a way to track down who / what / where / when.
Plus the riders also have a score. You know each other, sort of. Just like the drivers there is an account, a name, a phone number.
With hitching neither side has any idea what they're getting. Probably alright, probably not too weird -- but you have no way of knowing.
This is strongly linked to class. The kids of rich friends have no problem striking up conversations with strangers, because they’ve been doing it at cocktail parties and restaurants since they were young. My less well-off friends’ kids have more screen time, much less opportunity for spontaneous conversation with unknown adults (they’re not taken out to eat) and spend more public time in unsafe spaces where there is legitimate concern about others’ willingness to hurt them.
Nowadays however, it can very well escalate into worldwide public ridicule and/or a witch hunt on social media, with potentially career-ending consequences. You are only really safe if you're either extremely attractive (both to initially reduce the risk of a rejection, and to garner sympathy from would-be witch hunters), are rich enough to not worry about career consequences (or your employer isn't vulnerable to public opinion), or can spin the witch hunt for your own benefit if your entire brand is already based on being against the mainstream (think Andrew Tate for example).
No wonder it's not worth the risk for the vast majority of people.
I think your poor friends must be middle class. Poor parents don't have time to hover like that what with sleeping and multiple jobs and all.
Now, I know it's "not every young person", since I also know many social butterflies, but the number I know is still shocking.
Years ago It was depressing to see someone talking to himself in the middle of a parking lot; now it's an everyday occurrence but not madness b/c there's a real conversation.
Every now and then I ponder whether the cellphone and earbuds combo hasn't become the perfect disguise for schizophrenics.
I'm not even listening to anything, those things are completely silent. I just don't want contact with people.
So you're essentially a hermit surrounded by a society! You may share some characteristics with those who meditate, deaf persons, the autistic et al but, to your advantage, you have the option of hearing.
I must admit sometimes I need some silence.
It'd be nice if we made more decisions using cost/benefit analysis instead of emotive fearmongering.
I actually think 2001 is a good talking point, because by now there is widespread agreement that it represents a case of fearmongering getting out of control -- with the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that people who e.g. spoke out against TSA excesses were not, in fact, aiding and abetting terrorists. But it seems like analogous arguments "aiding and abetting" arguments are currently being made in a few other domains.
... uh, what? I meet people (i.e., "talk to strangers") all the time in public, it hasn't changed at all (and I've been doing it for far longer than 15 years). OK, work's a little different (but that was never particularly a place (for me, anyway) to meet people), but the rest? Don't see the "creepy and taboo" at all.
I know in my city visitors find it weird when local strangers just start including them in conversations. I know I’d frequent places a line and be fine striking up conversations with whoever was also there.
But me visiting other cities and trying the same, I’d be met with wired looks and asked why I’m talking to them.
Bars, make a little more sense. Bars are designed in a way that you’re in close proximity to other people (often strangers) and also probably a bit more amenable to be friendly with said strangers thanks to alcohol.
But how do you meet your spouse at restaurants? Restaurants aren’t very social places.
Organize a big dinner between two distinct social groups with only one or two linkages. In my case, my coworker was dating my future spouse's coworker. Very different companies. Those two arranged a dinner so their friends could meet. We had the big room at the Clay Pit in Austin where it's possible to hold a cross-table conversation.
Don't sit near only people you know. Don't talk in-jokes with the people you already know. As dinner's wrapping up see if anyone wants to go dancing or whatever. Anyone with mutual eyes on each other will definitely continue to hang out into the evening. And it's easy to ask someone to dance or hang out again at that point because you just spent hours with them at dinner.
Unfortunately it’s difficult enough to get one together now. Particularly after Covid it seems no one wants to do anything anymore.
They can be, and they also often have bars that are just as social as a bar-as-distinct-venue.
Her granddaughter goes online, where she makes herself available for dating. And yeah, she knows she's going to get a lot of unpleasantness, but at least it's confined to a place she's expecting it. It's not following her into every grocery store, every restaurant, every gym.
The behavior was always creepy. Women were just expected to tolerate it. If you want to meet somebody romantically, go to the places set aside for it. Which also includes some people in some bars, in fact, but you know that every woman on a dating site is there for dating.
If men actually listened to that perspective, they'd have a lot more success with women. Instead, they seem to insist that they're right, and the women are wrong, and they're going to keep doing these behaviors that put women off. They'd rather cling to their perspectives, even over the opportunity to get laid.
But I see as much bad as a problem the abundance of fearmongering news like that on root, which creates big awe for paranoia, which (in this case because these are heterosexual matters) polarizes discussion, which motivates people like you and archagon to decree that blaming will solve anything. Luckily for my mild contempt of your (and archagon's, and whoever else's in this milieu) comment, a generation of men and women having a million other (in their head) "more important things to do" than fail indefinitely at mating, getting old and die childless and probably alone shall be a problem your sons are going to inherit.
I don't know how to break that cycle for those who are committed to it. But any sons of mine would understand that women just like to be treated with respect, and they'll be as successful with women as I have been.
Historically (and by that I mean before dating apps), people mostly found significant others at work, at church, through family introductions, friend-of-friend connections, or even professional matchmakers. Encounters at bars were always meant for random hookups. And everything else (like spilling your drink on someone in the elevator and eventually getting married to them) is a hollywood storyline, not something that actually happened to a large number of people.
That was always common too.
Learning to socialize with other human beings, and building casual connection and conversation with new people.
Fixed that for you.
In the "good old times" people were relying on network of friends. I did not meet my wife at a random bar or in the public transportation. We were moving in the same circles, had lots of common friends, we were both already "vetted" by mutual acquaintances when we started dating. I believe this was the pattern for thousands of years.
> on the phone . . . Nearing 50 years later
Did you have a really long cord? Was it in the hallway or out the window?
You mean in totally artificial contexts? Yeah, that was great