It's a shame so much of our built environment reduces socialization.
For many, living in a city like that can be just as isolating, if not more. Because being surrounded by so many people and not having any real connections is a different kind of hurt. It's sort of a cosmic joke at that point.
after a while, it didn't work out like i thought it would. surely, it had nothing to do with me and my inability to socialize properly? nay! i came to the naive conclusion that the city was at fault, or that we were mismated: "it's not big enough and there's not enough to do, or places to meet people. it's really far from the things i like to do, like the ocean or hiking spots." so, i moved to one of the most dense, socially-active cities in the world.
been here a while and yeah, it sucks. i think you put it best, feels a bit like a cosmic joke. there's only a few places in the world where so many people are crammed into such a small place. yet, i have no one.
i had enough and dished out some $$$ to spend 2 months in a rural town. a real quiet place, one of those towns with a single coffee shop. no whole foods or any amazon shenanigans. i miss some things, but the only times i've felt this at home have been... at home, with my parents. i think i'll move back in with them and give up on the city dream.
But, a big city has _scale_. You wanna give D&D a go? There's probably a club within a mile or two of you. Fancy doing martial arts? You've got a choice of half a dozen with 20 minutes. You're a long-time hobbyist in an obscure type of Japanese figure painting? You might have to travel a bit, but your city has one of only three clubs for that hobby in the country so you win!
Basically, put in the effort. It could easily take a year or more. But get out there, be social, take initiative, and you'll find your people.
On the other hand, I grew up and spent about the first two-thirds of my life in an extremely rural area. Socializing happened only at school, and when your nearest friends are a thirty minute drive away, you learn to effectively spend time alone.
I read, I wandered through the woods, I played video games. Activities I still enjoy.
It was nice spending my 20s a few minutes walk from my friends, restaurants, my office, etc, but it certainly got overwhelming. People were inviting me to do stuff nearly every night. I frequently wondered if people just live like that and when they found the time to just do normal alone stuff.
The realization that helped me here is that people don’t think about you as much as you think they do.
So, for example, if you ignore most events, and just join these events once every few weeks, it’s not like people will think any less of you.
I decided to skip a lot more of these events and instead meet smaller groups of friends for last moment smaller hang outs instead. Maybe just grab a 30 min walk after work or grab a coffee or a couple of drinks a weekend morning.
Also, there's a difference between having a friend turn down a one to one meetup versus turning down a party of 30 people, 20 of whom they don't really know.
So I moved to London, and damn I'm glad I did.
It's easy to hole up in your suburban home and never socialize, but I know a lot of people who live in dense cities and never leave their house unless absolutely necessary either.
Living in a suburb doesn't mean you're isolated from friends, as long as you live within a reasonable drive. It does mean everyone has to plan ahead and allocate a little more travel time, but that's not really a big deal when people are in their 30s with more obligations, work, and possibly kids.
Living in the suburbs actually creates a different set of opportunities because now you have more space and likely a yard, too. Cramped parties in someone's apartment are fun when you're in your 20s, but in my 30s it's much nicer to head to someone's backyard BBQ or house that comfortably holds 40 people inside. There's also room for kids to play, room for outdoor games, and other things that weren't happening at parties in my 20s.
If you're trying to project your exact current lifestyle on to suburban living then it's going to be disappointing. If you instead look at it from the perspective of being different rather than worse, you start to the possible upsides.
In a small town or suburb if you're the "odd man out" it can be much harder.
But when I "lived in the city" as a younger man, I was often traveling out to the suburbs where friends lived as they had the space and the things to do.
I see this with the youngest workers at my company. When I was their age I moved to the city for $750/month and got a cheap apartment and lived in the thick of things, a 15 minute bike ride to the office and walking distance to bars and restaurants. For them to do the same as I did, rent would be $2500/m and so they've been forced into continuing to live in their parents basement way out in the burbs. Remote work has been a godsend for not burning half their day, but they're still resultingly isolated from the vibrant urban social life that I enjoyed.
I'm sure there may be a few that prefer the burbs, but it's clear that there's no real actual choices being made here and it is economic conditions that are forcing their living conditions on them. It's really sad that we've allowed this to happen through our inaction and reluctance to allow new homes to be built.
I'd love to live somewhere walkable but I just don't have the budget to do it without putting our family on a knife edge monetarily.
This gets into the concept of “third space” or community space, which we often critically lack outside of cities. Living near friends is great if you have them but if you don’t you need some place to make them. Culturally we are in a weird spot for a lot of people. There are church related communities but that’s not helpful if you’re not religious. There’s the bar and club scene but that can be more focus on sex, can be expensive, and is also not for everyone (especially if you don’t drink alcohol). There’s niche interest groups like d&d and board game clubs, figure drawing classes, etc, but these can be hard to socialize in because of things like the group is already tight knit and not accepting of new faces, the class is focused and there’s not much time for socializing thus requiring another social space (eg let’s get drinks after class) which you may not have time for, etc
It’s tough, I guess. The articl is a good suggestion but an oversimplification that glosses over these big systemic issues (especially the lack of community spaces that don’t constantly drain us of cash or expect us to be intoxicated). If you can live near your friends you should. But at the same time that’s way tougher than it sounds most of the time. I’d love to live near my friends but we’re all pushing 40 now. Everyone’s everywhere. We were once all in the same city but work took us all over the place and now we live all over the country. It’s hard enough to just stay in touch.
Would argue it's less about "where you are" and more about "how easy it is for you to make new friends" but that's purely anecdotal.
I guess if it's about going to bars to make friendships then yes there will be less of that in suburbs (assuming U.S. here). But as you age going to bars is a "need" that seems to generally decrease for most (not all of course) people.
How is a suburb inherently lonely exactly?
And I'm just thankful I'm no longer in apartments where I have to deal with neighbours screaming matches at 3am, people having parties above me every single weekend, crappy landlords, and all the other shit.
i don't think you can really blame the built environment, when that's the whole reason people built the environment that way. not being forced to interact with anybody other than the people you specifically choose to interact with is the whole reason people move to the suburbs, or avoid public transit. the isolation is the point.