It sounds like in your case those things (friends, etc.) Are work focused. That's the case for many folks.
In my case my friends are mostly not work focused. I have tons of friends I made at work, but work is not the primary way in which I engage with them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that my experience is exactly the opposite.
When I work from home I see my friend who runs the local Cafe, I see my friend for lunch, I spend more quality time with my wife and family, and chosen friends.
Work from home is not like Stephen King style, a lone warrior in a cabin in the middle of the woods.
Some people get their community from work, some don't. That is not dependent on work from home or not, it's a conflating metric.
I think it's got a lot to do with one's personality, priorities (whether to live in a dense area or not), interests (how big of a share work takes in the things you enjoy) and willingness to proactively cultivate human interactions.
Like other things related to WFH, there doesn't seem to be a one-size-fits-all answer and I like it. Having more room to allow more varied types of individualities to co-exist freely is a good thing in my opinion.
Kids should school from home. They don't get to choose who their classmates are so they're being forced to have human interactions who they haven't chosen of their own free will.
Colleges should all be remote. Same reasons.
I'm relatively confident that interacting with others is kind of the point of school and college and I'm just as confident that many (not all) of those same reasons apply to work. WFH ignores those reasons.
I see fewer benefits for younger people with no household obligations, e.g. single people living alone (particularly if you don't have a strong social circle outside of work).
WFH also makes it harder than it used to be to relocate to a new city and meet people. Over the past decade I've relocated to NYC and then to SF (and then back to NY). But when I first relocated, with only a job and no social circle, work friends was how I met people (and then happy hour with coworkers would lead to meeting more people outside of work).
Definitely pros and cons. Hopefully we eventually find a steady state where the people who want in-person work are able to find in-person jobs, and vice versa for WFH. Neither is objectively better than the other.
Genuine question - did you actually make lasting connections with those people you met at happy hours or do you just mean they were interesting strangers to chat with one day?
For dating, social norms and expectations make things relatively easy. Meet a girl, ask for her number, go on a date a week later. For platonic friends it seems far murkier. Do you ask the guy you've been chatting about football with at happy hour for his phone number and text him about the game next week? Do you add him on facebook? Hope he shows up at another happy hour with the mutual acquaintance another several times to build up enough rapport that it doesn't seem weird to connect?
I met someone who eventually became my best friend at a coworkers birthday party!
> For platonic friends it seems far murkier
In my experience moving to a new city the easiest way to make platonic friends is to wiggle your way into an already-existing group of friends.
Re: all your other questions, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid of being turned down. Also highly recommend just being super upfront if you’re trying to be friends with someone, literally just ask “Hey, want to be friends?” and go from there.
When I’ve wanted to make more friends, making the intention known to people around me seems to work
On the other hand, WFH has allowed me to eat healthy and stay fit. I can workout in the middle of the day, take the dog out for breaks and then come back refreshed to get work done. I don’t like working out early morning or at night. So just having the flexibility to focus on fitness in the middle of the day alone has made a massive difference to my health.
But now my employer has mandated working from office all 5 days in a week. I see about 10 people in my entire floor, I don’t work with any of them, cafeteria is crap so I have to go out to eat, 30 minute commute each way. I’m doing the same work, alone, just in an office now. It’s definitely been a net negative for me.
Wow, way to exaggerate. I have a social life outside of work, but I'm working ~40 hours a week. Why should those be lonely, isolated, unsocial hours? They're the prime hours of my life!
I sympathize with all your latter points, but that's no reason to make up another.
What are we talking about, here? Having fun? I'm talking about social affirmation, collaboration, feedback, and community memory. There are a thousand social mechanisms for productivity. "Having fun" doesn't have to enter into it.
But it should! Humor is a valid form of communication, and it's my experience that the brightest people are the funniest—see: Tom. Lehrer. Smart teams wield levity among other tools. There is nothing virtuous about dourness or severity. There is a time and place for gravitas and decorum, but it's not 40 hours a week.
Besides all that, it's good for me! As you said, others may have different needs and, in general, humans are evolved to rely on one another to maintain psychohomeostasis. 40 hours is a long time to take me out of range of my evolved external organs.
This can easily be fixed with one of the many available video platforms out there. You are only lonely and isolated if you dont use the tools available to you (or your employer does not facilitate those, which means you should look for another one)
WFH will mean more meaningful connections with the communities in which we live, rather than the communities forced on us by the cities we commute to, and the people who we happened to work with because we passed the same interview.
My mental health was far worse in an office. The drudge of the hours long commute, the dark evenings on the packed commuter trains with only an hour to myself at home before going to sleep and doing it all over again.
It's not for everyone, but it's certainly not a universally bad thing.
I don't see how that follows unless you're not actually "working" and instead using your time at home as an excuse to not work.
You'll spend more time not in the city where your office is, and more time in your local area.
If I were single and younger I’d likely want to be in office.
Sure, you may not be out "socializing" during work hours when you WfH, but you have more time for anything outside of the 8A-5P window since you have no commute time - more time for your partner/kids, more time to go out and do something social, more time for yourself if you want to do something out but on your own, more time for errands and chores, etc.
The flip side of this is the move for most jobs to try and consume every waking hour of your existence through Teams/Slack pings and Teams/Zoom meetings outside of normal working hours, but this is happening to people regardless of whether they work in the office or work from home, meaning working from the office is still strictly worse due to commute time.
> Why should a company subsidize your need to have fun at work, we're here to get a job done, not horse around on the company dime
they do. Why do you think places like google and facebook have so many cafes, perks, group activities, etc. Because they know people that are friends are more productive than people who are not. people who have a good time at work and like their coworkers stick around, collaborate better, help each other more
I like the clean separation from home and personal stuff. I like my office building, the view and being among people. There is a lot of stuff that makes it fun compared to being at home.
My commute is short so that works out for me. I also feel a lot more productive at work as my role involves a lot of collaboration to see things through.
I can list all benefits people quote, no commute being the most blatant one, one more hour of sleep for free.. etc. But I agree that it alters your life rhythm, and your brain needs a light dose of chaos (seeing random faces, seeing different landscapes a bit) to not feel stuck in a loop, and it can feel weird at times. Also you can have bad colleagues annoy you on zoom :)