The Importance of Being Social: Why Your Parents Don’t Have Friends
"Cafe society, Valetta" by foxypar4 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Well, maybe yours do.
But think on it for a second. Think about the adults you know. Sure, they have coworkers that annoy them. They have acquaintances from college they see on Facebook. But it’s nowhere like it was. Their days are spent at work, with quiet solace in their homes on the weekends. Adults constantly ask themselves, “Why do I have such trouble making friends? It was never this hard when I was a child.” Part of the answer is children are simply afforded the place to connect with one another that we are not. Adults are not provided their own playground. We meet people by passing strangers on the street.
We are running out of third places.
"Coffee Shop near Times Square" by Neo_II is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Third Places: The Social Exchange
First defined by Ray Oldenburg, a third place is a broad category of social gathering spot, such as facilities, landscapes, and infrastructure, that encourages cultural exchange. After the home (first place) and the workplace (second place), we find the third place. Home provides shelter. Work provides resources. A third place provides community. Shopping malls, community centers, public gardens—it fills in the gaps of life with a beautiful color you’ll miss if you don’t stop to notice. We take these environments for granted, both in our culture and in our policies.
I grew up in a Midwest suburb where everyone in the neighborhood is only vaguely aware of each other. It was quiet. Adult friends who visit my hometown are shocked to find the most social activities are twenty minutes away in any direction. There are no neighborhood parties or gatherings. It’s what you might call a ‘third place desert.’ Few and far between are the outlets for community.
I moved onto a college campus in the Fall of 2023.
For a desert dweller such as myself, what I found was startling. You wouldn’t believe how many people there are in this world. Truly! Suddenly, I had an impulse to be social. Suddenly, there were things to do, reasons to go outside. It felt like my entire life, since birth, I was stuck with a rock in my shoe. Growing up with it, I never cared, until one morning I woke up on a twin sized bed in a small dorm… and it was gone. And I had no intention of ever going back.
So, why was it so different?
What about college makes it the prime of people’s life? Why do we reminisce the way we do? Easy—it’s a place. A third place. Everything you do at college is in a third place. You dine communally, learn communally, and relax communally. It’s what we’re meant to do as people. That’s why it feels so great. So why do we stop? Why do we lead ourselves back inside after experiencing the world around us? That’s what scares me the most, thinking about what happens when I graduate two years from now. Do I have to go back?
In the eyes of the American Dream, there’s a very specific idea of what makes a good life. If you watch any coming of age film with a predominantly white cast, you’re likely to run into it. Friends grow apart from one another. “We stopped talking after school—we got jobs, families. It’s just what has to happen.” Maturity means isolating yourself. You settle down and lose track of people. This is the idea I’ve been conditioned to accept, emerging from the suburban flee of the 1950’s. It’s dangerous and untrue.
I am personally speaking to my experience. The history and persistence of white supremacy in our country has caused many Americans to disconnect from culture, both through abandoning cities and discouraging diversity, and what the privileged are left with is suburbs. Everyone else, even worse. All are affected by the lack of socializing spots—through their existence alone, they promote tolerance. Coexisting with other people requires understanding and patience. It teaches our children to exist beyond themselves. Isolationism keeps us from that growth.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I believe in our innate desire to connect with one another. I believe in having college experiences throughout life, not letting the pressure of middle class suburbia dissuade you from keeping yourself involved with a community. And I also think this doesn’t have to uproot the lives we have now. I’m not telling you to go back to college. It’s more simple than you think to create the same feeling. Just go to third places. Take your friends out—meet new ones. Third places are dying only because we’re letting them. Take it back!
The problem is, we keep getting stopped at every turn. Cultural isolation has only gotten even worse since the global pandemic of 2020. My family hardly goes to grocery stores anymore, ordering things online and picking them up pre-bagged in the parking lot, a remnant of social distancing procedure. I mean, it’s impossible to ignore, isn’t it? “Social distancing” was a practiced discipline for all of us. That’s hard to work back from.
Humans have lived together in groups. Since the very beginning, we have relied on each other to survive. When we interact at third places, we are choosing to discover and care for one another. Getting advice from a hairstylist, meeting your friends for dinner, finding new people to talk to—these are life changing experiences.
The social health of the world is vastly undervalued. We need to protect it.
Sustain DuPage’s community garden.
But how do we do that?
I found out about Sustain DuPage at the beginning of this year. All of these values I’ve mentioned—you can find them here. Community cookouts, gardening, educational opportunities… take advantage of it! Visit Sustain DuPage, state parks, local arboretums. Visit shopping districts and community centers, barber shops, bars, malls, beauty parlors, cafés, diners, parks, museums, and gardens. Imagine the other places you’ve missed, pockets of clean air in a world of lonely fog. There are so many people out there, right now, waiting to make friends with you. Like anxious children on the outskirts of a playground, we’ve all lost touch a little bit. But it’s in our grasp to find our way back to civilization again.
Plant a few seeds. Make a few friends. Step outside. Your kids will worry a whole lot less about you.
If this article has piqued your interest and you want to learn more about Sustain DuPage, follow us on our Instagram and sign up for our Newsletter! It releases every month and gets you up to speed on all the latest Sustain DuPage happenings!
I would also like to thank Jessica Finlay, Michael Esposito, Min Hee Kim, Iris Gomez-Lopez, Philippa Clarke, and the National Library of Medicine for the information used in this blog post! If you want to check out their websites and books, they’re linked below.
“Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing” by the National Library of Medicine https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6934089/
