Most people go to restaurants because of the social benefits, not the labour savings.
The idea of people or groups of people siloing themselves into their ultra-convenient homes and never interact with others is a dystopia and a sure sign of an already broken community.
Well, that feels like a rather extreme jump to conclusions, and was certainly not something I thought the GP comment was even suggesting.
I don't see any reason why people couldn't adjust from meeting friends at restaurants to hosting friends at home instead. (Unless, of course, your living space is limited)
If you aren't cooking and cleaning up after, what's the difference between that and meeting someone at a restaurant?
> If you aren't cooking and cleaning up after, what's the difference between that and meeting someone at a restaurant?
I wonder if you realise how dystopian your life already is to consider this question reasonable.
There is a difference between a co-located set of siloed people and a community. The inability to recognise this means your community is already broken.
I suppose our restaurant-going experiences must significantly differ. If I'm going to a restaurant with friends for social interaction, it typically doesn't involve the other people in the restaurant who just happen to be there at the same time as me.
If I wanted that, I would go to a bar instead, which is a separate conversation from the one we were having.
However, I don't think I would be so bold as to call either of our lifestyles 'broken'. That feels like a needless attack.
> You are an idiot narcissist, unable to comprehend that other people might not hold the same values as you. This defect in you, the inability to recognize that other people might want different things than you, will forever render you unable to connect with people at large.
I wonder if you see the irony?
Ultimately, my comment refers not to individual values, but truisms of the human condition, backed by decades of research by sociologists and psychologists.
> Your judgemental attitude combined with your deep conviction that everybody else is in the wrong, rather than you, guarantees that you will die a lonely misanthrope.
I wonder if the reality would disappoint you? Or if you're hoping for this outcome?
> Your abrasive, insulting communication style ensures that nobody will ever truly love you.
Again the irony is palpable. I wonder how you react to disagreements in person if this is your reaction to a well-reasoned but provocative comment that offends you.
> Also, you are, in general, a shit person.
Are you of the calibre of person to judge others?
> All of this might sound over the top and a mean attack, but it’s not. Instead, it is accurate and sympathetic.
It may in fact be accurate, if the subject is the author.
I don't understand the distinction you are making: two couples (4 people) meeting at a restaurant is, to me, equally social as one couple going to another couple's house to eat dinner.
With respect, you're making your own feelings clear. I'm not ascribing any emotion to you.
However, it is clear you lack the perspective to understand how globally unusual or fundamentally broken your community and your interactions with it are.
Perhaps that's true in your country, but not in the US. That said, the logic doesn't fully hold up. I can see it making sense if the goal were purely for the restaurant experience, but if I could replicate the food at home using a bot, I'd be inviting all my friends over to eat at my place instead.
In the US, I think it would be hard to say that most people go to restaurants for social benefits.
> I'd be inviting all my friends over to eat at my place instead.
Ironically, this reads to me like a rather American thing. Simply based on typical dwelling size. There's a lot of nights at a restaurant (or cheaper: some venue specializing in space + some catering for groups instead of the full restaurant experience) I could buy for the cost of keeping a dining room able to host a non-tiny group of friends around all year. In American sprawl, with those hardly-more-than-cardboard construction standards? Sure, no problem.
> "hardly-more-than-cardboard construction standards"
You are a silly person, what does this even have to do with cooking? Sorry America has got you so upset.
Do you even have a counterpoint to what I said beyond your weird hate for America? Most of the places I have traveled and lived in around the world, most people are not going out to eat for socializing but for the elimination of the labor and time it takes to cook the same meal at home. Sure socialization can play a role but thats not the prime value.
Alternatively the idea that people don't entertain at home is a sign of a completely broken housing market where you get a human storage unit rather than a home.
It's a dystopia all right, but one that is already very real. WFH is a reality for many, groceries to the door hasn't become mainstream yet but the supermarket might well be on the trajectory taken by book stores two decades earlier and people who don't attend outdoor or team sports can have surprisingly few occasions to leave home unless they go out of their way to find an excuse.
Just because I can order everything I need for home with a couple of taps (which I can, BTW), work from home time to time, and can cook and clean by myself doesn't mean that I don't need to leave home.
Taking a long tour along the neighborhood, to see what I want to buy first hand before pulling the trigger, or seeing an old friend and getting a nice coffee at that café are all valid reasons to go out.
Getting fresh air, regularly walking, seeing a couple of different and unknown faces are regular maintenance tasks for the body and brain.
I don't think humans should hole up at their homes and work/doom scroll/eat/doom scroll/sleep/repeat just because they can. That's unhealthy for every aspect of your body and life to begin with.
That's why I called it a dystopia. After a year of working fully remote I now have the option of walking to an office and I haven't skipped on that a single day. The WFH had its benefits, but all in all it felt like COVID lockdown going into overtime. As in enjoying those few seconds of interaction at the supermarket checkout.
Although this is your reality most of thr time, people need to go out with family/friends, from time to time. So when they disappear where people are going to go?
I'm in this dystopia: WFH, delivery groceries, delivery meals when I'm feeling lazy. If I didn't have a dog, I'd probably only leave my house on the weekend.
IMO it's not so bad. I don't miss grocery shopping. I do miss walking to work up Powell St.
I do know my neighbors though, and talk to them on a pretty regular basis. I don't like sports especially, but I also do have some recreational hobbies that get me outside.
That's more or less my life, except that I don't live somewhere walkable, and do still buy groceries in person (although I will, especially when my mobility/fatigue/general health issues acting up, use their curbside service), but that store is a 2 minute drive from my house. As I mentioned, I have medical issues that are currently rather sucky and limiting, and being chronic, largely irreversible conditions, well, they aren't gonna get better. Maybe with stem cells one day... Anyway, point being that these sort of services (which, in my case, can also be stuff like... buying the pre-cut fruit rather than whole) can be a pretty big deal for the disabled.
The idea of people or groups of people siloing themselves into their ultra-convenient homes and never interact with others is a dystopia and a sure sign of an already broken community.