Agreed on both points. In my middle age, I've even considered starting drinking again so that I may have a reason to go to the only place where people hang out in my neighborhood, which is obviously a bar.
The one and only social activity that has saved me from this road so far has been a few meetup groups that I frequent.
You can hang out in a bar and not drink alcohol. Tell them to put your ginger ale in a rocks glass.
As we get older it’s more important than ever to avoid alcohol. We don’t have the organ margin we used to. All that bullshit about “a glass of wine a day is good for you” was fake.
Tell a long, rambling, and slightly depressing story about your friend Bec who had half her liver removed at age 17 every time someone tries to pressure you into drinking. Works okay for me.
I don’t know how to put it nicely, so I’ll say it as plainly as I can: it is an essential life todo item to learn to resist peer pressure. It’s easier than it seems. If people can get you to do things you don’t want to do just by repeating things at you, that’s a you problem, and a big one.
Also, separately, if the people you are hanging out with can’t take no for an answer, get better friends. Friends don’t pressure friends to poison themselves for camaraderie.
I hang out at a bar downstairs in a resort area all of the time just to have casual conversations with random tourists who come in and the bartender who I’m friends with. I’m not a non drinker. But half the time I just get soda (free) or may have one drink.
There is no pressure. I just tell people I come down to socialize - mostly with couples and guys who show up. I am married and no matter what it comes off as creepy to start conversations with women and often their husbands are around.
Since I am friends with bartender and people see me talking to him and it’s obvious that we know each other , it doesn’t come off the wrong way.
>The third places in the United States are almost exclusively churches and bars
I keep hearing this and completely disagree.
I assert that within an hour of any location in the entire united states not so remote that supplies have to be delivered by airplane (so excluding rural Alaska and outlying territorial possessions) there are numerous third spaces.
As a benchmark I use the small town of 400 that you've never heard of abutting Hoosier National Forest in VERY rural southern Indiana that my grandparents lived in, which I spent every summer for over a decade in.
Within a 40-ish minute drive of that small town there are:
* two astronomy clubs: Evansville Astronomical Society and Louisville Astronomical Society
* two amateur radio clubs: Clark County Amateur Radio Club and Bullitt Amateur Radio Society
* four public libraries: Crawford, Paoli, Harrison County, Washington Carnegie. The closest library (15 minutes) has a makerspace with an Epilog laser, Brother Needle Embroidery Machine, Roland Large Format Printer, BambuLabs Carbon 3d Printer, Elegoo Saturn SLA 3d Printer, Cricut, Sewing machine, and Serger. If you're like me and didn't know what a Serger is, it is a machine that sews borders and embroidery onto things.
Plus an Anime & Manga club (in rural southern indiana!??!) scrapbooking, sewing, and multiple book clubs.
* five conservation clubs: Duff, Huntingburg, Mariah Hill, Livonia, and Schnellville (these are shooting, fishing, and hiking clubs in case you're not aware)
* too many to list civic organizations like rotary clubs, elks, masons, veterans, and other civic clubs
* a volunteer fire department in every county and most medium-sized towns (all of which need members ALL of the time)
There is even a small community-run performing arts center if you want to audition for plays, hold a performance, or be a volunteer crewmember: https://www.hayswoodtheatre.org/support-hayswood
All of this in rural, impoverished, isolated Southern Indiana where the Amish and Mennonites own all of the stores, the grain drying bins of neighboring farms keep you up at night, and cellphone coverage tapers off to a teasing and deceptive worse than nothing.
I am a middle-aged man.
I take the middle-aged man loneliness epidemic very seriously.
I am also a bit of a dick: get off your fucking phone and Xbox, quit bitching about the lack of "third places", and go out and do something.
There is a group, doing something, who wants you to join them in every county of every state of the entire United States.
You are not suffering from a lack of opportunities; you are suffering from a lack of imagination and motivation.
Being a dick to people on the internet when you think they'll benefit from tough love (rightly or wrongly) does not translate into being a dick to new people who show up to their first club meeting looking excited and nervous.
I say this not to defend the self-confessed dick, but to encourage everyone else to show up to stuff. People are nicer when they're hanging out and doing something they love.
This is the equivalent of “you have to get off the internet and go in and demand to speak to the manager and shake their hand to get a job”.
The world doesn’t really work that way anymore. Also this only works if you want to hang out in third places with retirees.
(For instance, amateur radio is dying out because most of the oldtimers are dying off and not being replaced because everyone uses the internet now. I got some great deals on equipment from estate sales as a result.)
Also, third places are places. You listed groups. Groups need places to gather, and people who want to go to third places need places that are always places, not just an hour or two on the third saturday of the month. That’s not enough for social cohesion.
As a teetotaling atheist, I moved to Berlin for the universities and night clubs, as there are tons of social events associated with both.