Third spaces were much more common before the 2000s. Coffee shops where you could hang out with friends were actually a thing in the 90s. Open mic nights and karaoke. I remember we had a common ritual at the book store I worked where everyone who closed would meet up at TGI Fridays for late night drinks, TGIF doesn’t even exist any more. I used to meet up with a bunch of friends at Dennys every Thursday night, and then it fucking closed.
Holy shit how haven’t I noticed all the TGIFs were gone?
They absolutely still exist lol https://tgifridays.com/
There are 85 locations remaining in the united states. Thats down from 270 in the 90s. There are only four in California where I live.
They got bought up by private equity and gutted, just like red lobster.
Kmart and sears too.
Sears had it bad. It got stripped out and then bought by Kmart, and then it got stripped agian.
Nobody can afford that shit anymore. That was a 80/90s adult thing. That or a bar @.@ our parents really got the last of it.
Mid-2000s in France I experienced this, tough we certainly weren’t drinking coffee lmao.
I don’t have friends, but the people at the coffee drive-through have started recognizing me. Can’t wait to get apartments together with them soon.
I’m not alone! My local coffee stand baristas have an insane memory and know all of the regulars by name. I could never have that kind of memory (likely attributed to decades of smoking the devil’s lettuce)
Dude, no joke.
I went back to a coffee shop like months later, i had only been a few times total, and the barista greeted me by name. Wtf. I was floored.
My memory is shit as well and i can’t even attribute to any fun activities…
No, because it would be exorbitantly expensive.
When I was a kid we hung out at the record store… it was free
I hung out at videogame sections at consumer electronics stores when I was a kid because they usually had a few game consoles with games on them to play. It was also free.
Was.
As in past-tense.
I spend like $3k/yr at my local bar.
“Third places” in this day and age, with this carbrained transportation and zoning policy?
Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Dear John, cheers; these places were either in very walkable cities, or their stories were structured so it would be a way-stop in someone’s commute or travels.
The diner in Seinfeld, the bar in Simpsons and Family Guy.
When I was much younger, my friends and I would meet up at the same coffee shop/bistro every day and hang out on the back patio smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and chatting for hours. That place is no longer in business, and everything is WAY too expensive now… but years later, some of that same group of people meet up damn near every day at a private beach shack for beers, grilling, and swimming.
Living the fucking life man, wow. I definitely had a hang like that in my younger years but all those people are grown and gone, myself included.
Through sheer luck, many of my friends are either single or DINKs, so we’ve got the free time to hang out. Doesn’t hurt that we live on a small island.
You guys have friends?
These are all set in walkable cities, it makes sense to have a favorite cafe near where you all live.
I live in a walkable neighborhood, and I have a version of this with the other parents in our neighborhood, where we have a designated night of the week where anyone who can make it meets up at one of the patio restaurants where the kids can run around while the parents hang out. Not everyone makes it every week, but we’ve got a good group of friends.
I have a favourite cafe near where I live but I cant afford to go there every day 😭
100% though there are groups of retired folks that definitely do meet up there regularly like in these shows.
When I was younger, certainly before kids, yeah, we had a couple different restaurants or bars where we’d meet up fairly regularly, for either a couple beers or some food, or both, or more.
This thread highlights the reality of Lemmy, and how it’s representative of only a sliver of the population. The number of people saying “Friends?” is depressing.
I thought the point was that we no longer have this. I’m a millennial, and when I was in my 20s, we used to hang out at Denny’s a couple times each week.
Now the policy has changed and the prices have gone up. We can’t afford to eat out, and even if you can, you aren’t allowed to hang out for hours chatting with your friends anymore.
That is a good point. I see a lot of people suggesting it hasn’t been a thing since the '90s, when for me it stopped probably shortly before or shortly after COVID, and mainyl because I have kids. But I won’t disagree that shits expensive everywhere, and I’ve certainly said to myself “Yeah, that ain’t worth that.” So I’m with you there.
I think I could still hop on down to my local watering hole and meet up with some friends and put some beers away though. The beers there have always been expensive, and so that at least hasn’t changed.
I don’t have kids, but it stopped being a thing around 2010-2015ish for me. It does feel like it’s been on the downswing since the 90s, but maybe that’s just because I could never afford to hang out at the bar, haha.
Yo when I was in high school you could go to the diner and spend $4 on a sandwich and fries and hang out. Now it’s like $20 for the same shit
I still meet up with my friends at the usual hangout but the frequency is way down to like once every 2 months or something. None of us can believe that shithole is still in business.
When i have local friends, im usually the one who noveltysluts us out of having ‘a place’ we go to for food when we food. If i dont agitate for variation, it does not occur.
Does anyone have friends that see more than 2-3 times a year?
Yes but only because I moved near them.
Absolutely
In person? Sorta. But im a freak of society if not nature, and am structurally odd enough i get referred to as fantasy creatures pretty regularly.
No. But in college, we had a pub we would go to for dinner on Wednesday every week with the same group of friends, with the occasional tag along. Does that count?
it’s called “my place” or “their place”, and we make coffee for a cent on the dollar
The Pub
I cannot even financially support that. A beer costs between 5 and 8 euros. Having a few beers and some snacks for 2 hours is a bill of 60 euros. Imagine doing that for several hours every day. I can’t spend 100-150 euros every day.
It’s so much cheaper to just buy a couple 12-packs and hang out at someone’s place. Bonuses include - choosing what to put on the TV, not having conversations be interrupted by strangers, and having the ability to crash overnight if you don’t feel comfortable driving home afterward.
I’m not the most outgoing person, and bars/clubs tend to be too loud for my liking. I don’t think those places were made for people like me, so there’s little point in going there when hanging with friends on my back porch is so much cheaper.
Same. I see friends regularly, but almost always as living room chillings.
I’m amused that the implicit limit in your comment, that the thing that makes drinking 10 beers a day impractical, is the cost.
It’s not just beers. A coke is 4. Alcohol free beer is also 5. Coffee is about threefiddy. I’m not going to drink coffee all day. A cocktail is between 14 and 18, a mocktail is maybe 2 euros cheaper.
Heh, I agree with LordWiggle completely. Pretty easy to put away 12 or so light beers in an afternoon… but I’m not dropping ~$90 to do it! A twelver of Tecates is only $16.50 with deposit - much more reasonable!
I did that 3 days a week, there’s nothing impractical about it if you live next to a bar you like. Except, indeed, the cost.
For those of who worked at certain restaurants, you might have experienced a dedicated group of 75+ friends and yes they do meet at the same place everyday. In fact when we were closed they’d camp outside in the parking lot in lawn chairs.
The exact same group of geriatrics… every single day. Honestly it was sad to see one missing and not come back because you knew why.
100%
Worked at a retirement place as a server. This to the next level. Doors open at 7 for breakfast. The line started at 630 same people. Same table. Same orders. We could pre set their specific flavored creamers.
When the lady who got half a grapefruit passed it felt empty to not have her 1 but then every time we had a extra grapefruit left it was like seeing her again.
