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Nice rundown. I’m not in the US so the church-based focus of this is quite alien to me. A lot of people here go to Church but it’s down from probably 90%+ in the 1980s/90s to 30% now. (Guessing on these numbers but the fall off has been huge in a generation or so…) And the only people who use Church as social outlet are people aged 80 and up. Sad but that’s just the way it is, and probably a natural result of abuse scandals and coverups.
Could you explain what you mean by “ fraternal organization”? [Yes I can ask Google but just wondering what exactly they look like for you…]
For me (40s, married almost 20 years, two teenage kids) social life is quiet. I still live close to where I grew up but drifted away from all school friends (drift took place all the way through 20s, by the time we were all 35 we had nothing in common anymore). And I haven’t replaced those friends.
I’m involved in management teams of my old football club so it’s good to still be a part of a group of 20-30 year-olds trying to get the most out of themselves and each other. (It’s amateur but serious.)
Otherwise I run but not part of a club and prefer to do it alone. Also a member of a tennis club but it’s a strange social set, plenty of older richer people who have it made and are just enjoying life and I don’t have much in common with them, while the people my age and younger are sort of poor, a bit “drinky”, whiny and unambitious.
I’m after people my age with drive, energy and ambition - next stop might be a golf club. I love lots about the game but my game is crap and I haven’t yet got over the ego hump of getting lessons and putting in the hours to improve.
My wife and kids spend a lot of time together. I work from home, wife works near home, so we’re together 7 nights a week for an hour or two at least, but we haven’t done much socially. (Wife and son are mildly autistic and hate crowds so happier sitting silently with books, art or games at home.)
I’m much more extrovert but haven’t had much of a chance to explore that part of me last number of years. I like things like horse racing and poker but don’t have any friends to go/play with, went alone a few times and actually enjoyed it but still hard to get over the feeling of being a loner (I see other loners kicking their heels and looking smelly and friendless and would hate hate hate to be like them.)
I also write some poetry but have zero time for the poetry/spoken word scene. Full of self important dicks who think capitalism is to blame for their shitty lives and want to take it out on the world with snarky writing that has poor scansion and no rhythm.
Thanks for the question. It made me think about something I’d really like to improve.
Thanks for your response. I enjoyed reading it and commiserating. We're a bit apart in age but there is a great deal of common experience here.
For me personally - the church thing was certainly an intentional decision on my part to start using the "church subculture" as a primary social outlet. In my 20s, my socializing involved much more of "people in bars," "people at concerts," etc. It is true, though, that being in America means that it is at least somewhat viable to go this route as a younger person; but I would note it's still very much a minority position, even here. Where I live, you can safely assume that most under-30s you meet will be secular leftists who would not consider going to church.
"Fraternal organizations" are a somewhat unique thing. They are organizations that meet usually for charitable endeavors; and they have club houses in each neighborhood where they exist, where you can go and hang out. Generally speaking, they will have a bar and maybe a kitchen, and if you're a member, you can go there and drink very cheaply if you want to. Some of them are: the Fraternal Order of Eagles; the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and of course the Freemasons. It was a very common thing in America for men to join these up until maybe the 1970s or so, but they declined with the advent of television; Robert Putnam writes about this a lot in Bowling Alone. If you're a reader - the novels of Sinclair Lewis from the 1910s and 1920s have lots of characters who are members of these orders.
Anyway, like seemingly every voluntary social activity outside the home, these orders are mostly the reserve of provincials and the aging now; but I went as a guest to the local Eagles lodge a few times last summer, and it was really nice. If these exist near you (or whoever is reading this), they are absolutely a viable option to be your "third place," but many people don't even know they're there.
I am 35 now, and I'm experiencing this. I think it is more me that has changed, than them, but I suppose it is inevitable that one or the other will change. I continue to fight it, because I like still having an existing connection with the people with whom I formed pleasant memories; but the memories and the connection are fading together.
You and I have this in common as well. It does suck a bit, to try late in life to take up something which will require hundreds of hours to get good at; with golf I'm trying to decide if I've given up on it. I hit a lot of great wedge shots somehow, but everything else is just frustration, and that's simply because I haven't practiced and learned enough. As I mention elsewhere, I've taken up chess, and at least I can practice that substantially at home. But yes - I've kept up with tennis because I already invested the hundreds and thousands of hours to get good at it: I did this in my teens and 20s. Now it forms one of the limited number of "things I am genuinely good at," which is a number I may be unable to increase now.
I was a very keen fiction writer up until I was about 30 or so. Now, yeah, I no longer like the kinds of people that I could potentially share and discuss it with; and feeling like I have no possible audience is quite demotivational. Perhaps I'm best off roping in my friends and family to suffer through that.
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