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Church itself was never my third place, but yea, I feel like third places in general need more love. Going to a physical third place is probably less common these days, yet something we need, both as individuals and as a society.
There's hobbies places, kinda, but it's a bit less varied in the people there and often less accessible than a traditional third place.
Online forums are more accessible, but lack other good characteristics of a third place, imho.
It's obviously not the case for everyone, and I don't mean this as a generalization, but I've seen some people looking for dates who are also a bit too focused on their search, sinking their own ship.
I didn't meet my wife by hunting for a wife.
I met her doing fun things with other fun people, in whom I had no romantic interest whatsoever, and we eventually met as friends of a friend and it snowballed from there.
If you desire romantic companionship, start by making non-romantic friends?
I'm not saying that's easy either, I know I've often been too drained from work to do much socializing.
Been with my husband 23 years, married for 20. I met him when I had given up on romance and was just exploring new hobbies with friends.
Btw the hobby was swing dancing, and I recommend dance class to everybody. It's fun, active, social, and gives you confidence at weddings and other parties. Finding a romantic partner is just bonus.
I tend to agree. For me, an otherwise unfulfilled person looking for a fulfilling successful romantic relationship is kind of like a poor person trying to become a millionaire. You should take care of your basic needs before aiming for something that, probably, few people ever realistically get to have.
That said, overwhelmingly, what I want is friendship (love and understanding) but it's much, much harder to find ways to meet people for friendship than a romantic relationship. There is no friendship app on the same level as the dating apps. People who want to get in my pants text back much more reliably than potential friends I meet even irl. I shouldn't complain because having a lot of suitors is a pleasant problem to have but I work unsociable hours and on more days than I care to admit, the only human contact I get outside of work is on dating apps, which is not a happy situation for me.
Yea, it's hard to organically meet new people these days.
A "third place" would be nice, but I don't think I've really had one in my life for a while. A place that's neither home nor work, where there's no strings attached and random people hanging out.
I imagine that's also frustrating to not be looking for the same thing as the few you do end up meeting.
I don't think I've said that and I'm sorry if that's how it came across.
I don't think anyone deserves loneliness, but no one deserves companionship either. "Deserving" just has nothing to do with human partnerships.
No matter what we do, neither of us is ever entitled to anyone's time, let alone their companionship. Potential partners are human beings like any of us and not something you can just get from a transaction or fulfilling a list of checkboxes.
The first step is someone else wanting to spend some of their time with us instead of literally anything else they could be doing.
Something fun didn't need to be fancy, in my case I volunteered to supervise a field trip.
While I did have fun doing it, it's also kinda like work.
I was doing my thing, met some people, made a friend or two and was later introduced to someone else who later happened to become my partner.
I obviously don't deserve my partner for doing whatever led to this chain of events, but it would never have happened if I didn't.