Conversation

Hypothesis: few people actually *want* a full-blown community past about 25. They just think they do. It’s a lot of time and work to be involved in “community” in the sense of shared beyond-family communal daily life (meals etc) and weekly parties, seeing friends everyday etc.
58
443
Most people are introverts and just want a trusted emergency contact or two within driving distance, and the occasional lunch with friends you see once every few weeks at most. At most a weekly tennis or running buddy. Anything more is for extroverts stuck in college-headspace.
10
149
A typical paycheck workplace gives you vastly more, like 10x more, but you don’t need it. Half the people in an office typically have no interest in happy hour etc
4
56
I do know people who hang out with friends beyond family for hours everyday (not counting work), but it’s surprisingly rare and in older people is often a sign of unhealthy codependency etc.
3
45
Kids do seem to enforce minimum-viable-communality constraints, but I don’t see most parents doing any more kid-catalyzed social/community stuff than they have to. 🤔
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
I don't know that this hypothesis holds up as well when said people have school-age children.
4
22
Replying to
This may all be true but wouldn't be a reliable preference because most people have never experienced a healthy community beyond that size. Creating them might be nearly impossible, but the point is to allow people to cultivate tons of relationships with varying degrees of depth.
1
Replying to
Ppl between 22&66 get hyperfocused on career, legacy, and nuclear family to the exclusion of community needs. Many retirement-age folks I know seem regretful they “had” to wait so long. But homogenous groups aren’t communities; colleges and nursing homes are a poor substitute.
1