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Agreed. Perhaps this is not exactly what you meant, but I do feel that shared spaces are shrinking and private spaces are expanding. I found this particular quo
by hliyan 9y ago
Agreed. Perhaps this is not exactly what you meant, but I do feel that shared spaces are shrinking and private spaces are expanding. I found this particular quote from The Atlantic quite telling:
"The United States is in some ways becoming a medieval society, in which people live and work in the modern equivalent of castles--gated communities, apartment buildings with doormen, and office buildings with guards--and try to shield themselves while traveling between them. They do this by riding in sport-utility vehicles, which look armored, and by trying to appear as intimidating as possible to potential attackers." - Keith Bradsher
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/suvs-and-trust/547076/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/suvs-and...
- jchrisa 9y agoSell your car and start biking year round. You won't be lonely for long.
- Omnus 9y agoWhat on Earth could you possibly mean by that? You'll magically make deep, abiding, social ties by riding a bicycle?
- jpindar 9y agoWell, it works for motorcycles. Sometimes I think I should get back into riding just for that reason.
- enervate 9y agoIs this just dark humor or are cyclists just gregarious?
- kodis 9y agoNot the OP, but I suspect that it's less about bikers and cyclists in particular and more a matter of coming into contact with other people who share an interest. Taking up golf or tennis would likely have the same effect.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoI'm not against this idea, but an inattentive 23 year old driver who failed to yield killed a bicyclist crossing an interstate on ramp (in the crosswalk) down the street from my house last week, so there is risk involved. Riding bicycles alone isn't going to help; its going to take decades of urban planning to fix the last 60 years of mistakes.
- heedlessly3 9y agothis guy clearly lives in the city. Some people live in the suburbs where cars are needed to commute to work
- adamjc 9y agoFor a given definition of 'suburb'. My commute is 10 miles each way, not a problem.
- irrational 9y agoWell, I live in the suburbs and ride my bike to and from work. Though my work is just 2 miles from my house. However, the vast majority of time I see nobody (other than people in cars) while riding my bike, so I'm not exactly sure what OP means by bike riding being a way to not be lonely.
- 13of40 9y agoBiking and walking to work are a couple of the loneliest activities I've tried.
- scruple 9y agoI like to play "Will anyone smile and say, 'Hello!' back to me today?" whenever I'm out walking/cycling/running. The answer is more often than not, "Nope, no takers today."
- JBlue42 9y agoJust to give an alternate take on the comment from how others are replying: Maybe look at it as joining a community, not specifically being about cycling. Being a cyclist gives you something in common with someone else that you can talk about it and, when doing it, it's rather visible. A running club, writing group, etc. can be similar.
- btrettel 9y agoDepends on what you mean by lonely, I think. I'm a transportation cyclist, but I don't think being a cyclist has measurably increased the number of friends I have. It did give me something in common with quite a few of my friends, but I didn't meet any of them through cycling. For a while I tried joining a cycling club, but I found that I didn't have much in common with racing cyclists. Being a cyclist did however does apparently increase the number of people who seem willing to harm me, unfortunately. That's not loneliness, but it's not good either.
- tdeck 9y agoDid most people live and work in castles in the medieval era?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]