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As a German: the answer is IMHO in the pub culture you can find in UK and Ireland. A socially accepted central meeting place where people can go and talk to ea

As a German: the answer is IMHO in the pub culture you can find in UK and Ireland. A socially accepted central meeting place where people can go and talk to each other. Of course also to eat and drink. It's the social glue there and has a very very old history there.

PartiallyTyped 2y ago
I don't think Ireland has the pub culture you have in mind. Honestly not much to do besides pubs here, and unless you have an established friend group, good luck making one. Locals are in their own bubbles. Irish people are quite famous for how not lonely they are, so much so that the tiny island only has 2 or 3 subreddits dedicated to making friends and meeting people.
- gerdesj 2y ago
  I don't think that is really fair and not restricted to Ireland either. I have visited the Emerald Isle a couple of times, North and South, from the UK. I found a culture that is definitely different in some ways but just as familiar in most ways. Just as I do in Wales and Scotland. For example we all share a strange obsession with the weather. Obviously we don't really but the standard rules of chatting about the weather enables an easy start and disengagement from a social encounter. We also suffer from an inability to stop saying goodbye ... Pub culture as a whole is changing massively. I remember when Ireland banned fags in pubs (a fag is a cigarette). I used to smoke and found it a bit odd having to go outside. Then the UK followed suit. With hindsight, I don't miss quite a lot of the "good old days" of smoke filled rooms that even a tabber's eyes would nearly be bleeding. Brown stained wooden chairs with plum or mustard upholstery and worryingly sticky floors and tables. I remember chatting to a landlord of my local at the time around 1998. The boozer was called the Globe Trotters (Yeovil, Somerset, UK). It was formerly a cider house called the Globe and now its a modern effort called ... the Globe and Crown. The landlord described how he had to get rid of the "old boys" who would sit in the corner and quietly piss themselves whilst talking bollocks. Anyway, I'm not sure what pub culture is these days. It probably died of COPD a few years ago. Despite all that, I do think that the Stammtisch ideal is alive and well in our very odd corner of Western Europe. We just don't give it a name. Perhaps we should. The nearest thing I can think of is pub sports - darts, pool, snooker etc. I've been playing pool badly for a team for a good 25 years now.
- ElectRabbit 2y ago
  > I don't think Ireland has the pub culture you have in mind. Honestly not much to do besides pubs here, and unless you have an established friend group, good luck making one. Locals are in their own bubbles. I've been to Ireland many times. So cannot really confirm this. After a night in a pub I know everyone in the town. Or almost.
  - PartiallyTyped 2y ago
    Knowing is different to having a close relationship or a friendship. Irish people are well known for that.
vr46 2y ago
I miss the pubs in the UK, but they’re nothing without your mates. In Germany, I have no way of making friends or meeting people, it’s a real struggle. Too broke to go out to Meetups, and at my age it’s hard anyway.
- nilslindemann 2y ago
  Search for "sozial treff <your city>". Call there and talk to someone. The churches are also good places to ask. German churches organize a lot of social events. If I interpret "at my age" correctly you mean that you are too old. Let me tell you, especially for older people there exists tons of stuff in your city.
  - vr46 2y ago
    Thanks for the tipp - I’ve been trying to volunteer at the refugee centre ON MY ROAD for months but my application is going nowhere. I’m not super old, just entered my sixth decade, but bogged down in parenting instead of socializing. EDIT: Super Tipp, danke. Habe gleich zwei Treffpunkte in der Nähe gefunden und werde diese im neuen Jahr besuchen.
- beAbU 2y ago
  Join a church, and if thats not your jam, join a choir. Its making friends on easy mode.
- Barrin92 2y ago
  >In Germany, I have no way of making friends or meeting people, it’s a real struggle I used to hear this quite a bit from people who work here, as the article hints at we're a country of clubs and associations, most of them free. Be it chess, football, poetry slams, the church choir, the local CCC given that you're on HN, etc. Most unis will let you sit in for free as well. I also wouldn't worry about age. We're not really that age conscious, very few people I know care if they're around people twice their age. People tend to bash their head in trying to make friends at work but it's probably the worst country to do this, we just work 9 to 5 and go home.
marcus_holmes 2y ago
I was explaining this to younger friends over the weekend - before everyone had phones in their pockets, we would head to the pub. Every Friday and Saturday evening, same pub, same time. A bunch of us would be there, and the night would progress from there. If you couldn't make it, you didn't turn up, simple as. If we were feeling sociable on a weeknight, we headed to the same pub. There'd usually be one or two others that felt the same, and they'd introduce us to others, and the circle spread. Go to the pub more than 3 times over a couple of weeks and you'd start to be known as a regular, and introduced to the other regulars. Over time, those random introductions became the core of your social life. Now, of course, we don't need to do this because we can tell the group chat which bar we're meeting at. I'm not sure it's an improvement.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  There’s something to needing to actively sustain it I think.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    agreed, but it became self-sustaining because we didn't have the option to do otherwise; getting hold of everyone to change the venue for next Friday was really painful, so we just stuck to going to the same place each week.
ohlookcake 2y ago
As a UK resident who's recently given up alcohol, the pub culture part is the thing I miss the most. The quick pseudo-answer is non-alcoholic drinks, but it creates a weird dynamic when most of the group gets slowly inebriated over the evening, and you sip lemonade
- Ntrails 2y ago
  I've never drunk and find pubs awkward and generally un-fun. Some of that is I maybe want one small soft drink a day at most anyway, and I'm quickly just standing/sitting without a drink, worrying I've got nothing to say, and seeing no good reason to be there. 100% on me, and I only mention it as context to the below: I've seen a lot of people drinking the modern zero/low alcohol beers (lucky saint maybe?) and it largely just works. They're happy, and get to engage feeling pretty much like normal. Obviously if the goal is to get drunk quickly then it sucks, but observationally you've got a fair few rounds before it appears to be a barrier.

PartiallyTyped 2y ago

I don't think Ireland has the pub culture you have in mind. Honestly not much to do besides pubs here, and unless you have an established friend group, good luck making one. Locals are in their own bubbles. Irish people are quite famous for how not lonely they are, so much so that the tiny island only has 2 or 3 subreddits dedicated to making friends and meeting people.

gerdesj 2y ago
I don't think that is really fair and not restricted to Ireland either. I have visited the Emerald Isle a couple of times, North and South, from the UK. I found a culture that is definitely different in some ways but just as familiar in most ways. Just as I do in Wales and Scotland. For example we all share a strange obsession with the weather. Obviously we don't really but the standard rules of chatting about the weather enables an easy start and disengagement from a social encounter. We also suffer from an inability to stop saying goodbye ... Pub culture as a whole is changing massively. I remember when Ireland banned fags in pubs (a fag is a cigarette). I used to smoke and found it a bit odd having to go outside. Then the UK followed suit. With hindsight, I don't miss quite a lot of the "good old days" of smoke filled rooms that even a tabber's eyes would nearly be bleeding. Brown stained wooden chairs with plum or mustard upholstery and worryingly sticky floors and tables. I remember chatting to a landlord of my local at the time around 1998. The boozer was called the Globe Trotters (Yeovil, Somerset, UK). It was formerly a cider house called the Globe and now its a modern effort called ... the Globe and Crown. The landlord described how he had to get rid of the "old boys" who would sit in the corner and quietly piss themselves whilst talking bollocks. Anyway, I'm not sure what pub culture is these days. It probably died of COPD a few years ago. Despite all that, I do think that the Stammtisch ideal is alive and well in our very odd corner of Western Europe. We just don't give it a name. Perhaps we should. The nearest thing I can think of is pub sports - darts, pool, snooker etc. I've been playing pool badly for a team for a good 25 years now.
ElectRabbit 2y ago
> I don't think Ireland has the pub culture you have in mind. Honestly not much to do besides pubs here, and unless you have an established friend group, good luck making one. Locals are in their own bubbles. I've been to Ireland many times. So cannot really confirm this. After a night in a pub I know everyone in the town. Or almost.
- PartiallyTyped 2y ago
  Knowing is different to having a close relationship or a friendship. Irish people are well known for that.

vr46 2y ago

I miss the pubs in the UK, but they’re nothing without your mates. In Germany, I have no way of making friends or meeting people, it’s a real struggle. Too broke to go out to Meetups, and at my age it’s hard anyway.

nilslindemann 2y ago
Search for "sozial treff <your city>". Call there and talk to someone. The churches are also good places to ask. German churches organize a lot of social events. If I interpret "at my age" correctly you mean that you are too old. Let me tell you, especially for older people there exists tons of stuff in your city.
- vr46 2y ago
  Thanks for the tipp - I’ve been trying to volunteer at the refugee centre ON MY ROAD for months but my application is going nowhere. I’m not super old, just entered my sixth decade, but bogged down in parenting instead of socializing. EDIT: Super Tipp, danke. Habe gleich zwei Treffpunkte in der Nähe gefunden und werde diese im neuen Jahr besuchen.
beAbU 2y ago
Join a church, and if thats not your jam, join a choir. Its making friends on easy mode.
Barrin92 2y ago
>In Germany, I have no way of making friends or meeting people, it’s a real struggle I used to hear this quite a bit from people who work here, as the article hints at we're a country of clubs and associations, most of them free. Be it chess, football, poetry slams, the church choir, the local CCC given that you're on HN, etc. Most unis will let you sit in for free as well. I also wouldn't worry about age. We're not really that age conscious, very few people I know care if they're around people twice their age. People tend to bash their head in trying to make friends at work but it's probably the worst country to do this, we just work 9 to 5 and go home.

marcus_holmes 2y ago

I was explaining this to younger friends over the weekend - before everyone had phones in their pockets, we would head to the pub. Every Friday and Saturday evening, same pub, same time. A bunch of us would be there, and the night would progress from there. If you couldn't make it, you didn't turn up, simple as. If we were feeling sociable on a weeknight, we headed to the same pub. There'd usually be one or two others that felt the same, and they'd introduce us to others, and the circle spread. Go to the pub more than 3 times over a couple of weeks and you'd start to be known as a regular, and introduced to the other regulars. Over time, those random introductions became the core of your social life. Now, of course, we don't need to do this because we can tell the group chat which bar we're meeting at. I'm not sure it's an improvement.

Aeolun 2y ago
There’s something to needing to actively sustain it I think.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  agreed, but it became self-sustaining because we didn't have the option to do otherwise; getting hold of everyone to change the venue for next Friday was really painful, so we just stuck to going to the same place each week.

ohlookcake 2y ago

As a UK resident who's recently given up alcohol, the pub culture part is the thing I miss the most. The quick pseudo-answer is non-alcoholic drinks, but it creates a weird dynamic when most of the group gets slowly inebriated over the evening, and you sip lemonade

Ntrails 2y ago
I've never drunk and find pubs awkward and generally un-fun. Some of that is I maybe want one small soft drink a day at most anyway, and I'm quickly just standing/sitting without a drink, worrying I've got nothing to say, and seeing no good reason to be there. 100% on me, and I only mention it as context to the below: I've seen a lot of people drinking the modern zero/low alcohol beers (lucky saint maybe?) and it largely just works. They're happy, and get to engage feeling pretty much like normal. Obviously if the goal is to get drunk quickly then it sucks, but observationally you've got a fair few rounds before it appears to be a barrier.