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> Many services promote themselves as life-expanding — there > to free up your time so you can spend it connecting with > the people you care about, not stand

by femto 12y ago

> Many services promote themselves as life-expanding — there > to free up your time so you can spend it connecting with > the people you care about, not standing at the post > office with strangers. Rinse’s ad shows a couple chilling > at a park, their laundry being washed by someone, > somewhere beyond the picture’s frame. A case of letting the destination (free time for socialising) overrule the journey (social interaction in your everyday life)? For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the same people and might even end up making friends with them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? Getting philosophical, an awful lot of things, including life, can be viewed in terms of "nodes and edges". In the case of life, why put so much emphasis on the nodes (the goal) whilst most of your time is spent on the edges (the journeys)?

JohnBooty 12y ago
> For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or > catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the > same people and might even end up making friends with > them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate > your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? You can make friends anywhere. Even in stores! My mother met one of her best friends when she was a customer at the supermarket where her friend worked. And that's cool when it happens, but come on. It's pretty rare. Even in a small town, everybody-knows-each-other kind of place. Stuff like that has got to be one of the worst ways to make friends ever. Compare that with the amount of friends one makes by doing volunteer work, joining a book club, going to local meetups, going to a dog park, etc. You want to make friends, do volunteer work. The sort of people who do volunteer work are (duh) generally great people. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't make any friends but you still do some good stuff for the world.
- yojo 12y ago
  I think it's not just friendship, it's a feeling of connectedness and community that comes from knowing people in your neighborhood and being known. For five years I lived in a rundown SF unit with no laundry on site. Every week my wife and I would drop our clothes at a nearby family run wash and fold. Over years of little interactions we started to develop a semblance of friendship and real fondness for the owner. Twice a week I got a nice pleasant/personal experience, and that was from outsourcing a single chore. I also use services like Sprig/Google Shopping Express/Amazon Prime, because they are awesome, convenient, and cheap. But as a result I rarely buy from the nearby corner store, and have not developed personal connections from any of these transactions. I have saved money and time, but it has cost me in social satisfaction. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As you point out, there might be active interventions to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), but the default has shifted from "get to know the people around you through transactions" to "receive goods and services anonymously."
  - JohnBooty 12y ago
    > As you point out, there might be active interventions > to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), > but the default has shifted from "get to know the people > around you through transactions" I grew up in (and recently bought a home in) a place where we were very close to our neighbors, but we were a mile or two away from the nearest retail stuff. I'm completely into the idea of "get to know the people around you" - it's actually the "through transactions" part that doesn't resonate with me! In my head I'm like, "I shovel my neighbor's snow and build snow forts with their kids. Why would I need to be friends with the dude who works at the convenience store too? If I am, great, but it's not exactly a pressing need in order to form a connection with my surroundings..." But I realize that's not everybody's situation. I have lived in places where neighbors didn't typically befriend each other. I definitely realize that friendly neighbors are a luxury. In my experiences, renters don't typically attempt to form friendships like homeowners do since renting is more of a transitory thing. And owning a home is definitely not advisable for everybody, nor attainable for everybody.

by femto 12y ago

JohnBooty 12y ago

> For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or > catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the > same people and might even end up making friends with > them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate > your journeys/tasks in order to catch up? You can make friends anywhere. Even in stores! My mother met one of her best friends when she was a customer at the supermarket where her friend worked. And that's cool when it happens, but come on. It's pretty rare. Even in a small town, everybody-knows-each-other kind of place. Stuff like that has got to be one of the worst ways to make friends ever. Compare that with the amount of friends one makes by doing volunteer work, joining a book club, going to local meetups, going to a dog park, etc. You want to make friends, do volunteer work. The sort of people who do volunteer work are (duh) generally great people. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't make any friends but you still do some good stuff for the world.

yojo 12y ago
I think it's not just friendship, it's a feeling of connectedness and community that comes from knowing people in your neighborhood and being known. For five years I lived in a rundown SF unit with no laundry on site. Every week my wife and I would drop our clothes at a nearby family run wash and fold. Over years of little interactions we started to develop a semblance of friendship and real fondness for the owner. Twice a week I got a nice pleasant/personal experience, and that was from outsourcing a single chore. I also use services like Sprig/Google Shopping Express/Amazon Prime, because they are awesome, convenient, and cheap. But as a result I rarely buy from the nearby corner store, and have not developed personal connections from any of these transactions. I have saved money and time, but it has cost me in social satisfaction. I'm not sure how I feel about that. As you point out, there might be active interventions to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), but the default has shifted from "get to know the people around you through transactions" to "receive goods and services anonymously."
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  > As you point out, there might be active interventions > to try and replace this connection (e.g. volunteering), > but the default has shifted from "get to know the people > around you through transactions" I grew up in (and recently bought a home in) a place where we were very close to our neighbors, but we were a mile or two away from the nearest retail stuff. I'm completely into the idea of "get to know the people around you" - it's actually the "through transactions" part that doesn't resonate with me! In my head I'm like, "I shovel my neighbor's snow and build snow forts with their kids. Why would I need to be friends with the dude who works at the convenience store too? If I am, great, but it's not exactly a pressing need in order to form a connection with my surroundings..." But I realize that's not everybody's situation. I have lived in places where neighbors didn't typically befriend each other. I definitely realize that friendly neighbors are a luxury. In my experiences, renters don't typically attempt to form friendships like homeowners do since renting is more of a transitory thing. And owning a home is definitely not advisable for everybody, nor attainable for everybody.