Someone asked a question about how frequently young people have time to socialize and it made me think about what people do with their evenings. I recently asked my son to go to a concert (free ticket to see a band i know he likes) and he declined because it was an hour away on a weeknight. If we invite our kids or niece/nephew to dinner they always want to go at 6/630 which feels so early. Edit: Kids are 30ish.
Early 30s. Outside is a scam. Everything there involves spending money and dealing with people. I’ll talk and play games with my friends online but don’t see people unless I am at work or forced to go out.
Everything there involves spending money
Almost all the good socialization has become commercialized. There’s no town square anymore, it’s turned into a Walmart.
And not even a 24 hour Walmart.
I think that’s a big point, hardly anything is open late anymore. Seems like the world stops at 10PM these days and everything has to shut down then.
Yeah, many places that shortened hours during covid have not resumed their BC hours.
Which i get, finding and keeping workers to work those odd hours can be hard and it is nice to get out of work at decent times if you do work at one of those places… besides bars if ur over 21or movies, i cant think of annother place to go when it gets late
hmmm… has a square but doesn’t have a 24 hour Wal Mart… Portland?
My town actually has a square. It’s nice to have.
Nice, I love town squares. The place to be
not even a walmart. where i live it’s a neiman marcus. if you don’t have $2000 to drop on a single coat, GTFO.
Libraries still exist! They have activities every single day!
Late 30’s. I don’t always spend money when I go out and if I do have to spend its usually on cheap public transit to get somewhere else. I often leave the house and just walk around town. Good exercise and I’m not always stuck at home driving my cat bonkers.
Games are a scam too.
If you buy the ones with paid dlc/season passes/microtransactions, yes. You have to use your powers of observation and critical thinking and buy the complete games instead.
Some are, and some aren’t. 100 dollars with bg3 gets you 100 plus hours of enjoyment. That is 1 dollar / hour. That is value. I am still playing Skyrim after 10+ years and it was 60 bucks. I have 1000+ hours in it. Worth.
I don’t go out because post covid everything costs 100% more and is 100% worse.
I spend $60 on two beers and a mcdonalds quality hamburger + fries last week. F that. in 2019 that would have been 20 bucks. in a place that was crowded and it took me like 30m to get my food. and almost every place is like that now. double the price for half the service or quality of product.
if going out was fun and affordable I’d do it more. I went out regularly before covid. I just don’t want to have to drop 30-40 bucks for a single beer and junk food meal anytime i want to socialize.
all my old spots that were affordable, chill and fun, are gone. i used to hang out in coffee shops after work because they were quiet and i don’t drink… now they all closed at 2pm. bars are noisy and crowded and want $15+ for a cocktail and $10 for a budweiser. that used to be $10 and $5.
Dude even stuff like bowling is too much now. An hour for two people can approach $70 at certain places. Not the bougie places either, those places are even more. I was browsing Google reviews for one place nearby like that and the owner responded saying that they should look for a Groupon.
Around here, all the affordable bowling places shut down. All we have left are the boogie places.
My mom sent me $60 to take my kids, and it was not even close
I get that. On top of increased cost we got into this overtipping to help people who were working and it’s all gotten out of hand.
yeah i’m not even counting tipping. that shit is insane. lots of places in my city now want a 20% tip, and a 5-10% fee. on top of a 9% tax. So basically your meal is now 35-40% more than the prices in the menu. and it’s expect at literally every joint now, take out and coffee joints too.
it’s just not worth it. for that kind of pricing I’m better off just getting delivery. which is what i do now. ubereats is a 20% tip and like a $5 delivery fee. it’s cheaper and i don’t have to deal with slow/rude service and other customers being loud and obnoxious.
I still tip 15% most of the time. Tip flation is a scam when tips are already a percentage of the total. Don’t feel forced to tip more.
speak for yourself. in my city people shame you for not tipping 30%. I tip 20% and people tell me I’m an asshole.
That’s surprising. But I live in a pretty medium city
😳 US pricing in restaurants felt always crazy to me, but this just sounds crazy!
We doordash or order from the restaurant more than going out because of the tip and restaurant alcohol costs.
Don’t forget to tip your dasher!
Nah, fuck that. I stopped ordering from apps. If I want takeout, I call the restaurant or use the restaurant’s website directly. GrubHub and Door dash add fees to the items’ cost and then delivery costs and then want you to tip the driver. I can drive myself, or walk in some cases, and pickup my own food. My orders went from like $95 down to like $65 instantly (family of 4)!
I do usually check the restaurant website first to see if they have their own system or just link to dd, etc. Need to start doing the call in/pick up.
We did not get into over tipping to help people who are working. Tipping popped up everywhere because it’s profitable for POS terminal operators and business owners. It wasn’t something society decided on, most people complain about it. It was brought about suddenly when the POS terminals changed, mainly from Square Cash, but everyone else followed suit.
I’m not saying that’s why we started tipping. During COVID we started really overdoing it.
Yeah, I was fine overtipping during COViD, and did my part to raise that bar, but that should NOT be the new norm
Seriously? I thought a beer’d be 4-5 American dollars, burger 5 and fries 2ish.
Depends on where you are and what you want. In Texas, you can get a beer in a small bar for $4-5, especially during happy hour. Hard to find a burger delivered to your table for less than $10. Fries and non-alcoholic beverages have become surprisingly expensive. Fries can easily be $5-7. Restaurants have gone over the top on portions - half pound burger on a giant bun and a bucket of fries for $20. They sell more, charge more, and half of it goes to the trash.
Burger is usually 20 now with fries. Beers 10 each.
Where do you live that burgers are that expensive? At most they’re maybe $12 here in one of the nicer places.
Seriously I live in a high COLA and that’s expensive
Not young anymore, but when I see the price of live music, alcohol, etc, and combine that with things like student debt, low income jobs and the pressure of potentially being humiliated via social media, I wonder how on earth young people ever go out.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been in my late teens/early 20s during the late 90s and early 2000s. I suspect a lot of my generation dodged a fair few bullets, and never even realised it at the time.
So so glad i grew up without social media!! My bad decisions would be meme warnings for future generations.
parental money and credit cards.
my work hires lots of 22 year olds. most of them are getting an extra 1-2K from the bank of mom and dad per month, and loading up on debt. i’ve seen their statements that they download onto their work computers. kid making 40K a year has 15K in CC debt. (of course this same kid got fired because they were doing personal shit on a work computer).
poor kids live at home with their folks to have any semblence of a life.
I remember seeing P. Funk for $20 in the 90s.
We need the funk
If we invite our kids or niece/nephew to dinner they always want to go at 6/630 which feels so early.
I hate to break this to you… but it’s likely because they want to do their own things as well.
For dinner 6.30 seems very late to me imo
I typically eat around 730 8 630 sounds early to me.
yeah, i grew up with 4 meals. breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. eating at 6pm seem early for supper and late for dinner to me
Sounds fancy, where are you where that’s normal? We usually eat dinner after coming back from work, and maybe coffee and snacks in the evening around 8.30.
I’m Canadian, but my father and grandfather were born in Denmark and grandpa would always feed me ‘dinner’ around 4ish, then 8ish was ‘supper’
Aren’t you all at work/school around that time?
when i was in school, i was off about 3ish. When i know ill be working at that time, i do pack enough to eat around that time
It’s funny how much this varies from family to family. We never eat dinner before 9PM. Usually two meals per day, lunch at maybe 1PM and dinner between 9 and 10PM. We’re just doing desk-work though, so no extra calorie needs. If I’m doing physical stuff I’ll usually add a light breakfast.
I’m usually starving at the end of my workday so I couldn’t imagine having to wait that long
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Like have time with each other or simply sleep before work next day.
Like to do something else afterwards? Maybe that’s it.
Yep. I don’t mind doing it for birthdays or other special events, I’ll just need to take the day after off.
Cost of living and going out is insane. We don’t have the expendable income to do so.
At least for me, its a threshold problem. The internet means that staying at home is always going to be at least somewhat interesting, which makes it a lot harder to take a gamble on a random late night outing. It’s not just staying out late, either—Gen Z shows declines in a whole host of risky behaviors. Smoking, alcohol, drug use, teen pregnancy, are all way down in our generation. In some sense, we’ve found a drug that we prefer to actual drugs.
I have two 15 years old sons. One of them is never home. He is always going out with his friends, either to the gym, or just walking around town. The other one rarely leaves the house. He’ll invite his friends over to hang out, and sometimes he visits them, but they usually talk at school or online.
One difference I noticed is that back in the 1900s, we had to get a ride from our parents in order to play video games with our friends, but thanks to the Internet, it’s very easy to play and socialize with your friends from home, and being in the same room now PREVENTS people from playing together.
The kids are actually socializing MORE because they don’t need to meet at the same location, and I don’t have to drive their asses all over town, so I’m ok with that.
1900’s… 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for the age gut punch.
One of my kids said it a few months ago, and I decided that MUST be how I refer to it from then on! 😂
I like to say “before the turn of the century”, but someone always gives me shit for it.
Next time say “last millennium.”
“Back when the world was young.”
I still use “In the beforetimes”
I don’t think they had video games in the 1900s, since Tennis for Two was invented in the 1950s.
The 1950s are part of the 1900s… same as 1850 was part of the 1800s. They were just being facetious using “1900s” anyway. That will change as we all get older though, eventually it will just be the 1900s.
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That was 10 years ago. The further we get from “the 1900s” the broader the term will become to include the whole century, much like the 1800s is 1800-1899. I imagine in another 10-20 years it will be more and more common to see this shift when referencing past events.
I’m in my 40s, I’m not gonna go out to a concert an hour away on a weeknight because that means I’m not getting home 'til after 1 and I have to be up in the morning with a functioning brain because I have a damn job.
speak for yourself. same here. i still go to concerts and come home at 1am. at least concerts are still affordable and like 20 bucks.
Maybe near you… A hundred or more in some places.
They can be expensive for big shows, but there’s also alot of great local music; bands that are just happy to have an audience.
How old are you, what time do you wake up for work, how much sleep do you normally require, and what’s your job?
Me? 50ish. Usually sleep around 11 to 630. I work with kids so i have to be alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic.
Same except that concerts seem insanely expensive to me now!
Again, I have to actually use my brain for a living.
No need to be a dick about it.
If you’d bothered to read my previous comment, I wouldn’t have had to repeat myself.
I’m 46. I took a half-day off last time I went to an event an hour away so I could sleep in the next day. It’s the only way I can do it and I do it rarely because I don’t have much PTO.
I don’t know about your location specifically or the specific age range you’re refering to, but at least where I am, school/college tends to start at like 8:00 am, and most students want to or need to work fairly busy jobs given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Considering that, it means they can’t stay up late, and don’t have much energy to socialize compared to older generations. Although again, this varys by area and individual.
I should have mentioned that the kids are 30ish. In the US, Texas. We all work generally 8-5 jobs and my husband is the only one who drives more than 20 minutes to work. He’s almost an hour each way- maybe that’s why we tend to go out later - come home, love on the animals, have a drink, go to dinner.
I’m nearly 30. When it comes to family dinners, I want to eat earlier because I need time to unwind after the dinner. I want to get home by 9 so I have time to wind down before bed. I’m very introverted, and even though I get along well with both my family and my in-laws it’s still tiring to be around them. The only person who doesn’t wear me out is my husband, so I feel the same about hanging out with friends.
I think that has always been the case. Working that is.
I’m in my 30s and with constant stress of life, I have no interest in really doing much of anything besides sitting on my couch playing video games and forgeting everything in my down time.
I used to go out and party every weekend and during the week, but that was my early 20s.
Your kids aren’t kids and probably understand the value of a good night’s sleep in order to work the next day?
I generally don’t go out on week nights especially not late because I want to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep or I’m a grumpy unproductive mess. My evenings I’m making dinner, getting ready for the next day, and trying to find an hour or two to relax before doing it all over again
I don’t know I hate going out any more. I quit drinking, me and my girlfriend like so smoke a bong eat dinner cuddle with he cats and go to bed early (9pm) to wake up for work (5:30a), but if a band I like is playing the next city over on a week night the music lover in me makes me go. I’m 36 and it’s the only thing that I get excited to go out and do any more, not that’s it’s a super frequent thing.
Super reasonable! I’m not out until 2 every night, but I was excited to go see some great live music and we were home by 1230. My kids rarely drink - they learned lessons in their 20s that i didn’t learn until my 40s. I’ve shifted more towards cannabis, especially during the week - better sleep and no hangover.
I am a young person and I only leave the house to go to work, but I am currently looking for a wfh job. There’s nothing really interesting outside and the weather is rarely nice. If there were less roads and stores and more parks or places you could just exist in then I probably would go outside more, but that would be during the day and not at night. Usually during the evening I just lay around and relax. I am so tired and stressed from the day that I never feel like doing anything when I get home.
I feel like just going for a walk or a drive or to sit on a patio for a coffee is so refreshing and helps me distance from the news of the day.
I’m 29. Wife and I go out for food 4 times a week. Also to do things to get out of the house. But, I make software engineer money and we live in a relatively small city in Wisconsin. I bought my house at 27 and own a sports car.
I know shit is rough for a lot of people and inflation is nuts. I don’t take my career for granted.
EDIT: Oh yeah, probably a good thing to note: no kids, we’re both sterilized. Not our thing.
yes. nightlight in my city is predominantly wealthy people going out every other night. i go out like a few times a month and people think i’m a weirdo/shut in. i used to go out more, but it was way cheaper to go out back then.
i can’t be dropping $500 in drinks alone every week. but for a lot of people in my city that’s entirely normal.
There’s plenty of fancy nightlife here, but i really love going to a dive bar with a local band! Most of our nearby colleges have drama programs and sometimes we find free late night programs at museums.
Yeah that’s a bit much lol. I don’t drink at all really but I do try to spend pretty reasonably. Ideally a night out for both of us will cost less than 80-100.
I just don’t feel like it anymore, I’m a different person than I was in my 20s. COVID has nothing to do with it.
Hard to go outside when you have depression from the shit that the world throws at you. People always tell stories about wars, plagues, and, various disasters. But it’s all just stories. Most people don’t experience them, and for those who do, it’s only happening in a small part of the world. War refugees can go to another country, you can move out of the country to avoid a local plague, and you move out of the way of a hurricane.
Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19) is worldwide, and it’s a horror story becoming real. It’s not like there’s anywhere in the world that’s safe to hide. I think many people just have a sort of existential crisis. The world world having an existential crisis at the same time, over a period of a few months to years. The world is so interconnected, every news is about it. I mean, this feels so apocalyptic, like a worldwide apocalypse.
Humans have never, on a global scale, all experience a disaster, at the same time. And being able to tell each other across the world how much people are suffering.
Also, people are (at least where I live) getting violent due to the economic instability caused by Covid.
All this on top of worldwide Autocrazation in every country, and the seemingly inevitable climate disasters awaiting in the near future…
I don’t think humans are evolved enough to process this.
Also, people might have long-covid which further damages the brain.
People these days are just too depressed.
Covid definitely changed the way people think, behave, and live. I think my husband and i feel like we dodged a bullet, came through it ok, and enjoy being out (cautiously with the recent uptick). During lockdown we did dog walks to wave at neighbors, and moved our dart board outside to have people over for game nights.
Both kids are musicians (hobby and small gigs, not for survival) - one returned to bars to watch and play when they re-opened (he went to the concert with me) while the other now mostly watches videos, plays, and records at home.
We do have a couple of friends with long symptoms, especially fatigue, who crash after work on Wednesdays so we tend to see them on weekends.
Being in Texas we are super familiar with oppressive government. When i read the news or watch tv i get pretty sad, frustrated, angry about it. When i talk to friends, neighbors, coworkers I’m relieved and hopeful for change. About 75 percent of the people i see in a day share my values. The few who don’t are at least reasonable enough that we can find some issues to agree on. I’m sure those numbers would be very different if i moved to a smaller city so i feel pretty thankful to be where i am.
War refugees can go to another country, you can move out of the country to avoid a local plague, and you move out of the way of a hurricane.
I’ve been to war. Most people in war torn countries are stuck there. Someone with a bunch of kids who is poor isn’t going to easily be able to move out of the way of any disaster whether it be man made or natural.
Also I think you need to do less doomscrolling. The world is shit but it’s the best it’s ever been. Crime is the lowest it’s ever been, same with poverty and disease. Yes the corona virus affected the whole world but that’s one disease, humans are recovering from it just fine. The powers that be want you to remain depressed and placid so that you are easier to rule over. Don’t make it easy for them by believing all the propoganda. Find something small in your life that you can fix and have control over and fix it. At least then your brain won’t think everything is doom and gloom, just some things.
Yeah you can control small things and fix them. I can patch a wall or fix up some stairs if they get creaky.
However, healthcare, education, and housing are rapidly becoming out of reach for the majority of people. That isn’t a small thing any one person can fix on their own. True of both USA and Canada. And even those who do have them, have ever growing anxiety that they will lose them. I live in a wealthy city full of wealthy people who endlessly agonize about how poor they are and how will they send their kids to college or how their house that they paid a million bucks for is a dump. etc.
Yea that reminds me. I had some serious chest pains last week that almost felt like a heart attack (I’m under 25 tho so that’s rare) and went to ER. Every test came back normal for some reason. Maybe it was just some weird anxiety issues.
But anyways, the bill just arrived today and it says something like $2000+ for it, but luckly I’m insured under my mom’s employment’s family insurance plan so we only had to pay around $150 after insurance.
So basically, uninsured people just wouldn’t get medical help because they’ll assume whatever pain they have is a small problem, but it could one day very well be a heart attack.
That was a big worry for me during COVID’s height- uninsured people wouldn’t go to the hospital if they had severe symptoms and die.
Opinion: unless you or a loved on has some kind of immune system issue, COVID is pretty much over.
I work in schools. It’s like a wildfire right now.
Maybe the person live in a different country 🤷♂️
Covid might be over, but doesn’t stop my existential dread that was caused by it.
That seems like a separate issue. I acknowledge your dread. It is important and should be addressed appropriately. I just don’t think the actual threat that COVID currently poses warrants such dread. You should be more afraid of heart disease, or car accidents, or something like that. Those things kill more people than COVID. Especially in 2023. It’s barely worse than the flu now. I was afraid of 2020 COVID. It’s not the same disease as it was then though.
4 people I know right now are home sick with the new strain of Covid.
How are their symptoms though? Not bad right? By saying COVID is over I mean the more dangerous forms of it from 2020 and 2021 are gone. It’s barely worse than the flu at this point. I’m not saying people aren’t still getting it. It’s just mostly inconsequential.
Do you know how many people the flu killed in 1918?
As we both know, the 1918 Spanish flu was unusually virulent, and back then we had no vaccines. Comparing to that flu would not give us useful data. It would be misleading. As you know, I meant today’s flu.
Today’s flu can mutate and become as deadly as the 1918 flu without a vaccine prepared to deal with it.
So could COVID.
Both must be taken seriously.
