Ambush your friends

No, I will not be scheduled to meet up in three months time; what are you doing TONIGHT

It’s the 16th of September and I’m sitting in my childhood bedroom. The walls are baby blue (a good colour choice from younger me, might I say, I was not part of the teal epidemic) and have tacky black dots of aged blu tack in uniform squares. I stripped those walls bare of every picture and every poster, swept every trinket off my windowsills, and stuffed mismatched socks into suitcases to pack my old life into my new one. I wanted to escape myself for three years, and that is precisely what I did, but now, as I sit here and the throughs of my adolescence seep into my very skull, I am baptised in nostalgia, and I am not sure if I can wash it all out of me. For some reason, although so many of the things in the moving boxes and Ikea bags used to live in this room and hang on its very walls, it is clear they no longer belong here and neither do I. I am not sure what to do with this information. The room is bereft, cold even and apart from a Year Seven school picture ominously (funny choice of word here as I’m actually smiling in it) peering from my top bookshelf, you wouldn’t have been able to tell this room was or is mine. It's strange, I think as I look at my eleven-year-old self. This wouldn’t have been what she wanted at twenty-three, but it’s definitely what she would have expected. I am the same but different, and with this realisation, it became apparent that if I did not act in ways I have never acted before, do things I had never done, I would rot here. I would be back not even at square one but possibly even minus. I decided to partake in behaviour my eleven-year-old self could only dream of: spontaneity.

If you’ve grown up with a semi-strict mother, you know spontaneity is not a word she knows, let alone adheres to. The tap dance of sucking up all week, overly enthusiastically doing all your chores and perfectly timing when to ask if you can go to watch the new Marvel film with your mates on Saturday is a routine a lot of us know all too well. I fear this routine is so ingrained into many of us that we cannot possibly fathom not meticulously planning when, where and how to fit social events into our busy lives. I get it, it is precarious. There’s work, uni, and for some of you man kids, life is a balancing act, and you're just trying to make sure you don’t smash any more plates than you already have. I posit that planning, although incredibly useful, is often another plate added to your load. Instead of planning, ambush your friends with plans. Ask them day of. Don’t give them time to think or come up with excuses or “I have work tomorrow.” More often than you’d think, you’re met with, “you know what, why not?” and just like that, you’re no longer just seeing your friends at each other’s birthday dinners. I’ve seen more of my friends in these two months than I have in two years!

“No, I don’t how know I’ll feel on the 15th of November, but I know how I feel right now.”

Simple simple seeing your friends every now and again does not need to be strategised. Unless it's for holidays or birthdays, it should be quite the opposite. Spontaneity alleviates the pressure of constantly wondering how we will feel in the future. We’ve all been there, agreed to a plan when we're in a good mood, but when the day comes… you're just not feeling it. Last month, I had texted a close friend the day of if she wanted to go bowling/karaoke after work. As we sat there sweaty from our rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Believing”, speaking about why we don’t see each other that often Sameera perfectly remarked, “No, I don’t know how I’ll feel on the 15th of November, but I know how I feel right now.” Being spontaneous allows you to tick off actually seeing your friends without too much planning, but it also allows you to be present with yourself and honour the feelings you are having right here right now. Empty your mental dishwasher of all its plates and fill it with fun. We overthink things so much already; just vibe.

Mia and I on a spontaneous night out, made a friend along the way!

Karaoke isn’t for everyone, though, and many of us will say that we cannot build, form, and maintain our connections because of the death of the third place, and I won’t dispute that. A third place is a public setting that exists separately from home and work, serving as an essential sphere of human experience (Oldenburg and Brissett 1999). It allows inhabitants to engage in pure sociability and taken-for-granted social activities. These places are characterised by active participation, where individuals can interact without the constraints of social status or personal problems. Third places provide opportunities for spontaneous and free-wheeling social experiences, offering novelty and diversity through a shifting population of participants. They serve as enabling rather than escapist environments, complementing rather than detracting from home and work life. Emotional expressiveness is encouraged in these spaces, allowing people to interact more freely and authentically than in other settings. But 1200 pubs are set to close this year; we’re down to 873 clubs now from 1700 in 2013. No matter where you turn, there are budget slashes, closures and empty high streets. How do we combat this? How do we fight back? Quite a simple answer, really: open up your yard. I know you’ve just read the definition of a third place, and you’re questioning if I have also read it. The definition has changed; that paper was written in 1999, and they weren’t in a cost-of-living crisis like us. Not all definitions are hard and fast; they can change with the times; we need somewhere to gather that’s free man. 

In his paper “Expanding Oldenburg: homes as third places,” David Purnell also thinks the home can become a third place. Homes can function as "third places" for community gatherings and social interactions, extending beyond Oldenburg's traditional concept. The distinction of a third place lies not in the categorisation of the building itself (e.g., cafe, library, or club) but in how the space is used (Purnell 2015). When homes are used as gathering places for community engagement, they fulfil all the criteria of third places (though this may be more applicable to non-traditional family demographics.) Once again, I offer you a low-effort solution to your problems; send out your invites promptly!

 But I hear some of you muttering in the back, “I’m tired.” Womp womp. In this life, yeah, you often have to do shit tired. You’ve always been tired; you’re always going to be tired, so you might as well be tired and fulfilled. We form and sustain a community through our mutual obligations. Sometimes, those obligations will be inconvenient and taxing, such as being tired, but that is a small price for connection. I know it's hard but like I said, it’s simple simple seeing your friends, you’re not preparing for war. Fitting the people you apparently love into your life necessitates effort. Apply some. Meet a friend who works nearby on a spontaneous lunch break date. Have a friend over for coffee while you're mooching at home on a Saturday. Low effort: high reward. 

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence; it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare". -Audre Lorde

But I am not here just to offer low-effort solutions. I am also here to implore you to confront yourself, do the hard thing and set aside your excuses to increase the rate at which you are socialising. Realise that the weapon formed against you is often yourself. Because the next excuse I’ll hear is “I’m protecting my peace/energy.” Mooove man. I won’t hear any of that mental health garble that you lot like to spout when someone asks you to apply yourself in any way, shape or form. You see, in your bid to self-care your way out of sadness, you’ve dug yourself deeper and deeper into the sickness that plagues our generation: loneliness. You’re even using the term “self-care” incorrectly; how quickly capitalism commodifies the terms supposed to help us. That cucumber face mask and isolation won’t save you, but this approach to self-care will. Although this definition does include what you may typically think of when you hear the term “self-care” (exercise, eating well blah blah blah), it provides something that I think so many of us are missing, and that is a communal effort. Audre Lorde saw self-care as a political act of self-preservation and a defence against a hostile culture (Lorde 1998). In her 1988 book A Burst of Light, she wrote about self-care shortly after being diagnosed with cancer again. Self-care is about rejecting Western, individualist, capitalist notions of it. It’s about creating safe spaces and reassembling ourselves through the work of looking after each other. Self-care has become an exclusionary practice; it is not something you can practice in isolation. You was never meant to do this alone. 

I love the way Dinan can cultivate community. Hostess with the mostess.

Isolation is self-destruction, and it will not save you. Not showing up in your community is self-destruction. You are not a child anymore, crashing out has repercussions. Self-destruction affects not just you but also the people who love you and rely on you. Ruminating on your loneliness will not change the fact you are alone. When you self isolate you’re being careless, your life is slipping through the gaps like sand on a boardwalk. Rather than trying to sift through that sand, scrambling for answers as to why you feel the way that you do, one of the ways you can fix this feeling is by simply texting someone you love: “What are you doing tonight?”

Works Cited

“As half of the UK’s nightclubs shut for good - does this mean the party’s over?” Business Rescue Experts, https://www.businessrescueexpert.co.uk/as-half-of-the-uks-nightclubs-shut-for-good-does-this-mean-the-partys-over/. Accessed 4 November 2024.

Lorde, Audre. A Burst of Light: Essays. Ithaca, Firebrand books, 1998.

Oldenburg, Ramon, and Dennis Brissett. “The Third Place.” Qualitative Sociology, vol. 5, 1999, pp. 265-282.

Purnell, David. “Expanding Oldenburg: homes as third place.” Journal of Space Management and Development, vol. 8, no. 1, 2015, pp. 51-62.