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akkartik  ·  4318 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A reddit admin on tags

I have a book recommendation for you! Its premise is that people used to come together by activity a lot more in the past, but don't do so as much in America today.

Even if it's gone down, it's not gone entirely. I remember the first time I went to a neighbor's poker game. I'd just learned the rules, and I was kinda nervous to be playing with money. The first few weeks I just focused on calculating odds. But over time I got to know the people around me. I learned where they worked, what they did, who had the crazy sense of humor. I started cracking jokes myself. What started out as activity-centric time became people-centric time as I became close friends with my poker buddies.

It is extremely natural for people to join groups around activities because they want to 'meet people'. There's no contradiction here. And yet the online world has no way to seamlessly turn activities into relationships. I think there's a huge hole in the world here.