I just finished reading The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. It was originally written in 1989, but it is still very relevant, maybe even more so, 35 years later. It has left me with a lot of thoughts, and this post is trying to capture some of them.

The Third Place

Oldenburg introduces the concept of a “Third Place”; First place is the home, second place is the workplace, and third place is then where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and new acquaintances.

He then goes on to present examples of great third places of the past and present. I never really grew up with a third place centric culture, but I have observed a strong third place culture in Europe, and I was very curious.

One of the examples was the British Pub, and I saw it in action just week when I was in London. I was walking to my hotel on a Thursday evening, and every single pub I passed was overflowing with people and conversation.

I also have a couple of friends who have their third place in Protokoll, a neighbourhood bar in Berlin. I've tagged along with them a couple of times, and they seemed to know most people there. They went from group to group, from one interesting discussion to another. This paragraph from the book aptly describes my friends:

They typically avail themselves of the freedom of movement that most American taverns allow. Familiar patrons may stand awhile, sit awhile, and meander about sampling the flavor of other groups and conversations. They may even accost strangers who seem to be enjoying themselves. Out of their loyalty to the place and consequent familiarity with it, third place regulars come to view the tavern as theirs and feel at ease roaming its length and breadth.

Now, Protokoll wasn't really my jam, but it is an important part of my friends' social life. I have seen them say after a long day of work “My brain is fried, time to grab a beer”.

Other kinds of third places include cafés, barbershops, temples and in general, places that are welcoming, have regulars and have ample conversation going around. Temples weren't mentioned in the book, but they are an important third place for women in India.

If you want to learn more about Third places, I encourage googling the term or reading these articles about third place experiences: Do Yourself a Favor and Go Find a ‘Third Place’ and What Is A Third Place? And How To Find One.

Benefits of the third place

There are many benefits to third places, but these are some that resonated with me.

The OG “Social” network

During the second lockdown, I went through a tough time. I was isolated, depressed and had very little energy to do anything. However, it taught me the importance of hanging out with friends. I moved in with a flatmate and made a vow to see friends at least twice a week. I even took some unusual and extraordinary steps to make sure I see people twice a week.

This is the most obvious benefit that third places provide: effortless contact and conversation with a regular set of people. In today's world, increasing stress is unavoidable. But having a place that cheers you up and helps you chill and blow off steam is a great counterbalance.

Most of us have to go with friends to a place to have someone to talk to when we get there. We must plan, we must make arrangements, we must try to establish a set time as well as a set place to try and regularise our meetings. This is getting increasingly harder in this hyperbusy world. But having a place that is busy with a large number of regulars will make this easier.

The great leveller

One of the things I love about Europe is how everything is a “public” space. There are no gated communities, and everything from the café and bar to the bouldering gym and swimming pool are places that are open to everyone. I found myself bouldering with a barista, a student and tech people at the same time. This is borderline unheard of in India.

In India, it is fashionable to live in large gated communities that have everything available inside the community. You have badminton, swimming, squash, and most other popular evening pastimes built into the community. This is super convenient, you're just a 10mins walk away from everything.

However, this has a non-obvious downside of only introducing you to people from a very narrow class band. In Germany, I have friends from all walks of life doing all kinds of jobs, and this diversity has taught me a lot. I owe it to all the opportunities I have to run into all kinds of people. The stark class-divide is what I dislike the most about Indian city culture.

Third places act as the great leveller, where everyone is welcome and of the same status, no matter how (economically) successful they are. This helps expand your mind but also gives you a place where you won't be judged on how well you are doing at work. To quote the book,

There is more to the individual than his or her status indicates, and to have recognition of that fact shared by persons beyond the small circle of the family is indeed a joy and relief.

Good conversation

My kind of parties are those that are laid back and chill. I don't like clubbing or loud bars. I love hosting people where we typically cook good food and then chill with a glass of tea or wine.

Reading the book, I realised what I care about is good, stimulating conversation. Good conversation is the reward for the effort and expense put into drinks and dinner. Though, sometimes you just want to hang out without wanting to put in the effort to host people.

Third places promise great conversation. In fact, conversation is the most important ingredient, without it, there is no third place. In India and the US, I hate going to the bars because the “music” is so loud that conversation is impossible.

Third places and my life

I spent a lot of time reading the book, mainly because it was a little boring to get through, but also because I needed to sit through a lot of what was shared in there.

No place for old people

My grandpa used to walk 30 mins every morning to go sit next to a tiny tea stall and returned in the evening. We didn't mind this because we knew exactly where he was, and he was having a great time interacting with all the passersby. But this wasn't very sustainable, nor can other people do this. But there was also almost nothing else for him to do in the city.

The book calls out is the lack of space for older people in modern cities. And it certainly is true in India. Funnily, I live close to a German Kneipe that always has patrons, no matter the time. I was like “who are these people drinking at 2PM on a weekday?” Turns out, this is the local haunt for the retirees to hang out with their friends.

Parks and kids

Towards the end of the book, the author talks about third places and children, and I realised I did have a third place. When I was about 10 years old, I used to live next to a tiny park. But we used to be in the park every evening playing all kinds of made up games with other kids from the neighbourhood. I don't remember much of this time, but I do remember the park fondly.

The time and interaction were purely unstructured with minimal adult supervision. Nowadays, every hour of a kid’s life is organised and planned for. They are always monitored and, in general, never let out of sight. I think the childhoods have got less fun and fulfilling as the public safety went down.

Another interesting thing that the author mentions is that kids started hanging out in the malls when they opened because they had no other suitable places left. When I was a little older, yes, I used to hang out at CMR Central Mall in my city when I could. I loved people watching. But I also don't think I had access to anything more interesting back then.

Community and third places

What we seek and need is community. Third places are an easy and obligation free mechanism to find a community. But there are other ways to find a community. My dad found a group of people to walk with every morning. And they go on super long walks together. It is kinda funny that my dad went on his first international trip with this group and not me, lol.

Similarly, others find it through volunteering or activism. Or through their hobbies. I found a bit of mine through Open Source.

Oldenburg makes an interesting point that most of the self-help books today focus a lot on the individual, it's all about solving problems from within. I know that community is a great way to solve or even avoid some issues affecting today's generation.

While communities can exist without third places, having good spaces to hang out makes it much easier to form and sustain them.

The Global Village

I travel a lot. I'd like to travel less, but I also cannot get myself to stop. This is because I don't travel to see places, I travel to hang out with people. I am blessed with a great set of friends. People I genuinely enjoy being around; however, they are spread all around the world. This is a side effect of our ever mobile world. Mobility has become easy, and it's not common to spend your life in one place any more.

This makes my presence in Berlin very inconsistent, making it harder to find a third place. I am also not sure if a third place sans a lot of my friends even makes sense.

With increased mobility and increased demands on our time, social media emerged as an alternative to third places. We could stay connected with ease, consuming hundreds of micro-updates from people.

In September 2021, I remember sitting in Bordeaux and drinking beer with some of my favourite people I met through Grafana. One of the conversations I remember is that one of them had no social media at all! If anyone needed to reach him, they needed to call or text him. He didn't see the point of being connected and keeping up through Instagram. I spent A LOT of time on Instagram, and I was shook!

Well, it's been more than a year now since I quit all social media. Friendship is built on shared experiences and time spent together. You could potentially do this online, but not via traditional social media. The micro-interactions give you a sense of connection, but that connection is extremely brittle. Ever since quitting, I have been very intentional about keeping in touch and while our conversations are rare, they are also longer and linger in our minds.

Rat race vs The third place

“Even if I had a third place, I wouldn’t have the time to enjoy it.”

This quote near the end of the book resonates. And gets to the crux of the issue.

My parents mentioned how villages have a great third place: their stoops. Everyone finishes dinner by 6PM and then sits on the stoops of their houses and chats with their neighbours for an hour or two before ending the day. This sounded very idyllic and perfect, but also impractical.

I've come across the term rat-race many, many times, but until now, I don't think I've ever understood it.

We are in a race. We need to be entrepreneurial. Those who wrap up everything at 6PM and then spend the rest of the time chatting with people will fall behind. Time is an economic resource that we cannot waste on idle chat, it's too expensive.

When I write it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but isn't it the reality we face? Did our quality of life really get better as we got more “productive”?

There are fewer and fewer non-commercial places remaining, fewer family-owned places that aren't out to maximise profits. Capitalism is like an evolutionary force that is selecting and eliminating those spaces. When I wrote “Support your local bookstores!” people told me that they were going to go away sometime soon, why delay the inevitable.

As we lose those spaces, we also lose the advocacy and habits that drew us to those spaces. Oldenburg mentions that great conversation is a lost skill in the US because just spending time conversing was considered wasteful. We started saying that “time is expensive”. We started evaluating our actions and time as an economic resource, lest we be eliminated too.

Searching for the Great Good Place

I know the last part was bleak, but I am quite optimistic tbh. This book has given me a lot to think about, and has also come at the right time: when I have the next 4 months off work. I am not sure about finding a third place, but I can take steps to find a community and stay connected.

Finding reasons to stay connected

I started observing how many times I socialise, with the goal to socialise at least twice a week. I am doing relatively OK with regular opportunities on the weekends and some on the weekdays.

However, a lot of this is very Berlin focused, and I need meaningful ways to stay connected with my friends around the world. One idea I am trying is a print magazine that everyone contributes to. So far, I've got some great submissions for the first issue, and it's a great excuse to keep in touch with people. I also get to engage with all the things that my friends are excited about.

I am building a bunch of side-projects that I'll be sharing here, and I hope to collaborate on them with others. It's going to be a lot of fun and would be a great throwback to college life.

Rethinking Time

Two years ago, I wrote a post “It's time to kill time again” where I said that I'd like to spend a weekend a month “doing nothing”. Well, that didn't happen. I do want to use my sabbatical to rethink my relationship with time.

I can't be busy all the time. It just kills creativity. I need extended walks or periods of boredom to contemplate and get good ideas. I also don't have a lot of slack for when life throws something urgent or unexpected my way.

I intend to spend extended amounts of time just sitting with my thoughts in the next few months, and also come up with a routine that allows me to do that when I return to work.

Vive la résistance!

As I was reading the book, Stoop Coffee: How a Simple Idea Transformed My Neighborhood popped up on Hacker News. It's fascinating how a lot of the ideas from the book were validated in the post. I realised that there is a tiny grassroots movement that still cares and is engaging in building communities and spaces.

There are still bars and cafés that don't force you to consume a lot every hour you spend there. I am editing this post sitting in one. I hope to join the movement one day with a bookshop and tearoom. :)