The Quest for a Third Space
I’m a millennial. Like any good millennial, I desire three things in this life: big media to stop farming my nostalgia for ludicrous cash grabs, a third space to build community outside of my home and work, and avocado toast. Unfortunately, Hilary Duff is charging $400+ for general admission to her comeback tour and avocados are currently out of season, so I’m stuck seeking third spaces to build community as my generational defining quest at the moment.
It’s not a bad quest. Third spaces have been a dying art since we all moved to work from home and all of that avocado toast made us too broke to build community outside of our own homes and social media, but still I persevere. Why? Because social media is lame. Human connection is always more substantial than curated posts that may or may not be built with AI, which is also lame. AI is very lame, folks.
If more of us sought the comfort of third spaces outside of our home and work spaces, those opportunities for human connection would grow. With more human connection, I think we would all be much happier in the long run with our socialization than just endlessly scrolling through social media congratulating pregnancy announcement posts from college friends in between horrendous news updates that feel like they were written from a dystopian novel.
So here have been some of the third spaces I’ve attempted and the pros and cons of each location:
The Library
Oh, Library, how I adore thee. I could dedicate a thousand words to my love of libraries and it would not be enough to articulate my absolute adoration of this noble and infallible institution that serves as a backbone of our society. Where else can you hang out for hours for free without any expectation of your role in that location? You can even check out a bounty of books, DVDs, or other materials to bring home with you. I’ll plan evenings to browse the stacks after work and it’s an incredibly satisfying time for me. It’s also a joy just to be around other people who enjoy utilizing the free resources provided by the library as much as I do.
Pros:
Everything is free. Even just hanging out in the building is free. You don’t have to buy a coffee or anything to pay “rent” for that space. You can just go and be there and no one is going to bother you about why you’re there.
Tons of community events offered to connect with other people over similar interests, also for free.
You can check things out to bring home with you and then you can use for free during the loan time.
Cons:
Typically frowned upon to have active conversations. In fact, lots of people go to the library for a quiet (and free) workspace.
Most of the community events at my library, at least, are apparently meant for the elderly or the babies and take place between 9am-5pm. So, not a whole lot going on for the working 9-5 early-30 something crowd (hello that’s me!) but I support the idea for other people. Way to go, libraries, for being one of the few cornerstones of our society offering free opportunities to make connections and build community.
No avocado toast. In fact, typically frowned upon to bring outside food into the space. So you can’t even bring your own avocado toast to the library.
Local Brewery Near My Home
In my community, a brewery works a lot like a coffee shop, but they’re typically open after I get off work. People hang out and do work or chat with folks as they would in a coffee shop. There’s occasionally trivia or bingo or other planned activities to partake in. They also typically serve liquids that are not caffeinated, which is also great because, as mentioned previously, I’m a millennial and old enough that having caffeine after 3PM will wreck my sleep schedule. The brewery near my home is near enough that I can bike there when the weather is nice and I’m feeling adventurous. There’s also tons of open seating options for me to snag a table and spend an hour or two writing without the staff noticing I’m milking my one $8 beer for a couple of hours longer than probably assumed.
Pros:
It’s near my home.
As mentioned previously, lots of seating options
Did I mention this is near my home? This is near my home. I like this third space being near my home.
Cons:
The beer and food is notoriously bad here. If it wasn’t close to my home, I would not willingly go out of my way to have a beer here and that is a common sentiment among my neighbors too. I pay $8 for a single glass of beer to earn my keep and it’s not hard to milk it for an hour or two because it’s not great to stomach in one go anyways. I stopped ordering the food years ago when it proved to be inedible beyond “I guess I should eat food while drinking booze” sustenance.
Yeah I guess there are non-alcoholic options, but they’re worse than the alcoholic options and sometimes I don’t want to drink alcohol just to hang out somewhere outside of my home.
No avocado toast. No, the $15 hummus platter doesn’t count as avocado toast. I checked. Again, the food is bad here.
Local Brewery Not Near My Home
In my quest for a third space, I did find a local brewery that wasn’t near my home that is awesome. They recently revamped their food menu so they offer a ton of food options that range from snackish to full meals to share with the table grubs that all taste great. Both their alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage menus are expansive and delicious. Everything is decently priced too! As an added bonus, while they have a ton of seating options for groups of all sizes, they also offer little solo-person tables that are comfortable and not just hiding in a corner somewhere. Do you know how rare it is for places to offer solo-person seating options let alone solo-person options that feel welcoming to the overall space? It’s incredible work.
Pros:
Great food, great drinks, great seating options, great pricing, great company. I literally have a blast every time I hang out here.
I’m pretty sure they could make avocado toast if you asked nicely. They typically have all of the ingredients available to make one.
Cons:
Not near my home. In fact, I usually have to pay for parking while I hang out here too. So in addition to purchasing my food and drink to rent my space in the third space, I’m also paying real life money to the government to rent my car’s space in its place.
Maybe I don’t always want to pay money to be able to hang out somewhere outside of my home and work place, ever consider that, society?
Sometimes there’s too much activity. This is clearly a desirable and active place in the community, but some nights feel so crowded that not even one of the solo person spaces can be claimed to be a part of it. Good for them, happy for the success of an independent local business, but sad for my quest to find a third space if I can’t be a part of it.
Craft (and/or other skills) Classes
Want to learn a new skill while also building community? Well look no further than local craft and/or other skill classes! Often hosted at a brewery, these fun third space activities allow participants to learn a new skill or practice an existing one while working with other people you never would’ve interacted with before. Last year, I made it a point to try a new class every month and it did wonders for my mental health and sense of community. Most of my classes were craft focused, hence my emphasis, but a handful were exercise classes that I enjoyed immensely as well.
Pros:
You get to learn something new, which typically results in a souvenir to take home or at least a new skill to practice.
Tons of different people take classes which allow social interaction outside of your normal circles and opportunities to meet new people.
They typically occur outside of normal working hours so those 9-5 folks can join in (that’s me! Heck yeah!)
You can take a class which allows you to make avocado toast. Learning how to cook is a great experience.
Cons:
Classes are not always a regular occurrence. Some pottery or exercise classes can span a couple weeks with the right session, but it’s usually a “one night only” kind of deal.
They typically require some foresight to attend, either for time or budget reasons. It’s hard to be randomly bored after work one day and just jump into a class without registering first.
If you’re not particularly crafty or artsy, the craft classes might be a dealbreaker. Same for the less athletically inclined and exercise classes. However, I will argue that I wasn’t particularly crafty before I started doing these monthly classes and now I live for my crafts at home. You just have to keep an open mind and understand that being bad at the activity is also occasionally part of the experience. Ask me about my pole-dancing class experience one day.
Park
Nature has proven to be a healing force. The act of engaging with the outdoors has been shown to improve physical and mental health so why not embrace the local park as a potential third space? It’s also as free, if not more so, than the library.
Pros:
Nature! Yeah! And it’s free to enjoy! Double yeah!
I have a couple parks near my house. As mentioned previously, I like it when third spaces are close to my house
My dog can come with me to the park.
You can bring your own avocado toast and have a nice little picnic :)
Cons:
You kind of have to come up with your own entertainment at the park. There’s no easy “let me scan the bookshelves” or “let me order this beer and watch TV for a while” entertainment. There’s some play and workout equipment installed if you’re lucky, but if looking at trees isn’t necessarily your jam then it’s kind of hard to go out of the way to visit if you’re easily prone to boredom on your own. (I should note this doesn’t necessarily apply to me because one of my favorite joys in life is walking my dog with an audiobook at the park and occasionally stopping to gab with other walkers on the trails, but not everyone has a cute dog to hang out with them at the park like I do.)
Nature is both beauty and beast. It’s hard to go to the park if it’s ice cold or, alternatively, burning hotter than the sun. It’s also hard, and typically frowned upon, to visit the park after the sun goes down. You’re truly at nature’s mercy when utilizing nature as a third space.
Movie Theater
I love da movies. If I’m having a slow week, it’s incredibly easy for me to find a showtime on my local movie theater app, plunk down the extra moo-lah for some popcorn and a medium soda, and watch a movie I’d probably otherwise never watch on my own. It’s almost therapy to be alone in a dark theater for two hours watching a narrative unfold on a massive screen in front of you without any outside distractions or obligation to do anything but watch the movie you paid for.
Pros:
Easy activity to do alone because you’re not supposed to talk to your friends during the movie anyways.
Movies are great entertainment, especially with some treats to keep you company. With the nonsense that is streaming these days too, it’s nice to be able to watch a movie without worrying about whether it will make it to one of the five streaming services you’re subscribed to at $20 a month.
Cons:
Holy hell this can be an expensive hobby. I’m lucky in that I get to indulge in $6 Movie Tuesdays at my local theater, but most movie times are not that cheap. Add in the little treats and it’s an easy $30 evening for only about two hours of entertainment all by yourself let alone with a pal or two.
No! Avocado! Toast! And they really don’t like it when you sneak it in. Although, honestly, I worked at movie theaters for like five years and I would personally be impressed, and too underpaid to care, if you did sneak some in.
Speed Dating Event
This one is highly specific, but I just gotta say I loved the one speed-dating event I ever attended. Half of the boys didn’t show up so it was mostly single girls within the same age bracket and it was so fun getting to meet a bunch of new people my own age in my own relationship bracket. The speed dating event quickly devolved from attempting to make romantic connections to a table of us all commiserating about how terrible it was to date in our generation and sharing the hobbies we enjoy. Even the few guys that did show up joined in and it was the first time in a long time that I felt involved in a community for folks of my age with my same interests.
Pros:
This was a group of people specifically curated based on the similar qualities of being relatively the same age and experiencing the same stage of life as being single at that age. This made it super easy for us all to find connections and chat with each other in that space.
Cons:
I had to pay, like, $20 to make my new friends, which isn’t close to the egregious amount I had to pay to make friends in my sorority in college, but it still requires spending money to make connections.
I’ve literally never once spoken to any of these girls ever again in my life, despite trading numbers to start a trivia group. I’ve also literally never once been able to find another speed dating or community building experience in my town to attend, but at least this one time was pretty fun.
Not a single one of the, like, five guys that showed up asked me out on another date to enjoy avocado toast together. Rude.
Magic the Gathering Game Nights
This has been the most successful third space for me in regards to finding community at an affordable price while also having a consistent excuse to get out of the house. Magic the Gathering is largely regarded as a serious strategy card game for nerds, but I’ve found my own niche with it as a very super duper cool person who makes decks solely based on neat little critters and Sonic the Hedgehog characters. It only costs $5 at my local card game shop to embarrass my decks against strangers for four hours every week and it’s one of the best parts of my week. I think the true benefit of this third space is the consistency it occurs. Showing up every week for the same event has allowed me to get to know the staff and other players in ways that are akin to friendship in an incredibly casual setting. It’s been nice getting to trade thoughts about new TV shows with the staff as they overhear our conversations or recognize other players that we play against consistently and being able to joke with them over our plays. Magic the Gathering is also just a fun hobby to partake in, both playing it and building decks on my own.
Pros:
A regular chance to practice and indulge in a fun-for-me hobby with other people who are also interested in that hobby
Regular cadence of the activity occurring, not just happening on an “as is” or “whenever I want” basis
Relatively cheap for the exchange: it’s only a $5 entry fee for four hours of entertainment and human interaction. As a bonus, my local card game shop also serves a great selection of food and drink (alcoholic, non-alcoholic, caffeinated, and non-caffeinated included) at incredibly affordable prices so I can also treat myself to a little snack when I inevitably lose a game early and have to wait for the next turn.
Cons:
Despite cheap admission fees for game nights, Magic the Gathering as a game can be incredibly expensive to get into. Since part of the appeal is building your own decks and crushing the competition, it’s encouraged to buy powerful cards to support your hand which can turn incredibly expensive. It’s said that the most powerful card at any Magic table is the credit card, which really makes the nerds mad when my deck built from leftover booster cards wins a game.
Sometimes, the competition just sucks. I’ve seen more grown men throw toddler hissy fits over a bad Magic game than anywhere else in my life. If you’re actually competitive, this doesn’t make the experience very fun. But, personally, I recognize that being part of a community often involves accepting the unscripted parts of it, such as grown men endlessly bickering over the meaning of “may” on a card.
No avocado toast, but the staff does let me order a side of nacho cheese with my tater tots even though it’s not on the menu and that’s a pretty acceptable substitution.
Honorable Mention: Coffee Shops
This would be where I would include coffee shops as acceptable third spaces, if I could find a somewhat decent one that satisfied my quest for a third space. I’m not typically a morning person, but I don’t sleep in that egregiously. I sleep in until 8AM at the latest most days. I’m also not a coffee snob. I enjoy gas station coffee as easily as fancy French pressed lattes, actually probably more so. But despite extensive searching, I still haven’t been able to locate a single coffee shop with the right balance of decently priced coffee, legitimate breakfast food options, open hours where I’m both awake and not working, and distance from my house yet. It’s been an atrocious effort and I have no idea why I’m failing so hard at it. If you know me in real life and have any recommendations, let me know because I really can’t believe there’s not a single good local coffee shop in my area. By the way, Starbucks is terrible. Their coffee is overpriced and overboiled and I’m usually stuck overhearing someone sell a pyramid scheme to a grandma. I’d rather spend $8 at my terrible local brewery than $8 for that milked down garbage.
So, alas, I remain without a coffee shop as a stable third space in my life so I am forced to omit it from my quest. I bet a coffee shop would be a great third space though. It would probably serve avocado toast.