I watched a video this week (not Halloween-related) that struck a chord with me about how so many things just feel off. Not that I’ve spent any time in Bellevue, Washington, but I feel like I have. It looks like so many other new places. And that isn’t a good thing. The human element is missing. This extends to videoconference meetings, food delivery services, and so many other things I use on a regular basis. I am a little torn by this as my own work would look very different without some of these technologies, but they are not without their drawbacks.

The narrator describes this emptiness in part by riding a horse around different parts of the Seattle metro, itself having a downtown that hollowed out during the pandemic but that was full of life during the world cup. That trip was one of the highlights of my year and something I wrote about afterwards. He deploys public school enrollment figures and census data about the makeup of households to support his thesis, but I was drawn more to the mentions in passing about the lack of third places and how effort is now required in order to overcome the inertia of atomization, the things I’ve felt myself.

In the face of this, the proposed remedy of hosting regular dinner parties seems both quaint and feeble. Despite this, I have found shared meals one of the best tonics against my own contemporary malaise. Last week, it was me picking up dinner and taking it over to a friend’s house. With their two little ones, that is much simpler logistically. It was also a chance for me to see the new house, which is already taking shape into a home for them. It made for a pleasant, enjoyable, and early evening. I wish I had more of those. This week I’m going to eat a little later and still won’t be hosting, but there are plans in the works to have dinner with another set of friends before any Halloween craziness and our circadian rhythms get disrupted.