I've complained about this already to people in real life but the erosion of third spaces and easy points into community doesn't just suck for kids. It is super frustrating trying to find opportunities to be social (enrichment for my enclosure etc) and hitting a brick wall of time/money/logistics again and again. I work full time. I work from home because my company is based in another part of the country. I look up local groups online to see if I can find somewhere to connect with likeminded people, and they do exist! Except.
The local walking group meets on Wednesdays at 10:30am. When I'm working.
The library has several fun sounding drop in sessions for adults where you can do crafty things, except those are also in the middle of weekdays. When I'm working.
And so on and so forth.
And weekends? Not that I found any anyway, but because I spend so much of my time working, by the time I get to the weekend I'm exhausted and need the time for all the chores and errands I couldn't do during the week. Like no shit there's a loneliness epidemic when working-age people are facing the prospect of not being able to socialise for the next 30-40 years depending on how many more times the government decides to raise the age of retirement.
