Third Places

It's not home, it's not work... is it anywhere these days?

Growing up watching TV, it always felt like ensemble casts had an iconic place to call spend time together. It wasn’t home, or work, but a space that felt like a combination of both— a place for play and connection (think Central Perk in Friends). It was a space that offered an escape from real life, but it was also a place to deal with it. Not utopia, but pretty damn close. This concept of a “home away from home” was coined by Sociologist Ray Oldenburg as “third places,” and used to be much more common than they are today. So, what’s changed?

I’m not the first to ponder if these places exist anymore, and it’s no longer a revolutionary thought. In the past, people had those spaces that felt like a home away from home. But now, very few places actually exist that give us a third place outside of work and home, and TV reflects that change. As we entered the 2010s, workplace comedies (and dramas) boomed. The Office and Parks and Rec were two shows that placed their central plots in the workplace. both did eventually have a more diverse range of locations, but each placed an emphasis on productivity and socialization taking place at work. In real life, work can be a great place for forming friendships, but it cannot function as a third place since work is the primary goal, not connection.

Ray Oldenburg offers qualifying characteristics of what sets a third place apart from home and work:

Neutral Ground: The space is for anyone to come and go without affiliation with a religion, political party, or in-group.

Level Ground: Political and financial status doesn't matter there.

Conversation: The primary purpose of the location is to converse and be social.

Accessible: The third place is open and available to everyone and the place caters to the needs and desires of the community that frequents it.

Regulars: On a nightly or at least weekly basis the same cast of people rotate in and out, contributing to the sense of community.

Unassuming: Third places aren't regal or imposing. They're home-like and serve the function of a home away from home for the patrons.

Lack of Seriousness: Third places are a place to put aside personal or political differences and participate in a community. Joking around and keeping the mood light is a big part of the "public house" experience.

Third Place as Home: A third place must take on multiple elements of the home experience including a feeling of belonging, safety, coziness, and a sense of shared ownership. A successful third place has visitors saying ‘this is our space and I feel at home here.’

I took to Instagram to ask my friends and followers if and how they experience third places in their lives. I polled around 50 individuals, asking a series of questions about how close they live to a third place, if they are regulars at one, and if they would be more willing to attend one if invited by a friend. The results were pretty interesting, and I’ve distilled some of them here:

• 98% of participants live within a 15 minute drive of a third place

• Bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and libraries are the most common third places. Outside of these, participants also identified parks. Notably, most of these require at least some form of payment to participate.

• 57% said that community, specifically conversation, was the primary goal of their third space; this factor is critical. The other 43% would have a hard time convincing me that their space is truly a third place, although it may still be a refuge from home and work.

• While 23% of participants agreed that finding a third place is intimidating, 98% of said that they would be more willing if they were directly invited.

These data points, while hardly academic, do offer a glimpse into the state of third places around me, and around my friends. Most of them are not free, and if they are (like parks and libraries), it is harder to find organic community there; most participants attend these places alone. Others stated that while there are third places around, they are heavily influenced by religion or politics, making them less neutral ground (more on that later). One parent shared that some third places are just not practical for families, making them less accessible, typically due to a lack of restrooms and changing stations. Another popular third space is the gym, both structured classes and solo workouts. I myself have experienced the gym as a third place, but not quite at the depth I’m looking for.

One friend mentioned that bars used to be his third place. Bars offered the social lubricant of alcohol, making it easier to be social after a full week of work. Once he decided to quit drinking, however, he had to reconsider where his third space is. It’s no longer bars, and it’s not coffee shops or libraries. Instead, it’s a group of people who have a similar interest. You can fill in the blanks here— the interests we share with one another are near-irrelevant to third places. Instead, it’s the act of forming conversation and connection using these interests as the glue.

Throughout my life I’ve had very few third places. My college years were ripe with social spaces outside of where I lived and where I worked, but that’s because college campuses/towns are built on the principle of walkability and, therefore, community. It was actually rare that I was outside of a third place of some sort during this period of life. Adulthood quickly changed that.

After college, I can only identify one third space that I had for a number of years: the local coffee shop. Early in my teaching career while I was communing to work, I quickly became a regular of necessity and convenience. Living 40 minutes from where I worked, I often needed a place to camp out between meetings and obligations. The coffee shop quickly became a home away from home; I knew every employee, frequented multiple times a week, and truly felt at home. Eventually it became a regular meeting place for me and some of my dearest friends. That space, for certain reasons (cost, change in ambiance, people), eventually failed to meet some of the qualifications of a third place for me, and faded away.

Similar to the coffee shop, for the majority of my life I was actively involved in Christian church culture. This offered me a pseudo-third place, although it violates Ray Oldenburg’s definition due to it being religious, therefore not neutral. An interesting point arises here: we may perceive certain places as a third place, for us and for many others. However, it is not up to us to decide what is and isn’t a third place, even if we feel strongly one way or another. The lines are drawn very clearly.

Finally, it’s true that we all have escapes like the gym, the coffee shop, or maybe the park, but they’re almost all… activity based. Where is the place I can plop down and camp out for a while where I don’t have to spend excessive money or consume something? Sometimes the biggest barrier in making and forming plans is the question… well, what will we DO? The same goes for dates, though that is a little different. The issue of how to facilitate the friendship can eclipse the process of growing the friendship.

All of that being said, what do we do about it? Well, I have some ideas. They may not fit perfectly with the characteristics of third places, but they’re a step in that direction.

1. Treat your own home as a third place for others. I love to host, and I do not do it nearly enough. When I do I feel incredibly fulfilled and satisfied, not only with the connections I’m making, but the comfort and security I am able to offer my friends. It’s a gift to open your space to others, and I think too often we’re hesitant to do it.

2. Create a third place with friends and stick to it. In reading about third places I noticed that many people are regulars at theirs, and often attend on the same day at the same time each week. Being an adult means making plans a month or more ahead, and *sometimes* following through with them. Try establishing a time and place that works with your friends to gather weekly, twice a month, or even twice a year. It’s a start.

3. Extend the invite, even if it’s awkward. Making friends as an adult is HARD. I have never met another adult who says differently. If you’re lucky, you enjoy your coworkers. Either way, it takes a lot of effort to authentically meet people you click with. The most efficient method, though it’s scary, is to simply trust your gut and make plans with that person (or people) who you think you might get along with. What’s the worst that can happen?

I think that, together, we can work to make third places a thing again. I know that life is busy, but as author Annie Dillard wisely said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” I want to spend my life with surrounded by community, and that starts by finding third spaces to do it.

Let’s chat: How do you find an experience community? Do you have a third place in your life?