Breakfast next Friday?

There’s an empty storefront on Union Street I walk by every morning. Every afternoon I contemplate calling the real estate agent. Get one glass of wine in my system, and my friends know what to expect next: my well-worn diatribe against San Francisco’s lack of third spaces. The conversation always starts with playful frustration and meanders back to that Union Street property, and inevitably, I’ve got a napkin sketch of plans for a hybrid coffee-shop-hotel-bar that would solve it all. 

San Francisco has lovely cafes (my favorite, Reveille), Golden Gate Park is gorgeous, and I can't walk along Chrissy Field without seeing someone I know.

If not a lack of dedicated third spaces my fermented rant is pointing to then maybe it's a feeling – of fervent individualist pursuit, of coffee lines with people's faces in their phones, of all those times on Chrissy Field where we didn’t say hi.

Whatever it is that my words are searching for, I found it articulated with uncomfortable clarity in reading Thompson's recent essay, “The Anti-Social Century.” 

His data suggests we’re spending more time alone than ever before, but calling it “loneliness” is an inaccurate characterization of this cultural crisis. Loneliness is biologically protective: its very nature pushes us to recognize we should want to be in the company of others, and he argues, sparks behavior change accordingly. 

His concern is that today we aren’t adhering to the impulse loneliness induces. We’re not just deprioritizing collective experiences; we’re deliberatively choosing against them. Our isolation is an active choice. 

Thompson points to a pivotal moment in history that makes my Union Street storefront obsession particularly relevant: America’s “era of withdrawal” began in the 1970s when “the government dramatically slowed its construction of public spaces.” No one stepped in to fill that void. Instead, Thompson’s data suggests, we retreated further into private spaces, towards our pursuit of isolation.

I read this article on my laptop, over lunch, alone. 

Still, something about the narrative feels at odds with what I’m seeing around me. Partiful event invites galore. Run clubs. Walking groups, book clubs, podcast clubs – there’s almost a desperation in how much we’re all trying to gather. 

Thompson doesn’t break down isolation by generation – rather he paints a picture of American life as a whole. While it’s true that young people report feeling more lonely than past generations, there’s no data suggesting we’re getting increasingly lonelier over time.

I want to hold up my phone with the digital proof of all of these organized gatherings as a defense against Thompson’s argument. Look at us trying! But maybe our reliance on scheduling apps and structured meetups just proves his point. We’ve turned connection into another optimization problem.

Thompson does not present a path forward in his essay, despite how much my brain and heart wanted him to. Perhaps that reflex - to solve rather than understand - is part of what got us here.

Which brings me back to that empty storefront on Union Street. Maybe the answer is not a new vision for creating the perfect third space. Maybe it’s something embarrassingly simple: just showing up somewhere, together.

Have thoughts on Thompson’s piece or our evolving third spaces?Join me for breakfast next Friday, January 17th at 9AM. DM me for location. 

As Thompson reminds us, “Our smallest actions create norms. Our norms create values. Our values drive behavior. And our behaviors cascade."