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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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I’m not sure what you’re objecting to in the statement you quoted. There’s nothing spontaneous about having to drive for an hour to see people, so it sounds like you’re agreeing rather than disagreeing, you just don’t mind it. If you’re okay with that, that’s fine. I’m not. But I’m not agitating for some sort of political change that would require you to live differently. I’m trying to figure out what I can do to live the kind of life I want to live.

My parents are an hour away. My grandparents are two hours away. My sister, on the other hand, is about ten minutes by onewheel, and a high school friend of mine is even closer, depending on how the light is timed today. My kids go to a local school, so the eldest can go see some of his friends under his own steam. We attend church only for Christmas and Easter, and only sparingly in those cases, but were we to do so more often, we would known even more people in our current neighborhood of three car garages.

You're the one with crushing isolation and boredom. I'm the one in the suburbs with the rich social fabric.

Maybe the problem isn't the cars and the yards and the strip malls. Maybe it's you.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, I’m pretty easy to get along with. I just don’t like driving or long travel times so I tend to choose to avoid it, and don’t have many opportunities to meet people that don’t require that.