I entirely agree. But the article outright claims it's rude to decide not to go to large social gatherings full of strangers. (I concede your point on coffee.)
"When I skip big gatherings of strangers, I’m not just being a little rude to the individual people around me, I’m being uncivil in a larger sense. The more we isolate ourselves from new people, the more isolated and segregated our society is likely to become. Those casual interactions in dog runs and at kids’ hockey games are the ones that are most likely to cross social and economic barriers. They expand my little world as well as the overlapping bubbles that create a society."
I went back to the article and found the problem, right here, where she ties together being uncivil in the inevitable human interactions of our day (e.g., bringing your bad energy into the dog park) with how you choose to build community beyond that, implicitly comparing her choices with yours. That's the default tone of the self-congratulatory prig.
Yes, it is good to stretch your comfort zone to meet new people and help build community without choosing situations that would make you miserable. Strangers? Ipso facto good? Rubbish. She may have scared more people off getting out than she inspired as some misguided soul is right now looking at Meetups, choosing "random after dark random networking with drinks" over the LUG. Sure, join the political group or the book club if it inspires you.
"Years ago, I was habitually late. “I can’t help it!” I declared to an expert in time management (I’d turned my effort to reform into a magazine article, as writers do, which gave me the excuse to seek professional help)."
And by the way, showing up late is garden variety selfish behavior that directly harms at least one other actual human being. The author managed to slip in a less insidious self congratulations here, too, a lot of work for one sentence.
That does not even make sense. How could it possibly be rude to not attend an event of strangers? I probably didn't catch that as I skimmed the article. I'm not that tempted to read it as there's no amount of smoke and mirrors that could convince me. That sounds to me like guilt tripping on a pretty mass scale. That's the author's issue. No need to feel guilty. And no going to events that suck your soul from your body and stomp on it will not help us resolve the our social crises, help achieve world peace, or even nurture your relationships. Just in case the author tried any of those out as proxies for you should go. Come on. Don't be an anti-social twit. You're letting all these strangers down and, well, you're letting America down.
