I feel lucky in that I have a job that involves social interaction, but moving to a new city left me without any "third place". I definitely empathize with the loneliness that can stir up and so many public spaces seem designed around creating new social interactions between people who aren't already associated.

I read an article not long ago about upscale private clubs. I'm strongly attracted to the status/networking aspect often involved, but the idea of a place gather and socialize that doesn't require buying alcohol/coffee/food is appealing. Place it in a neighborhood. Keep the membership fees accessible to the people who live in that community and then offer some small perks that bars/coffee shops don't (e.g. free billiards on a real table). Hopefully, membership would make people a little more open to socializing with whomever show up, rather than the typical bar in which most people stick to their own group.

Does anyone have experience with private clubs (of any kind)? Did they open up social interaction in this way?

Community radio serves this for me-- people uniting over common interests, volunteering together to keep the outfit running, and interacting in unexpected ways.

I feel very fortunate to have this in my life, and really wish there were more things like this for more people--

That sounds a lot like a hackerspace.

It might not be your cup of tea, but religious organizations like churches are one of the most accessible sources of socializing in many communities. In my experience, that's a primary reason that many people actually attend them.

That's a cool idea, yep. My thing used to be volunteering at bike shop. It was free as long as I was working (which I enjoyed) and there was a lot of interaction. Having it fee-based instead of work-based would be cool too.

Volunteering is definitely a good way to meet people (as is joining a dance group or sports team) - but just having a space to hang out, play a social game, and/or talk with people would be nice. I imagine having a small membership fee could strengthen the "in-group" mentality causing people to open up a little.

I found meetup.com is a pretty good place for this, depending on where you are. It's a bunch of people looking for some kind of communal group based on shared interests (programming, political philosophy, SciFi, religion, learning Italian, hiking, etc.). Of course you have to find the right group that fits you, but when you do it's great.

Other places I've had success is with local political/activist groups and hobby groups (dance groups, martial arts groups). Again, you have to try a lot of groups to find the right one, but it's worth it.

It's not always true. In San Francisco the people I meet in meetups are often broken and puts little trust in strangers.

TBH, I never met so many lonely broken people in other parts of the world.

<I don't have a plan for replacing the social contact of facebook

Get a fun job. Like at Walmart. People are invigorating. You have real relationships with fellow workers and the regular customers. Human interaction. Just don't have it be your real job so you can ignore drama.

Partner dancing is fantastic for this, IMO. Any sort of social hobby works, though. The less digitized the better - the fundamental problem is probably something like "by default, what I do is stare at a screen."

I didn't have a plan for replacing the social contact of Facebook when I quit. I lost contact with a lot of people. But it turned out that most were acquaintances, not friends, and I could do without them. My acquaintances now are the people I see every day, the doormen and baristas I meet but don't become close with, and I find this means my acquaintances include more variety of people as a result. And the real friends, I've kept in contact with; there are only maybe 10, so it's not hard to text them occasionally.

Facebook prevented you from becoming acquaintences with doormen and baristas?

Yes. Your experience might be different, but I have a limited capacity for the number of people I can remember basic facts about to be polite, so when I was keeping track of 100+ people on Facebook I didn't have the mental space to keep track of people who I met in my day-to-day.