Adults Are Going to Sleep-Away Camp to Make Friends. It Seems to Work

https://www.wsj.com/style/adult-sleepaway-camp-social-getaway-98e47886

by impish9208 • 11 months ago

54 10 11 months ago

impish9208• 11 months ago

Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/style/adult-sleepaway-camp-social-getawa...

pessimizer• 11 months ago

I couldn't be more for this. Maybe one day people will realize that school still works for adults, too, and make it easy for adults to dabble in attending for fun or to refresh stuff that they forgot since college.

Going to sleepaway camp remains fun when you're an adult. Learning things remains fun when you're an adult. Adulthood doesn't have to be isolation and atomic family units, it just means you have a job.

syndeo• 11 months ago

Only issue remains putting bread on the table… otherwise I imagine I'd be living a much different—and much more social—life.

nerdjon• 11 months ago

I feel like I have done a somewhat decent job of trying to keep some of that childlike wonder in my own life, even just not abandoning things that I love like video games, watching anime, the occasional cartoon.

I do wonder in practice how this really works for making friends, once you leave camp there is now a distance limitation.

But I have long wondered about the idea of recreating some of the experiences from childhood as adults. Things like camp, maybe going to a "day care", or other things to just not think about all of the stress of life for a little bit.

Sure we have things like going to Disney, amusement parks, adult oriented arcades like Dave and Busters. But as fun as those are they are not really replicating the childhood experience like this seems to do and other things that could be made similar.

mock-possum• 11 months ago

My partner and I talk about that occasionally - that we both have the same ‘joy’ over activities that we always have, and we’re not shy about sharing it with the people around us. I think it definitely helps to cultivate a community of likeminded / compatible friends. We give people permission to openly enjoy themselves, and I haven’t really found a down side to that as of yet.

1659447091• 11 months ago

Things like camp, maybe going to a "day care",

Adult day care would be fun. If I had a partner that told me "I'm too busy to do anything this weekend; I signed you up for adult day care though..." ... I would absolutely go. At the very least for the novelty of it.

Not sure where you are; in Texas there are quite a few dude ranches (family/couple/solo friendly despite what the name may imply) that I highly recommend finding one with the level of activity you're in to. Some really get into the rancher thing, others will have light trail horse riding and get more into the social sitting around a campfire communal thing before, during, and after chow time.

evklein• 11 months ago

There's a subset of sleepaway camps for adults that are quite popular for musicians - they typically consist of sleeping in cabins at night and attending lessons and workshops throughout the day. I went to one a few years ago, and even though I was a full standard deviation off from the mean in terms of age I still had a good time. This seems like a cool idea too.

nisegami• 11 months ago

Surprised there was no mention of vibecamp.

nothercastle• 11 months ago

Yeah turns out proximity results in friendships who would have thought…

avbanks• 11 months ago

This is why music festivals are so popular.

Adults Are Going to Sleep-Away Camp to Make Friends. It Seems to Work

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