Suburbia 2 game sucks6/27/2023 Getting around in a car dependent environment is fine if you're old enough to drive (but not too old) have no major mental or physical disabilities, passed the test, and can afford a car and all of its associated costs. I often wonder if not having those small everyday interactions with strangers has a greater psychological effect on us than we realize. The places where I shopped and spent time targeted my demographic, so I was constantly surrounded by people that were similar to me. The possibility of random encounters with strangers was still there (when I visited the supermarket, for example) but I reduced the window for this to occur from an everyday experience to a couple of hours on the weekend. I had to go out of my way and place myself in public to interact with my neighbors and others that lived in my town, rather than it being a natural part of my day. When I got out of my car at work, the only people that I interacted with were co-workers, and when I returned home, the only people that I interacted with were my family. When I got into my car to drive to work, I felt like I was traveling through town in my own isolated box. When I lived in the suburbs, I eliminated most of these random encounters. I was not the most sociable child, so these random encounters played an important part in developing my social skills and feeling comfortable around strangers. These people were rich and poor, old and young. Even though the idea of being forced to interact with strangers sounds undesirable, there's something very human about feeling that you are part of a living world. The homeless man asking for my spare change. Overhearing the couple's conversation behind me on a bus. The elderly lady that asks for help at the train station. ![]() These were usually nothing more than simple interruptions. When I lived in the city, I used to have random encounters with strangers, often daily. I've lived in both cities (taking transit and walking everywhere) and suburbs (working in a suburban office campus and driving everywhere).
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