“Nocturnals” are people who sleep in the day to avoid human interaction

this sounds wonderful, and if I lived alone, would almost certainly be how I operate.

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I’m very much in the camp of preferring to wake up around 5pm and go to bed in the early hours of the morning, and I used to do all my grocery shopping during those post midnight hours. But as many have mentioned, a combination of the pandemic and living in a semi-rural area has made that impossible. My solution? A subscription to a meal delivery service like Dinnerly or Easy Plate gets me enough groceries to keep myself fed (with more variety than I usually employed when doing the shopping myself). And for other grocery type stuff that I can’t get that way I can mostly find on Amazon. Another good option is Instacart. Ultimately I’m being a bit inefficient in terms of how I’m spending my food dollars by doing it this way, but I’m happily to pay for the convenience.

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Even at 3 am there are people out, and you (usually) have to deal with a cashier. If they really wanted to avoid human interaction, wouldn’t they use delivery services rather than venturing outside?

Also, not everybody who sleeps during the day does so to avoid human interaction.

perhaps we’d just like to avoid interacting with

morning people :fearful:

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As someone from a country where shops close at 22.00 at the very latest and where they are closed on Sundays (and living in a different country that is much the same in this regard) this is such an alien worldview to me. I would ask why grocery store employees are forced to work nights and Sundays. It’s perfectly possible to plan one’s shopping around closing times, even as a security guard.

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If in Mexico, it’s because the US manufacturers here offer competitive (it’s all relative) pay to operate 24 hours a day, so many folks are night owls who still need to buy things. There are many schools that have night classes for children of night shift factory workers here.

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You say “forced to work nights and Sundays” as though there’s something inherently worse about those times. As long as they still have time off, why does it HAVE to be at night or on Sunday? Nobody is suggesting the same people who work in the daytime or have a full Monday-Friday schedule already should work 24/7 and exhaust themselves, it’s a different shift. As an actual grocery store employee posted up above, some people prefer to work late at night.

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Hear, hear! One of the best chapters of my life included working the 4 pm to midnight shift. I had my lazy mornings, could lounge around in the park reading a book for a few hours in the sunlight, then go to work at 4. Got off at midnight, still plenty of time to wander the quiet streets or meet up with any similarly-nocturnal friends.
The whole “early bird gets the worm” mindset is so silly. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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Nocturnals sounds like the next series from Marvel.

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God, if only it were. I would kill for a Nocturnals movie

Nocturnals_Cover

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Los Angeles Drama GIF by ABC Network

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Because, as the kids say, we live in a society.

Of course there are individuals who prefer working Sundays or nights but of you implement these policies on a society level most people doing these jobs will be forced into them and won’t have any significant free time overlap with their families and friends. If you haven’t lived it, it’s hard to describe how nice it is to have a day each week where the expectation is that everyone in your country is having time off at the same time (with exceptions of course, such as emergency services, but also the people catering to the strolling masses, i.e. those working in cafés, museums, etc.)

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I get what you’re trying to tell me but having a single day where everyone is out doing stuff sounds like a recipe for an overcrowded, miserable experience. I don’t WANT to go to the café when all the tables are already taken and there’s a longer wait to get a drink, or go to the museum when all the planetarium shows are already sold out and there are masses of people standing in front of all the exhibits.

While not as universal as wherever you lived, the tendency here in the USA is still for the majority of people to have weekends off (and especially Sundays), and I often try to avoid going to restaurants or attractions as a direct result if I have the option to do it on an “off day” instead. Maybe you’re just more of a people person than I am. I do imagine it makes things much easier for activities like personal get-togethers, parties or board game nights, though.

EDIT: And of course, not forgetting that in the USA we kind of don’t live in a society so much anymore… :face_exhaling:

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Grew up in Germany, living in Norway. Both countries have Sunday rest periods, which I am enjoying right now…

I doubt that, but it is hard to judge over the internet of course. I definitely enjoy being out among people I don’t know (I went to a coffee shop to write something yesterday that I could just as well have written at home) and I enjoy being with family and friends. But that doesn’t mean that I enjoy social situations or am not anxious about them.

But anyway, I see that crowds aren’t an appeal but a certain buzz of activity can be nice, depending on the activity. And as you say, it makes planning for leisure activities a while lot easier. But I think there may also be a difference between what these activities consist off. In Europe, this is often a stroll through a historic town with a stop for coffee or tea and cake or pastries. Of course this is something that is nicer if there is a bit of hubbub around. If it were an organised activity one would prefer fewer people, probably.

There’s a dearth of historic towns in the USA, especially away from the coasts. I’ve been to Germany, and I could absolutely see that being a common and wonderful activity there because all the towns I visited were beautiful and interesting and pedestrian-friendly. Here in the USA many towns are just flat boring stretches of corporate chains and residential areas, without much in the way of gardens, parks, historical sites or public art. National parks offer large wilderness areas but are overcrowded, sometimes distant, and increasingly expensive.

But I think the main issue is that so many Americans are assholes. I don’t want to hang out with strangers because there’s a decent chance they may be complete monsters. I have felt that pleasure of being out among people doing something before, but it’s grown less and less over the past five or six years. If I lived in Germany or Norway (which I would very much like to do once certain responsibilities here are fulfilled), I’d probably feel a lot more like you do- I certainly did when I was visiting there.

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Damn. I could copy and paste this sentence into any thread and it would be on topic

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