Like, you aren’t necessarily next door neighbors. You’d have to take the streetcar or bus or commuter rail some distance to go meet your friend. You can’t text “sorry the train is 30 minutes late”, because no cell phones, no internet, no tracking buses or trains on your smartphone. No payphones or landlines.
Letters are only for those cross-continental, cross-oceanic relationships. If you live in the same city, then well you’d still have to meet in person cuz it’s not the digital age, no doomscrolling social media and sending texts and memes.
I feel like those were the days where you could have true friendships in society, not “having friends to send memes”.
That was still universal when I was a teenager in the 90s in Germany.
My best friend would just come over, ask if I’m home, and leave again or go look for me in the common places if I wasn’t.
It was awesome, and the loss of that world is something that still hurts.
Where were the common places?
Growing up it wasn’t uncommon for me to go to friend As house unannouced just walk in and find his mom in the backyard ask if flmy friend was there, she would say no. I would go 7 blocks away to friend B do the same thing find his dad in the garage and he say that friend B left an hour ago.
So I would walk 30 mins to the park and see friend D ask them if they seen friend A, they would say no. So I would go to the woods 20 mins away and friend friend A and B just hanging out then spend the next few hours chilling before running home cause the street lights came on.
Mom and dad would be out searching the same way I did for my little brother cause he went to friend A, then they went to B then D then the park. And none of them told their parents.
My dad would just track my brother’s friend group via where they left their bikes or random things in front lawns. So you could track the neighborhood kids that way.
So I would be home alone for an hour or so after dark before Dad and Mom pulled in with my brother and likely 3 other kids who would then stay the night.
Mom would then make dinner for everyone. I would eat the. Leave to back to friend A cause we agreed I would stay over and their parents would take me to school the next day since they left for work after school started instead of before.
So I would then just walk in the dark to my friend’s house
This was middle school for me. I would routinely cover 15+ miles a day back and forth all over the neighborhoods in a single day.
In summer, the local playground, the basketball courts, the lake, or our secret place in the woods where we hid our porn magazines and fought our airsoft battles.
In winter, the video game store where you could play for free to “try them out”, another friend’s place, or my dad’s garage where we tried to build a bungee strap crossbow that shot Bic lighters.
That vacant lot. The one in the summer where we used to smoke pot.
Café, other friends place.