Are you a member of a club? In 2025, it might be time to sign up to one. Trend forecaster Sean Monahan, best known for coining the term “normcore” to describe the 2010s fashion for dressed-down casual wear (think bland New Balance trainers and mom jeans), predicts that this is the year of the club, with “run clubs replacing dating apps and breakfast clubs replacing LinkedIn”.
It only takes a quick glance at the UK to know that the social club is alive and well. Membership of private members’ clubs is booming despite a number of controversies, including the temporary suspension of the Groucho Club’s licence following an alleged rape.
The world-conquering Soho House chain, loved and loathed in equal measure by the creative intelligentsia it attracts, is just one of a new generation of spaces trying to shake off their forebears’ reputations for fusty, male-only privilege.
These days, members are just as likely to send emails from a private club’s open-plan co-working space as they are sinking Old-Fashioneds at its bar. When the beloved London music venue Koko reopened its doors in 2022 after a devastating fire, it did so as a concert hall slash private club. It seems even legendary cultural institutions need those membership fees.
I have no quarrel with any of these places – I’ve drunk more than my fair share of passable flat whites in them. But what strikes me about the rise of these social spaces is that they cost money – in some cases, a lot of money. A glass of house white costs about £8 at the Groucho and a main dish at the restaurant will set you back £18 at minimum, and that’s before you even get to the £950 annual membership fee.
But then again, when was the last time you socialised without paying for it? Are you able to spend quality time with a BFF without wincing when you reach for your wallet, whether it was to buy an overpriced pint or a full-on, sit-down meal? For most of us, the overwhelming answer is no. It points to an increasingly depressing fact about our lives: these days, socialising is often a paid-for privilege.
This isn’t for lack of trying. Think of all the spend-free ways you killed time as a teenager: roaming shopping centres, doing bike wheelies in Tesco car parks or sat outdoors with your mates while someone passes you a dented can of cider. But something has changed, at least in the UK.
The way people split the bill can tell you a lot about how they view friendship
Read MoreSecurity guards and police can tell you to move on if they think you’re being a nuisance, parks are under-maintained or increasingly cordoned off to make way for music festivals, and who can forget the 2000s and 2010s trend for slapping teens with ASBOs for causing trouble in town squares?
When you grow up and the allure of sitting on damp grass wears thin, our socialising moves into cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants – all places where prices have skyrocketed.
According to some experts the UK is only about two to three years off £5 being the average cost of a coffee. Pub chains like Fullers and Wetherspoons have warned that they need to raise the price of beer after an increase in employers’ national insurance rates – one O’Neill’s pub in London has taken the drastic move of introducing surge pricing, making customers fork out up to £9.40 for a pint after 10pm.
Clubs and bars warn that entire generations – including millennials and Gen Z – would prefer to stay at home rather than go out. And if you thought it was hard sneaking out to meet friends when you were a teenager, it’s even harder to socialise with them at home if you, like 30 per cent of 25- to 29-year-olds, live with your parents.
Third spaces – a fancy academic word for “a public place to hang that isn’t work, school or home” – are integral to our mental well-being and democracy, according to US sociologists like Ray Oldenburg. They don’t have to be a pub or a watering hole; libraries, youth centres, green spaces, music venues, lidos, outdoor gyms – they all offer somewhere people can meet, mingle and break down social barriers. But many of these places have been decimated by austerity, under threat by developers or simply charge for the cost of entry.
No wonder many of us would prefer to stay at home and scroll the evening away. But if you, like me, are trying to spend less time on your phone and more time with loved ones in 2025, you might find yourself in a financial bind. I guess there’s only one answer for it: it’s time to reintroduce the pandemic walk. At least walking aimlessly around your neighbourhood with a friend is still free.
Zing Tsjeng is a journalist, non-fiction author, and podcaster
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