While rushing from my kid’s ballet class to their soccer class, a thought struck me that I can’t shake. What happened to lingering?

As a kid, whenever we visited my grandparents, we’d go to church. I wasn’t particularly religious growing up, so it was a little like visiting a zoo. I got to watch how people interacted, observing their rituals and routines. Every single time, it was the same scene, with my grandparents operating at completely opposite ends of the lingering spectrum.

My grandfather, always on a mission, would shake hands as quickly as possible, throw on his jacket, and beeline it for the car. He’d sit there, waiting patiently for my grandma to make her way out of the church. My grandma, though, was a natural-born lingerer. A quiet woman with a fiery spirit and a heart of gold, she turned church into her Olympics—a place to catch up with friends and soak in all the gossip. It was her third space, and she thrived there.

Lingering feels like a lost art form.

I never linger. I am my grandfather’s and father’s son, always in a rush with nowhere particularly important to go. When the event is over, I’m already halfway to the next thing, whatever that might be. It’s a given that we’re late, and chit-chat will only put us further behind. No time for catching up. No time for lingering.

I think there are still lingerers among us, but today, when I took a rare chance to linger for just a minute, I didn’t see many people pausing to chat. Conversations were already had during the soccer game. Why continue them? There’s always another event to get to, a house that needs attention, or a group of “real” friends to meet up with—not the other random parents standing around at soccer practice.

When I think back to my grandparents at church, the people my grandma lingered with weren’t folks she’d necessarily choose to spend time with anywhere else. Lingering after the event was the moment and space to connect. She didn’t care about the time. She didn’t check her watch while someone rambled about a family member she’d never met. She was all in, standing among people, being present. Now, thinking back on it, I’m in awe of how peaceful it all seemed.

After soccer, we don’t linger to chat. We swap cleats for shoes or boots and make a straight shot for the door. We have a pizza dinner with grandma and grandpa to get to. You see, it’s indoor soccer, and there’s only one way out of the inflatable dome. If we don’t move fast, we’ll get stuck in line. And then we’d be lingering. And we can’t have that.

Maybe I’m the only one feeling nostalgic for lingering. The kind of lingering where you’re not tapping your foot or glancing at your phone because there’s somewhere else to be. The kind of lingering that lets everyone know you’re here to talk, to banter, to connect.

I think the loss of lingering is tied to the rise of tribalism. Sure, we can blame social media, but offline, we’re rushing from place to place, avoiding time spent in shared spaces with the people around us. We move from open spaces to closed ones, surrounding ourselves with people we agree with and like. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but when you’re always surrounded by the same views, they start to feel like the only views that matter. That’s when the real problems begin.

Hopefully, we can find more time for the people who happen to be around us. For the ones who linger.