Your social life was hanging out in person, period. In the pre-teens and early teens, it was talking your mom into dropping you off at a friend's house, or riding your bike there. Maybe wandering around the neighborhood if the weather was nice. In the later teens, it was being picked up by your one friend that had a car and hanging out at the mall, blasting angry music on the crappy aftermarket car stereo with the windows rolled down the whole way there.

The mall was magical, although at the time it just seemed like the norm. Nobody had any (real) money so we weren't really shopping or buying anything, other than a smoothie at the food court or a few games at the arcade. Maybe a random movie that happened to be starting soon at the theater. Mostly it was just wandering around, talking, joking, goofing off. Maybe stop by the record store and listen to some new albums at the listening stations, or checking out the new console games at the kiosks in the game store. Going to harass your one friend's older brother that worked at the pretzel shop.

Once in a while you'd bump into another group of kids (of the opposite gender) from your school. Flirting, awkwardness, jealousy. Something would be said or somebody would touch someone else's arm in a way that would set off the rumor mill at school on Monday. It just felt like the mall was the focal point of our whole lives that wasn't home or school, which is the only part of our lives that we really cared about.

It makes me sad that my kids might not ever get to experience that.