Why Does The Hideout Exist?

Jennifer Serrat
4 days ago
2 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Because adult life got way too serious.

Two smiling women in caps and name tags running a three-legged race at an adult summer camp in Berlin

Adult life can feel like having no time for yourself while somehow always being behind on something.

Examples:

Work fills the week. Errands take over the weekend. Messages (and newsletters) pile up. Plans require five calendars, three reschedules and a minor diplomatic negotiation.

You can feel as though you are drowning in responsibilities while the months still pass in a flash. Especially once you hit your thirties.

One minute it is January then somebody is asking what you are doing for New Year’s Eve again. Excuse me, what??

Honestly, adult life can also become so damn boring!!

Examples:

The same routes. The same conversations. The same places. The same plan to “grab a drink” because nobody had the time or energy to organise anything else.

Even hobbies start to feel like things we should improve at, document or eventually turn into income.

We spend a lot of time technically connected and surprisingly little time properly together.

The Hideout exists because I wanted to create another option that was NOT:

A PARTY WEEKEND

A WELLNESS RETREAT

A NETWORKING EVENT DISGUISED AS FUN

Another after-work drink where everyone ends up talking about work

BUT THIS:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d49894_a181958c758f486fb3f628230d083825/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Something playful, thoughtful and easy to enter. A place where you can try archery for the first time, paint badly, stay up around a fire, laugh with someone you met that afternoon and forget where your phone is for a while.

It does not need to be useful. Again, that is kind of the point.

IS THE HIDEOUT A COMMUNITY?

Smiling diverse group poses under a large tree at a park, many wearing name badges and headbands, in a cheerful team photo.

The community is growing around the experiences. It is not something I can manufacture or promise.

People meet at camp or through a Side Quest. Some exchange numbers. Some come to the next event together. Some stay active in the group chat. Some become friends. Others simply share one very good day and we never see them again. All of those outcomes count.

The goal is not to force connection or make everyone feel responsible for becoming part of a new social circle.

Do I secretly love it when people become friends, make plans without me and return to the next event together? I mean, duh. Obviously. But it has to happen naturally.

The goal is to create better conditions for people to spend real time together and let them decide what happens after that.

So far, the community has grown from it.