Meeting like minded folks pre internet

Reminiscing about the 'old days' Steve and I were trying to remember how we met like minded folks back then.

Now, it seems that so many are expecting it to happen on line?

In the sixties and seventies that just wasn't an option yet we found each other..our 'people' I mean.

We were in a college town and that threw a bunch of us together near the same age with lots of concerts and protests...

And the back to the land movement just seemed to be in the air.
Networking face to face...

And what I realize now is stereotyping...recognizing folks by hair and dress as 'one of us'.

Even hitching cross country I recognized 'us'.

Is this sort of thing even possible now?
Meeting someone who knows someone who knows someone and you go live in a tent on their land?  Or wander a festival and go home with a family?

Some of the longest lived communes intentional living facilities sprang from those decades before the internet.  
How did that happen?

Dear hubby and I started off with friends from school.

His best friend's wife became my best friend, Gloria.

Then we had our friends from work.

Years later the one I think of most was a guy named Lonnie whose wife was the sister of the wife of my husband's friend from work.

I think about Lonnie when I hear the song `Linda On My Mind` by Conway Twitty because Lonnie had a band that kept us entertained every weekend for years.

Slowly we drifted away from those friends when we were members of a four-wheel club ... and made new friends there.

Now that we live in the boondocks our friends are the few neighbors that we have.

Friends that I have met on the internet have  come and gone ...

Hi Judith,

For many years I worked part time surveying mental health and related organizations. One in particular stands out because even though I was in suit and tie, cleanly shaved, etc, the CEO  quickly, and favorably, identified who I was.

I feel like we are all puzzle pieces, looking for other pieces that fit. When we are young, there are not of facets to our edges, and a lot of people can fit our shape, and then grow with us. Those of us who are older or who have their shape changed drastically by life experiences have some REALLY complex shapes, and that makes it harder to find pieces that match us.

When I was young my friends were by chance, other people who liked to do the things I did, and when push came to shove, it became very apparent we had little deep values in common. If anyone knows how to find people with the same deep values, I'd love to know it.

I  wish people had dashboards you could glance at and know where they are on a spectrum of things before you start getting to know them. When Judith was young, she could tell by how people looked, these days I can't ID like minds by how they look, other than a basic ruling out of seriously damaged people.

Hi Pearl,

Great point.  When the internet began to hit …say 1993 and later, there were many stories of people leaving their spouses for someone they met on the net…and never spoke face to face with. Of course, those relationships tended to be short lived and disastrous.  Our area was hit by a number of these cyber love affairs. Several clubs asked me to give presentations to their members. The jist of my talk was that 87 to 93% of communication is non verbal.  Why would anyone leave their partner of 20 years to run off with someone they had never seen on only communicated with 10% of?

I was on the net then, and I saw it too.
"Why would anyone leave their partner of 20 years to run off with someone they had never seen on only communicated with 10% of? "
Because the grass looked greener from where they were. It's often not.

It was interesting, some couples I knew took to talking to each other online as if they had never met, and realized how much they had slid into a rut and not just talking about non-day to day stuff, and revived their marriages :D  One guy I knew told us he was leaving his old marriage for Version 2.0 of it :D

John F Dean wrote:Hi Judith,

For many years I worked part time surveying mental health and related organizations. One in particular stands out because even though I was in suit and tie, cleanly shaved, etc, the CEO  quickly, and favorably, identified who I was.

But what was it exactly do you think? Something only readable face to face?

Back when we were doing large Craft Guild shows the article in the newspaper included a line that we were all enjoying flush toilets at the venue and all that implied...hahaha...and we all thought we were looking 'normal' in the big city...the fascination was actually with the glass elevators and escalators. ;)