Feel like I'm hitting a wall here. Trying to meet people just to have some local connections is hard, forget trying to organize.

Everybody knows each other forever and few are interested in knowing outsiders. The only people open to new connections are immigrants, naturally, who are worked hard and have few interests outside the grind and their families.

There is no social life, as we still envision it, still existing. No social spaces to congregate. There's a couple of bars that are only busy on Friday and Saturday nights. A couple of supermarkets, a walmart type store, and that's it.

The lawyers, doctors and accountants in the town seem to exercise together in groups and live outside the town, socializing in hotel restaurants & bars even further away from the town. I haven't seen any kind of other organized group activity.

Amber was right about rural towns.

Anyone got any interesting ideas on how to build some community IRL, without using online social networks?

e2a thanks for all the suggestions folks, appreciate it. Gonna start some kind of group outdoor activity maybe. We'll see.

edit - appreciate the effortposts folks. Just fyi I've moved to a foreign country several times, for multi year periods, and found work independently, so it's not like I'm unused to flying solo. Maybe I just had a vision of rural social structures and communities that doesn't exist anymore. Any manufacturing that existed here has been offshored. Agriculture is hyper mechanised now so no work there. Retail is dead.

The 24hr gas station that was an institution here apparently - a family owned diner, convenience store, carwash, that provided a lot of employment over decades - is now card operated gas pumps, no staff. All the money that the business used to circulate into the local community now goes offshore, where the family that still owns and operates the business operate it remotely. Capital no longer needs workers and is free to simply extract directly to offshore accounts.

  • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Hey sounds like my hometown. The lack of public areas where the community can congregate is soul-sucking, isn't it?! :amerikkka:

    Unfortunately, when it comes to the 'general' community at-large, you're going to be hardpressed (basing this entire comment off my own hometown, fyi so ymmv) to find anywhere beyond the grocery store/gym where more than 15-20 people congregate at the same time.

    However, rural communities tend to really go all out on local events/festival. My hometown specifically does a festival every summer that - while attracting a surprising number of out-of-towners and visitors from the surrounding area - is mostly trafficked by the entire damn community. Then there's the county fair every October -- same thing where 95% of the people there live in the surrounding 10 miles. These were the best opportunities I ever had doing things like getting people to sign petitions, network, etc. A local organization (or individual if you're still on your own!) can easily get a table as a vendor/local organization and regardless of how trafficked your local fair/festival/etc is, you're bound to at least have a few people walk up and ask you what you're about.

    In my experience, getting a vendor/organization table at a local fair is more of a 'figuring out who the hell to talk to' thing rather than an insurmountable task due to paperwork, fees, etc. I spent a literal week asking every person I knew who typically participated in the county fair, "hey who do I talk to if I want a table at the entrance where the Police department and the Rotarian club have their tables & flyers?" and getting in contact with that person since of course it was some retired white dude who doesn't use SMS or email and can only be found at the deli downtown from 8am - 11am on Mondays.

    Do you have a local chamber of commerce? They are often the most unbearable local government organizations in existence but I guarantee you your local one probably is connected to or hosts some 'young professional' group. Those tend to be a bit more fluid when it comes to ideology and what you can get out of the group itself, opposed to like the CoC's Small Business meetings or whatever. I would definitely consider attending if you're just trying to meet like-minded people who will likely have an hour or two available during the week to meet with a different group.

    If anything - you surely have a library nearby and I guarantee you the librarian there will be perfectly fine with it if you ask to leave some flyers on the walls/by the entrance/etc.

    • aramettigo [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I get where you're coming from with the festival idea, but I honestly think people's current understanding of outdoor events is off. It's like how a protest now has to be registered, negotiated and controlled. Any and all outdoor events are the same. There's a country "festival" held here, before the pandemic and again recently. It's a fenced (kettled) area, no alcohol allowed inside, where approved music watching activities may occur for just a couple of hours, finishing by 9pm.

      Watched a movie recently with some kind of archetypal 18thC mormon summer fair and actually thought it seemed more fun and free than what exists here ffs.

      Thanks for the library suggestion - forgot about it because it's so underfunded and out of the way. Bought some printer paper for flyers just now too.