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.

  • NaturalsNotInIt [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I was born in place like that, and I worked very, very hard to not ever have to go back. You're not gonna change the social dynamic, and you're gonna make yourself depressed and doomer-pilled if you lie to yourself that it's possible.

    There's nothing wrong with online social networks. Don't reject your neighbors, but don't rely on them for community.

    The best thing you can do is just to be helpful and friendly. Wave at people on the street. Chat with cashiers and shit at the store. Be a "regular" everywhere you go (i.e. you should know your barber, store workers, etc).