Meet ups are great and all, but a lot of us live far away from the large masses of LW-participants. I live in the Toledo, Ohio area, and I'm also one of those people who are looking for people who I can relate to. Most people I can't relate to, intellectual conversation makes most people I know uncomfortable. Even people who are intelligent are often too timid to speak their minds (this could be because of the before mentioned people). Nothing against people who are more ordinary than I am, but I have this sense that the people I read here are people I have more in common with than most people I will ever meet by chance.
I'm not looking for a date (well, I am, but not in this case), just people who I can relate to better than people I will meet by chance. This isn't my personal ad, but I was wondering what would be the best place to put such an ad, to see if there are people in my area who are the kind of people who would read this website? I'm not a transhumanist, but I'm not religious either. I've been an atheist since I was 12. I'm not autistic, but I have ADHD which I've only recently been treated for. This is also the main reason why I never finished college, which probably would have been *the* best way to meet people. So I'm looking for second or third best.
After reading the recent post about the LW user who committed suicide, I realized that I could lose a lot by not making the effort of trying to reach out and meet people.
Yeah, I've checked out meetup.com before. Good idea, by the way, there is an atheist group near here, but their activity seems to have died off, and there only seems to be a few people who are active. But this is a good reminder to look into it further.
Just to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, however, one of the most active groups local around here seems to be the Tea Party Patriots.
Toledo also has a democratic party, believe it or not. You could maybe get involved with them, if you find the left more appealing.