I'm part of the swing and blues dance scene in the Baltimore/DC area. There are a lot of nerdy/intellectual types in this scene so there's really no shortage of finding intelligent people to talk to. And the people I know who fit that type isn't limited to Baltimore/DC; I travel around a lot for dancing (Las Vegas, Montreal, London, etc.) and a lot of the same type of people are in the scene internationally.
I've been doing this for about 10 years so I'm also somewhat well connected. There's almost always some dance party to go to on the weekend in some city that I can drive to.
Lot of DC area people in this thread, it seems. Are you near enough that a plug for the DC LessWrong meetup would make sense? If so: consider attending your local DC LessWrong meetup, because we are cool and you are probably cool.
Also, which swing dances do you tend to go to? I have gotten part of our group together to go to the one on U St. a few times.
As in, how do you find ways to meet the right people you talk to? Presumably, they would have personality fit with you, and be high on both intelligence and openness. Furthermore, they would be in the point of their life where they are willing to spend time with you (although sometimes you can learn a lot from people simply by friending them on Facebook and just observing their feeds from time to time).
Historically, I've made myself extremely stalkable on the Internet. In retrospect, I believe that this "decision" is on the order of one of the very best decisions I've ever made in my life, and has made me better at social discovery than most people I know, despite my dual social anxiety and Asperger's. In fact, if a more extroverted non-Aspie could do the same thing, I think they could do WONDERS with developing an online profile.
I've also realized more that social discovery is often more rewarding when done with teenagers. You can do so much to impact teenagers, and they often tend to be a lot more open to your ideas/musings (just as long as you're responsible).
But I've wondered - how else have you done it? Especially in real life? What are some other questions you ask with respect to social discovery? I tend to avoid real life for social discovery simply because it's extremely hit-and-miss, but I've discovered (from Richard Florida's books) that the Internet often strengthens real-life interaction because it makes it so much easier to discover other people in real life (and then it's in real life when you can really get to know people).