> > How
> > do you meet new people? How do you learn
> > who to trust when there is so much sensory
> > information bombarding your instinctual
> > sensors? How do you retain a feeling of
> > individuality?
>
> This little bit of the post really jumped out at me... not because I live in a 'big city', though. It sounds like my university.

It really jumped out at me, too, and while Sosi said something similar, I have some to add. I live in a city of just under a million people, so while my experiences are nothing like NYC, I think I do have the right experience to help.

Most of the new people I meet are through my church. Certainly, there are plenty of people there who will always be just faces (it's a big church) but I meet lots of others. People who always sit in the pew right in front of or right behind the one I sit in, people who get involved in the same activities that I do, that sort of thing.

In the city at large, I generally don't meet new people. When I was attending university, it took me two years to really break into any kind of peer group (hindered by the fact that I had done a year at a college before transferring up) and even then, I found that most of the groups were defined by prior assocations like high school.

Now that I'm done, a lot of my social life is built out of clinging desperately to the oldest friends. I have known my two roommates for twenty-one years and thirteen years (although one hardly counts -- he's my brother) and most of my closest friends are people that I know from my high school, 750 miles away. All things considered, though, I have to say that I do find it quite difficult to meet new people here. I come from a town of 2500 people, and I still can't quite understand how people develop new friendships here, outside of the things that I have already mentioned. I'm not sure that they do.

In terms of simple human contact, though, there are plenty of ways. I regularly interact in small ways with people on buses or at the grocery store, exchanging smiles or, occasionally, words. I don't feel completely isolated. I have to admit, though, that I hear that Calgary is a much more "small town" city than most, perhaps owing to the fact that so many people here have either come from, or are at least familiar with, small town living.

> Sosi"doesn't know how she'd do in a big, big city"qui

Don "Ran out of thoughts again. That's twice tonight." Monkey