Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

Kinda reminds me of what the Christadelphians say about themselves as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christadelphians

Might be interesting to look at a point-by-point comparison between JW and Christadelphians.

Metrorock Brooklyn is in a neighborhood that used to be working class, then was basically an art colony, and is now being converted into high-income housing (it’s been poster child region for gentrification in the last decade). So the resentment of “the other” and fear of change is in the water there, to some extent. Any anti-tech or anti-nerd sentiment is people bringing their outside-the-gym anxieties into the gym, I don’t think it’s representative of climbing generally.

That being said, NYC is one big mixing pot of gentrification. You’d probably have to go to Cliffs Valhalla or something to not hear it as a topic of conversation at all.

Re “how you look”, yeah it’s a truth. To be fair, being in shape and happy are two things that are strongly correlated with frequent climbing, and they help your appearance to others in equal measure. People who are good looking do have issues here when they’re in a bout of depression or anxiety —- nobody wants to talk to the sad or angry person. But you’re right, we’re wired to find symmetric and skinny people approachable, and that’s to our detriment. Vital especially is probably not the first gym I’d go to, if I were feeling self-conscious of appearances.

2. The local summer garden/community theater. I help build sets and paint. Occasionally, I run the spotlights.

3. Your neighborhood's local botanical club. It's just me (a middle-aged man) and a bunch of old ladies who run something called "weed warriors" where we go to local parks and beaches and eradicate invasive species with great prejudice.

"But my neighborhood doesn't have a botanica..." I'm willing to bet it does, you just don't know about it.

4. The local volunteer fire department. I am a volunteer EMT and Firefighter who got started when I fell and injured my back and my barber showed up on the ambulance. I rehabbed (hence, the yoga) and got into shape and signed up. EMT-B is easy to attain and Firefighter-I is even easier. I do one shift per week on average, usually Saturday nights and gained an instant group of people from which to make friends.

We had been in our neighborhood for about 8 years before I started and I kind of stumbled into the group. I had been mentioning to my wife that I wish I knew our neighbors, but didn't press the issue because I assumed it would happen naturally when we had kids. We've been delaying kids, both for covid and private family reasons, so I had been waiting longer than I would have liked. As luck would have it, I went to go use our neighborhood basketball court but it was being used by a pickleball group. They asked if I wanted to play and I went from never having heard of the game to now playing 2x / week most weeks.

The crew is mostly older than me and no one is in tech. I do wish there were more players close to my age and I wouldn't mind 1 person in tech to talk shop with, but it's overall been a net positive in my life. I knew I was struggling from the lack of local community, but I think I underestimated how much. Even being fairly introverted, I still need to see people somewhat regularly.