Date: 06/25/08 (See my site)    Keywords: programming, web

Inspiration: Everywhere I go I see posted signs advertising www.yourcityheresingles.com. It seems like no matter how remote your location or how minimal your local population, there now exist websites devoted to finding singles in your area. As someone who hasn't had so much experience being single, but LOTS of experience being "lonely" and seemingly "friendless" amongst a HUGE population of people my age, I feel that a website for networking is long overdue. Sure we may live in large cities but rarely do we venture outside our circles when we go out. If you're in a relationship, bar outings typically involve you, your significant other, and either your own or your significant other's friends and their partners. Rarely do we involve ourselves with new faces outside of work or school and even if we want to, rarely do we introduce ourselves to new strangers when faced with the comforting presence of our current friends. As a former member of various sub-cultures including punks and ravers, this "random" meeting of new people with similar interests is an almost guaranteed outcome of attending the various musical events associated with your "scene." I definitely took this for granted in college, meeting 2-a dozen new faces each evening without even trying. If you've been involved in a sub-culture you understand. Simply asking to bum a cigarette or paying someone a compliment on their wardrobe or dance technique is an easy enough way to find a new friend. Then I entered the "real world," full of business types and outgoing yet reserved people, social enough to find themselves in a bar trivia night yet frightened/uninterested enough to avoid social contacts beyond the group they arrived with. Unfortunately I place myself in this category as well; it's not that I don't want to meet new people but when you're already with 10 other people it just seems misplaced and sometimes desperate to strike up conversation with an unknown neighbor. And yet I'm willing to bet there are many like me who have friends and a relationship, and are relatively happy with their life....but still long for others out there with MORE similar interests, or at least a change of the rehearsed, overplayed interactions we're accustomed to. So, my idea is simply to build a site with a basic profile, available for free, to people living in the same zipcode, who aren't looking for anything more than a friend with similar interests. If you're interested and have programming knowledge, please reply so we can get something started.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/see_my_site/115843.html