According to EpicMix, I've been out on the mountain 19 days already. Since I haven't been to A-Basin this year, I can count on that number to at least be accurate unlike my other missing stats. It's Friday afternoon and I'm already looking forward to another weekend spent in the outdoors of this lovely state of Colorado. As I sit here thinking of snowshoeing and skiing, I realize every single one of my friends I'm going with this weekend I met through, or as a result of, social media. Some are friends of friends, but most I've developed strong relationships with. I would consider many of them to be close friends of mine. Our culture is evolving. What was once considered odd, is now considered the norm. Many of us are more in tune with our social networks than our real life interactions. However, in this case my web friends have become some of my closest friends in real life.
4 years ago I took a promotion and moved to Colorado from Ohio. I didn't know a single soul out here, and I was leaving all my friends and family behind. Some of these friends I'd known for over a decade. It was really tough at first, but I knew that I wanted to be in Colorado. With my passions for adventure sports and the outdoors, it seemed like a logical choice. The opportunity was there so I took it. My father always told me growing up that if you want to live in a place, do it while you're young and before you put down roots. It's much harder to leave when you have too many commitments and things tying you down somewhere. I took his advice and made the leap.
For the first year or so, I found it difficult to meet a ton of people due to my busy schedule and lack of knowledge of the area. On top of that, most of the people I worked with were married and had kids. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but try getting them out of the house on a regular basis. I also found that despite living in Colorado, many of them didn't share my same passion for the outdoors. I'm frequently amazed at how many people who live here don't appreciate how good they have it, and what an awesome place they live in. Enter Meetup.com. At first I was leery of any online group, but then I joined a mountain bike group in order to get out and ride with like-minded individuals. Not only did I meet some great people, but it also helped me discover amazing trails, improve my skills, and motivated me to ride more often. Within 6 months I was an assistant organizer leading rides of my own. Within a year I had taken the group over from a guy who decided to step down to focus more time on his business.
Through this group I met a ton of great people, including one who ran another happy hour group for folks in downtown Denver to meet for drinks after work. I then met a large group of those people and developed some friendships there as well. For the winter we've started an invite only ski/snowboard group on Facebook. It's kind of a conglomeration of people from these 2 groups, and people we know. We have about 40-ish people these days. Whenever I want to head up to the mountains, all I have to do is create a post and I usually have 2-10 people willing to go. We'll meet up at the dino lots to carpool and be on our way. I always have someone cool to ride with when I desire.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't be afraid of the internet. Things are changing. You'll meet some strange people, sure, but you meet strange people everywhere. Some of the best people I've met in Colorado and some of the best friendships I have today are from meetup.com or similar. Find a group that does something you love. You already have at least 1 thing in common.
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