@Seeker3CO Right on!! The marriage thing, however, the way you see it is perfect for couples that are no longer seeking to have children. Marriage is not a religious or Estate institution. Marriage started as a way to let the community know that as a couple they agree to take on certain responsibilities (I.e. mutual support in bearing children) and have the weight of the community over the couple to keep them accountable. Marriage was then kidnapped, appropriated, essentially stolen, by religion. The role of the State on this is more a secularization of the agreement and the setting of needed rules to make it function better.

@Seeker3CO Absolutely. Fear shouldn't stop you. But it still sucks. Okay, let me be more succinct: it's not so much the fear that a relationship will end, but that it does so at the beginning, before you've really had a chance to experience it.

@Seeker3CO Hasn't been my experience.

@Seeker3CO No shit! Childless orphans are the only way to go.

@StarvingArtist I have never had an online date, and doubt that I will. I think it is a terrible way to meet someone. As you say, when you meet folks in the real world you can spend time with no pressure getting to know each other. If you don't become friends you know there is really nothing there and it is no big deal. With the distances here it seems improbable anything serious could happen. I wish you luck.

@StarvingArtist Chemistry is everything for me.

@StarvingArtist Living in a small town does make meeting someone more difficult in real life, and you are in Oklahoma. I had to move back to Lawton for a year in 95 and there were three people there I could relate to and one of them I had known since the first grade and had played in a couple of bands together. It was not easy.

@StarvingArtist Wimberley is 50/50, so it says on it's website. With a population of just under three thousand none really talked about the election in 16. It would have ended friendships for sure. I found it kind of amazing. I know a handful of people with whom I can talk politics or religion. Our guitar player is way left and a nonbeliever as is my brother who fronts the band. Austin is very liberal and as it has become very expensive to live there, more people are moving to the small towns surrounding Austin, so they have become more liberal over the last decade or so.

@StarvingArtist I would think work and business is probably the way most people do meet. Have you not been living in Tahlequah long?

@StarvingArtist That is an interesting move to say the least.

@StarvingArtist Oklahoma does have some beautiful areas for sure. Most people think of Oklahoma as one big flat plain. I guess movies do that. It is particularly beautiful on that side of the state. Anytime you get tired of this just let me know.

@StarvingArtist When we were kids, we used to go to the Kiamichi Mountains in the SE corner of the state.It was really beautiful over there. The Wichita Mtns outside of Lawton are really pretty, but very different, and they have a free range buffalo herd, which is pretty cool. Lawton is such a shitty town. I left the day after I graduated from high school.

@StarvingArtist Lawton is also an Army town, and is a very racist and homophobic redneck town. The weird thing is a lot of talented musicians and painters have come out of that town. I have never figured that one out. When I was growing up we spent a lot of time in Wichita Falls, Tx (divorce) and they had a great jazz community there. My stepfather was a trumpet player. You never know with some places. I have travelled most of the country and some towns are very surprising.

@StarvingArtist It is fun. I have been to a few places that were gorgeous, like Vermont and upstate NY, but I know culturally it would never fly. I did like NYC, but I could never have lived there for very long. I have found that a lot of places in the West are more accepting of individuality than other places I have been. Do you have a favorite place you found in your travels?

@StarvingArtist There have only been a couple of places I have been that I really didn't enjoy, and that was Phoenix and North Dakota. Phoenix was just to shiny and new. I like the older cities East of the Mississippi. North Dakota should be gifted to Canada, but they would probably regift it. I lived in Taos in the 90's other than that year in Lawton. (a long story), and i really did love it there. I also really loved the Black Hills in South Dakota. Like you I like a lot of places for different reasons. I love New Orleans too. The only places I have been out of country were Juarez (I lived in El Paso), Matamoras, Mexico, and the Canadian side of Niagra Falls.