I am still amazed at my mother-in-law's extremely integrated life. (I get along with her very well, BTW)
She has lived in the same small town (pop. 1000) since 1982. Before that, she was still within a 20 mile radius.
Her children all went to the schools in that town. So she knows a lot of families that way.
She has always gone to church at the local Catholic church (yes, she's Novus Ordo), so she knows all the parishioners. She's an "OG" parishioner.
She is semi-involved in civic events, like the annual raising of money for the volunteer fire department. So she knows people that way.
She currently works a few blocks from her house, at an engineering firm her son owns.
My point: all of her "spheres" overlap almost completely. Her church crowd, who she sees around her home or locally at the store, her past life, and everything else are all the same group of people. Imagine having all your "lives" overlap into the same reality. It's a blast from the past, when people lived in villages.
I, on the other hand, have almost zero overlap. There's my neighbors, co-workers (when I'm employed), Church crowd, past life up north, my college friends (for me, it's ex-seminarians), who my children know from music classes, etc. and never the twain shall meet. None of these groups know each other. No one is in more than one of these groups.
Topic: What % of your "church friends" do you see off church property? (Read 236269 times)