On a recent Sunday afternoon, I sat with eight friends, members of the OSO Singles' Message Board, in Aidan's pub in Bristol. I was happily exhausted - we had just finished hiking at Melville Pond on Aquidneck Island - where we had all been scratched up by brambles, but generally pleased with the hiking, and the weather, which turned out to be like mid-April. On top of the hike, it had been a busy weekend. There had been something going on with the "group" for three nights straight.

I sat with my beer and my new friends laughing over bad jokes and planning future events. Meantime, my daughter and her cousin sat drawing and sipping Shirley Temples while their new friend, a little three year old boy, looked on. I took a moment to think when was the last time I enjoyed the company of such great people in such a warm environment. Had I pondered this question a year before, the answer would have been difficult to discern. In my last relationship, it had just been me and the guy, every spare weekend, all the time. I never made any attempt to make friends outside of that, and my daughter had suffered for it. Now she was happily enjoying the company of my single friends' kids, and I was feeling the high of the company of eight people who had all, in some way or another, found themselves single, just like me. Fortunately, thanks to the OSO Singles' Message Board, none of us were alone.

The OSO, or Ocean State Online, Singles Message Board internet site was started in late 2000. Built by the webmasters at Ocean State Online to accommodate single-thread messages for singles to post free personal ads, the board took an interesting turn in February of 2001, when several of the ten or so "regular" members began conversing on the board, rather than just posting personal ads. "It started after a guy posted about his broken engagement." says Jennifer, one of the original members of the social group into which the board has evolved, "Many people posted to him giving words of encouragement." Someone posted the suggestion that they all meet. After all, no one who had been posting liked the idea of a blind one-on-one date - wouldn't it be more fun to get together as friends, to meet and talk?

"Everyone's main focus was what do you do when all your friends are married, and you are sitting at home single and alone. I would read the posts and realize that it was my life. All my friends were married or in relationships." Where does a single person turn in such a case?

"I didn't want to join a dating service," one member told me, and most members generally feel the same way. "I looked online to see if there were any singles things going on and I stumbled upon the board," another one of the original members, jennie101, told me, "(the group) seemed harmless enough, so I went to an event. On the way there I was so nervous. I thought: What if they are all losers, what if they hate me, I can't believe I am going to a 'singles' event." She assures me now that the first event was nothing like she thought it would be. Apparently, the original members wanted to get together without the uncertainty of an event planned by a dating service, and in the process, ended up making new friends.

So the date was set. And on March 1st, a group of Rhode Island singles who had only known each other through posts to the message board, met for the first time at Dave 'N Busters, at the Providence Place Mall. "I was the first one there, with a rubber band on my wrist (that was what we used to distinguish one another...silly I know but it worked)." says Jennifer, "Slowly, people would come over and say 'Are you with the OSO group?' " Jennifer, and several of the other original members I spoke with who attended that first meeting, remembers feeling nervous. "My feeling that night was that I wanted to turn around and go home. What was I getting myself into? But, I just thought, 'Well, it's like a blind date, in a way.' " I wondered whether she expected to meet someone. "I didn't do it to meet a man. I just did it to meet people around my age to do things with."

Little did Jennifer know, as nervous as she was, that this meeting was the springboard for a group that would eventually grow to over fifty active members, and countless non-active individuals who read the posts on the board, planning on eventually joining an activity (one member estimates two "lurkers" for every active member who posts.)

For some of the original members who attended that first event, the experience was almost enlightening. "That night was a night that would have a profound impact on me, my confidence level, and the way I approach dating." says Jeff, who eventually dated a woman within the group, but now finds himself single again. Although this time around, he won't be sitting at home. "I consider my time in the group as a great success, which is why I'm considering returning to it now."

On Wednesday morning, I log on to the message board to check in on the events for the weekend. It is a rare kid-free weekend coming up for me - my daughter will be with her father. Among all of the posts for events, someone has posted a personals ad, and it is getting no attention - yet. "Looking for a slim athletic female for a friendship and possible LTR. Contact me and we'll see what happens from there." It will only be a matter of time before one of the "regulars" posts either a "Welcome," or, something which is an unfortunate result of friendly familiarity among the regular posters, an inflammatory post criticizing the ad. "What do you mean by 'slim'???" and, "If you want to be contacted LEAVE AN E-MAIL!" are common criticisms seen below new posts on the board.

Often, one of the older members will post something like, "Come out and join us for an event", pointing to different opportunities on the board which a new person has to meet other singles. "There's Volleyball on Mondays, Football on Thursdays, Happy Hour (a different bar every week) Thursday nights, and hikes on Sundays." I log off, and check back within the hour to see what has been posted. The post has been "pushed down", meaning enough new posts have happened that the database has put the more recent at the top of the screen. I scroll down until I find the post. There is one response. It is from someone I had never seen on the board, suggesting a date for a drink, and she leaves an e-mail. The board has done it's job, I thought, and we probably won't see posts from either of them again.

Few posts get by the sometimes sharp-witted, but always humorous and infamous MrSwarvey, a single 30-something single Dad who has been with the board since April of last year. "I read the board for Swarvey!" said one of the "regulars" to me recently, at one of the Happy Hours. "He's just too funny." I also found MrSwarvey's sense of humor refreshing when I first started, and noticed it added a dimension of humanness to an otherwise flat personals board.

In any case, like most of us on the board, MrSwarvey had suddenly found himself single, after a long-term relationship with a "perfect" woman. "No one else was ever going to compare to her, so why the hell should I even bother trying to find someone else?" Unfortunately, that only lasted so long, and finally, he decided to start dating again. "Where do you find friends when you're divorced and 32? Can't go out and try to get yourself involved in a game of kickball. Can't trade Star Wars cards. I needed to find a way to meet people. Friends, I decided, were just as important as girlfriends. That's a slight overstatement, but what the hell."

So what did he do? "I turned to the last resort of the lonely. The Internet. Eww. Meeting people on the Internet? Gah. Who are you going to meet? Losers… Old coots. Freaks. You're just not going to meet any quality people over the web. Not going to happen. Give it up. Go back to bed." Sure, that's what everyone thinks, I was thinking. So how was it different for MrSwarvey? What was his impression when he happened upon the message board? "Man, was I wrong. Well, I wasn't totally wrong. I did meet some losers, some old coots… a bunch of freaks. I kinda like the freaks, actually."

This is the kind of humor that makes MrSwarvey so popular. On a more serious note, he added: "…I met quality people. I met people who have become as important to me as any who have come before. People I can talk to. People who'll ask me for help if they need it and are there for me when I need a hand. Fun people. Funny people. Not as funny as me, but still."

And so the board grows, in fits and spurts, with the occasional blow-up post that seems to scare new people away. But not for long.

One Thursday night, I decide to go to the Happy Hour at the Wild Colonial on South Water Street, in Providence. I am going with a friend, someone whom I've met from the board, and who I have begun to date. A lot of new people have decided to meet us all, and I had posted earlier in the day that I would be holding my OSO card (a card that gives an OSO member discounts to area attractions and events) and waving it around, so that new people could find us. We park on the street and walk a little before going in. "You know," I say, "I never used to come up to Providence. I feel like I am getting to know it now."

Before joining the group, I seldom ventured from my familiar turf in Southern Rhode Island. Now I was not only meeting new people and making friends, I was seeing parts of the state that before had seemed foreign. Tonight, as we walk toward the door of the pub, I still get that little twinge - a bit of butterflies - before I walk in. It's been several months since I've joined the group, and yet I am still nervous and surprised - mostly by the amount of people involved - when I walk in to an any group-planned event. This time, we are among the first to arrive, and so I take a seat, take out my card, and wave it around. Before long, we are a group of fifteen or so people. The discussion, fueled by the drinks and sodas we've consumed, eventually turns to the familiar - Relationships and What Went Wrong. A new guy tells us his wife left him on New Years'. All of his friends were also his wife's, and he found himself alone on Saturday nights, itching to get his social life back on track.

This is a common story among most of the people who join the group. One of the members since May of 2001, Waveboy has been instrumental in planning activities for the group (he even hosted an all-expenses paid rock-and-bowling night last month, when he became free from paying alimony.) His experience, and what led him to the group, sounded uncannily like the experiences of most of the singles I spoke with: "Living three hundred miles from my family, I had nobody and was totally alone. I was really struggling to start to form a social circle. They (the group) were playing football and it sounded like fun, so I went." I wanted to know what it was like, that first night. "We were a small group then, but we were fun. The people were interesting and liked to get out and do things... very warm in their welcome." Do new people feel as warmly welcomed? "Oh definitely," another member tells me, "I was really relieved when I came up and you said, 'Are you looking for OSO?' I was like, 'Oh thank God! I don't have to ask anyone!' "

Mancunian, an Englishman who has been living in the States for ten years and who last year found himself newly single, noted that when he had been involved in large organized social groups (i.e. playing Rugby,) there was always a source of conversation from the sport itself - a common thread that enabled one to nurture friendships from nothing - that decided your friendships and became your social life. With a singles' group, when the conversation eventually becomes more than small talk, friendships form between those with the most in common. It is because of this that the group can seem exclusive and insular, and ironically, it is what some of the new folks find most appealing. "I read some of the threads and I was like, 'I want friends like that!'" one new person tells me, "So I just had to bite the bullet and get involved. I wasn't going to wait for it to come to me."

One of the best benefits of the group, and of the activities planned by its members, is the exposure to otherwise unknown areas of Rhode Island. Some of the group's activities have taken the group to events in Woonsocket, Gloucestor, Providence, Coventry, Warwick, West Warwick, Hopkinton, Charlestown, North Kingstown, South County, Newport, Tiverton, Bristol, and East Providence. The Sunday hikes happen all over Rhode Island and in nearby Connecticut and Massachussetts. I have bowled for the first time. I've been to two Waterfire events, have danced at two clubs, have seen Jazz trios, attended wine tastings, and have hosted and attended many of the potluck dinners. I have found a well of humor and companionship in the group that, when married, I thought I would never have. I have traveled to the Cape to camp, and to New Hampshire with the group for a skiing weekend.

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My eight year old daughter has made friends with other children in the group, and has taken an almost obsessive interest in hiking (the group hikes once a week, and the kids seem to like it the most.) I drive to Providence on a regular basis, when only last year I had an almost pathological fear of driving on the freeway. Because the board is open to anyone, and does not affiliate itself with any religion or specific organization, I have met a diverse and interesting group of people whom I otherwise would not have. Although, as with any internet based singles' group, there are still the risks involved in sharing personal information and meeting strangers, somehow it is lessoned by the relative safety-net presented by the regulars on the board, and the fact that activities are planned for neutral spots and large groups, so that new people will feel more comfortable. The board has grown and evolved, all without a "leader" or "moderator", and exists as a society of individuals who, while single, do not want to be alone in the world.

As Jeff, one of the original members, puts it, "I think of the formation of the OSO group as a really interesting sociological experiment in some ways - an example of how the relatively new medium of the internet can put a new spin on rituals, such as meeting people of the opposite sex - as old as the human race itself."

Tomorrow, when the group meets up at the weekly hike (this time at Purgatory Chasm in Sutton, Mass.) I will be surprised anew that this sociological experiment continues to be successful, and that this group, that started with twelve singles meeting in a bar, has become a an important and supportive community to hundreds of singles in Rhode Island. The board, though built for personals ads, brings out the best and the worst in people. The friendships that have developed are strong, and it seems the people involved are always learning together how to make single life more bearable. It has opened up new ways for singles to meet, and offered an avenue for expression to people like MrSwarvey, who adds this last part, almost as an afterthought: "I'm still pretty well hung up on that perfect woman, though."

Single people of Rhode Island, nearby Massachussetts and Connecticut are welcome to read and participate in group discussions & activities by visiting www.ossingles.com

Weekly activities include Tuesday evening walks on the Boulevard, pick-up "tag" (non-contact) Football on Thursday evenings (seasonal), a Thursday night happy-hour, Monday night Volleyball (indoors) year-round, and all-season hikes (throughout Southern New England) Sunday afternoons. Activities are free and open to all single people, with no discrimination to age, race, religious affiliation, or nationality. Check the board for details, message board viewer/participant agreement, and contact information. All events are planned by OSO members, and Ocean State Online (www.oso.com) does not claim any responsibility for opinions, views, actions of, or events planned by its members.

Editor's Note: Althought OSO.com hosted the original discussion forum, changes in OSO.com has required the group to move to a new web address: www.ossingles.com -- The singles group is still going strong at its new internet home!

About the author, Andy Janes: Andy Janes lives in Hopkinton, Rhode Island with her daughter Zoë. She writes primarily short fiction, and won the Armchair Sailors 1997 Sea Stories contest with her short story, Missing The Boat.

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