Have you moved in with Rhonda?

You silly alien. You know Melmac exploded after the nuclear war. Is that why you used a crooked nose?

If somebody named Bombshell is on a singles board, I'll look.

Hahah. That made me laugh.

Not I!

Not as sinister as it sounds. Curious if there are any other active letterboxers on here in their 20s or 30s, it seems to be a rarity to find letterboxers my age and I'd like some pals. Hit me up and maybe we can be friends!

I'm 37. I've been geocaching a little for a few years now, but just found out about letterboxing a few weeks ago.

20-something letterboxers, unite! I’ve seen other younger adults at events; we’re in the minority but we do exist.

I turn 38 on Saturday. I've been boxing about 12 years now and wish I had some folks my age as well to go on about the hobby about. :)

I am in my 40s now, but I started letterboxing in my 20s. That's the downside of joining a hobby that's been around for decades. ;o)

But it is still an improvement over those letterboxers in England who are now 200 years old!

-- Ryan

welcome to the community!

heck yeah! I'd love to set up a 20/30 something specific letterboxing event someday

I'm with you there. I'm constantly trying to recruit my friends into LBing, bur for now I typically go boxing with my mom or by myself

Same. Most of my friends don't get it. Doesn't help that most of my friends are not outdoor type people. A friend once asked another friend why I liked them, we all had almost zilch in common when it came to hobbies and activities.

LBing for the most part was too much outside for them.

Drinking buddies?

Perhaps they all like cats, like you. ;-)

Kind of skeptical this would work that well, unless in an area with lots of boxers and thus enough younger boxers to make an event of. Plus it seems rather mean to exclude people based entirely on their age.

It doesn't have to exclude those older. It can be concentrated on single letterboxers of a certain age range, and the others can come to and hang out on the sidelines.

And if no other young, single letterboxers show up then you can still have fun.

Depends on what you think is an event.

Lots of events are small. I’ve seen plenty of events over the years with less than 20 people. There have been tons of mini meets in restaurants with 10 people or less. There are virtual events done over Zoom with people from all over the country.

Events don’t have to be big.

And AQ has a chat room that people can get together in at any time.

Not necessarily.... That's like having an event in New York and saying it's rather mean to exclude people who don't like near enough to New York to go. It's not so much that other people can't go, but if the event is meant to meet up with other locals who you see in the logbooks or whose boxes you find, the out-of-area boxers aren't really the focus.

In the Creating Great Boxes tutorial I wrote, I talk about knowing your audience. The same principles apply to events. Just like not every box is (or should be) for everyone, neither are events.

I think it's totally legit for there to be events for specific purposes, including those that fit within certain age ranges. Most kids would rather play with other kids at an event than a bunch of boring grown ups that talk about a bunch of boring stuff.

If younger boxers want an event for people more their age, that's fine. If single boxers want an event just for single letterboxers, that's fine.

There's not really a "minimum size" an event needs to be either. It can be a few people or hundreds. Creating a really narrow requirement for an event (young people who are single and have nose rings and at least three tattoos) probably won't end up being very large--but there's nothing wrong with that either. *shrug*

The important thing isn't so much that individual events are "restricted" to certain demographics, but that everyone has events that they can choose to attend. If I set a policy that all events from here on out are only for younger, lonely letterboxers... that's a problem. But as long as all letterboxers can create events and invite anyone they choose.... I don't really see a problem with that.

If you see an event that you're not welcome at, it's not necessarily personal. It just gives you an excuse to create your own event that fills a need that the other event does not. =)

-- Ryan

I do not qualify being ancient, however RIclimber does. Check him out.

It's actually nothing like that. Your example would only work if you said only New Yorkers can attend.

I don't have a strong feeling about this (and it's certainly no hill I choose to die on 😉) but given your previous views on certain politically charged issues I'm surprised you would endorse an exclusionary event. I'm not sure I would call a 'young, singles only' event "mean" but certainly doesn't seem to fit into the spirit of the hobby.

We've held events for various reason that had a certain focus, but always included in verbiage was "everyone is welcome".

So you would be perfectly OK with someone hosting an event that said "Blacks need not apply"??

Discrimination is Discrimination.

I guess it depends on the reason for the exclusion. If someone set up an event for "white people only".... well, I'd have a big problem with that.

But if the event serves a specific purpose (letting singles meet and mingle, for instance) and it makes a lot of sense to not include certain people (married or other people in monogamous relationships)... no harm in that. If a married person really wants to attend the event--they can. They just need to get a divorce first!

But in all seriousness, "everyone is welcome" to letterboxing and to attending events. That's not the same as saying that everyone is welcome to every letterbox and event, though. There are even user groups on AQ that are exclusionary. Basically any user group that's not the "everybody" group. There are lots of groups, though. Some you're welcome to join at whim (Cheese Lovers, for instance), some you have to be invited to (the moderator group, for instance) and some you just have to stumble on largely by accident (which I cannot tell you about on risk of death).

So limiting specific events to certain groups of people.... as a general rule, no, I don't have a problem with that. There are different events for different people, just like with boxes. AQ has always supported restrictions that allow the owner of the event to restrict access as well to specific member groups or whitelists.

But for most events, it doesn't really make any sense to restrict attendance to just a relatively narrow group of people so it doesn't happen very often. Most events are about meeting people in general, and the more the merrier! =)

-- Ryan

Racism isn't tolerated or encouraged here. You still have to follow the AQ rules, so definitely no, I would not be okay with that.

-- Ryan

Yes, yes it is. I discriminate.

• I've created an "admin-only" board on AQ so only admins can discuss certain topics in private. (Same for webmasters, moderators, testers, and more.)
• There's a premium member only board, just for people who want to talk about premium membership stuff.
• There's a board for people with only A+ blood types. (There are also boards for all the other blood types, but I'm not on any of those because I don't qualify.)
• I'm also a founding member of the Elitist Club.

Because, yes, I'm that cool. =)

But long story short, if you want to throw around the word "discriminate" indiscriminately, then yes, I discriminate. I discriminate against racists and homophobia too.

Why are you trying to pick such a stupid fight anyhow? You know darned well I'd never put up with an event where black people aren't welcome, and somehow comparing it to younger, lonely letterboxers wanting to meet more people similar to themselves is just Stupid with a capital S.

-- Ryan

thanks for these responses, Ryan. I was not expecting this to turn into such a divisive discussion, I just wanted to connect with some folks my age and float an event idea 😅

nothing in my original idea was intended to be exclusionary :) it would be a way to encourage letterboxers of a similar age to meet folks and make friends in that same demographic

We all know that. And any
unnecessary and silly argument that hopefully won’t continue won’t be because of you. Don’t worry about it. You have nothing to apologize for.

Must you? That’s just stupid.

And you’re excluded from AARP and the discount I get on hotels. Better call the ACLU.