"How did you two meet?" someone will ask.
I sigh. It doesn't matter who I'm with. My answer is always the same. "In a bar."
I have made no friends in Cooterville who do not work in the service industry. "You need to meet people someplace other than in bars," Allie chides weekly. She's not wrong. It's a problem. The root issue is that there are precious few professionals in this town. The most educated person I've met, doctors and vets aside, is a 28 year old college sophomore bartender.
Thus did I attempt co-working. I leased some desk space in a facility with shared meeting rooms, wifi, and a kitchen. I set up shop next to a 30 year old guy tapping away on his laptop. We soon hit it off. It turned out he was working on a screenplay. Fantastic. I asked him what he does for a living.
"I'm a bartender."