That's my spot!

My wife and I moved up to Norwalk 12 years ago and now live in Stratford. As a married couple with no kids and no dogs it has been extremely difficult to meet people. The only place I've had great success is at group Fitness (F45 specifically). The people might be cold initially to the new person, but if you stick with it eventually you will make new friends. I have social anxiety and I was/am still able to make new friends once I got comfortable with my surroundings. Don't rush it.

Nope. Would rather not deal with shoveling tomorrow morning.

No real Chinese food. The food up here is for the “chicken and broccoli” crowd. Having to drive to Queens when I have a hankering is annoying.

My wife and I moved up here in 2011 and we quickly discovered that if you were childfree and have no dogs you have virtually no shot of meeting new people. We got lucky that our first neighbors were childfree and around our age, but they were unicorns and definitely not the norm. We only started making friends when we joined group fitness classes and the membership luckily skewed older. If you live in a town that doesn't have a lot of transplants, you're pretty much SOL. The "natives" already have their friends that they grew up with and their family and have ZERO interest in meeting you. At least, that has been our experience.

TLDR: Norwalk is a lot friendlier to transplants like myself than Stratford/Shelton.

I was thinking about this after I posted. I came to a realization that in Norwalk there were a lot more "transplants", while in the Stratford/Shelton area there were very little and most people that I met were from the area. I think transplants, like myself, go out and seek to make connections so we can be comfortable in our "home". Meanwhile, people that grew up in the area already have established social groups and aren't particularly open to new people. I don't think it's isolated to Stratford/Shelton. Any town that doesn't have a lot of transplants in it will probably be like this.

Picture going to work and you're used to saying good morning to each other as you walk by. Now picture your co-workers walking by you in the morning like you do not exist and only communicating with you if they need something from you. That's what I mean by "different". I feel like a "ghost" in this area.

I guess I am finally noticing the standoffishness that New Englanders are famous for which I never had to deal with in Norwalk.

Glad I could help. We lucked into a unicorn situation when we first moved up. Our next door neighbors were a few years older and childfree. Through them we met their other friends who are childfree, as well. We still hang out with them to this day. After we moved, we realized how lucky we were in meeting them. A few years later, the F45 Westport studio opened and we made friends there, as well. The studio has a lot of 40-60+ members vs other studios in the area which skew younger and transient. The studio does a good job of cultivating a community-like feel. The other gyms/group fitness places in the area that I went to before (Planet Fitness/Edge/OTF) you can feel like a ghost there.

Agreed. However, I'd rather have a smaller place in Norwalk than continue to live in Stratford after our lease is up. We REALLY don't like this area. It doesn't feel like home.

We've been in CT for 12 years now. It's tough if you don't have kids or dogs to meet people in the burbs. We were in Norwalk for the first 11 and moved to Stratford in April. We had a lot better luck in Norwalk meeting other middle-aged childfree couples. So far, the Stratford/Shelton area is very isolating and the people are "different". We found our neighbors in Norwalk a lot more welcoming and friendly. The people in Stratford/Shelton are very standoffish. After being here half a year I have narrowed it down to Norwalk having a lot more immigrants / people not from CT than this area. Coming from Norwalk, it's very jarring. We are counting down the months until our lease expires. We hope to buy back into the Norwalk area, if possible.

Thank you, Ned!

Lawn signs are helpful when you're looking to buy/rent. It helps me know if I would be comfortable in that neighborhood or not. We eliminated two places, that looked good on paper, already this election season because of this.

I looked at a smaller unit in the complex years ago. The 2nd bedroom was way too small for our purposes so we passed. The complex itself was nice enough but was dated looking from the outside. I was fresh to Norwalk at the time so I didn't know my way around the backroads to ge to the complex. The proximity to Connecticut Ave and the Taylor Avenue area was a bit off-putting for my wife and I. I used to be a "fire monitor" in the Merritt 7 complex, so I was put on a text alert whenever something "911 related" happened in town. I noticed that there was a lot of crime happening in that area (closer to CT avenue), so I never really considered living there.