They found one another on Craigslist, vetted each other on Facebook, and e-mailed back and forth a sublet agreement that Ms. Gafney found online.
Social networking had not been featured on the site, but users had found one another on their own and had created more than 3,000 groups, including Cruise Travelers, Future Floridians and Francophiles.
But when they found one another on the Internet, everything changed.
It's a show about allegiance and community, about characters who have found one another on the fringes and made a life and a world for themselves.
Last June, the grieving couple and the Ralians found one another (on the Internet, of course) with results that could -- and should -- reopen the whole debate over whether human beings ought ever to be cloned, and for what purpose.
Human beings, bearing all the traces of the species: some with fur on their backs and shoulders; some as lean and tall as giraffes; some friendly; some serious; three guys named "Jack" running alongside each other, all from different places — they had found one another on the course.
The women, who found one another on the Internet and come from cities across the country, talk nearly every day.
Frustrated "Mary" fans found one another, communicating on Web sites like Television Without Pity and sitcomsonline.com, and trading information and rumors via review posts on amazon.com.
Julie, 35, is just back from hospital having given birth to the couple's second daughter and Steve has been fielding requests from radio stations about a couple of childhood sweethearts who are about to marry having found one another again on Friends Reunited.
In a big city, these oenophiles might never have found one another, but here — on verboten Main Street — they had a place to commune over a glass or two of Consilience chardonnay.
Meanwhile, Rappaport and the other next-generation liberals are gathering on both coasts, having found one another through a network of clandestine connections that has the distinct feel of a burgeoning left-wing conspiracy.
