Infiltrating Country Living Singles

What I learned when I went undercover in a Facebook group for lonely farmers.

Hannah Berman
ILLUMINATION

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Image: Hannah Berman

A friend of mine discovered Country Living Singles just over two years ago. At that point, it was a small, private Facebook group, with around fifty members. The “About” section read, “We are a group of single folks, who enjoy laughing, and sharing memes, etc. to do so. There are many solid friendships in this group and it is a no drama zone.”

Group Rules from the Admins. Image: Facebook.

As college students, we were intrigued by what “memes” the middle-aged members of this group were sharing. So four of my friends and I decided to begin our longest-ever con: infiltrating the Country Living Singles community.

Contrary to what you might expect, we had no intention of trolling the members. Rather, we wanted to perform an in-depth character study. Our ultimate goal was to be able to mimic these singles to the extent that we truly became Country Living Singles ourselves. So we had our work cut out for us.

Blending in

The only two questions that barred our entrance to the group were “What is your age?” and “Why do you want to…

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