Feeling lonely, I was just wondering how many people on this forum actually know people in their disconnected lives who are also interested in IF.
For the purpose of this poll, “actively interested” means that the person plays, discusses, or follows IF, even if he or she does not participate at all in the online community.
I come under the second-to-last category; my uncle used to play IF a little back in the day.
I know one person who I see on a regular basis who plays and writes IF. That’s Melvin, with whom I co-wrote Calm. We used to play chess, but I started beating him all the time, so now we write text adventures.
I’ve got a whole bunch of friends who write novels, poems, scripts and so on; and I also know a fair few people who are keen on retro games, so there are people who are at least sympathetic to my interests.
I’d be keen on participating in a proper meet-up group. I’d even travel to London for such a thing.
My housemate and I collaboratively nicknamed our house “the Doshery.” (When we moved in, there was a nesting pair of gitches above the back lutt.)
I’m married to Jacqueline Lott (who I met through IF), and I live in a city with enough IF folks in it to form two largely-distinct circles of IF people.
amazing. Your marriage would make Adam Cadre proud. 
In real life, I know no one who knows IF. It doesn’t matter, I also know no one who listens to Beethoven or reads Poe, so I’d say we’re in good company.
Besides, that is precisely what internet communities are for: people with common interests getting together.
I actually came across Interactive Fiction through a friend about 5 years ago who had entered a game for the 2007 IFcomp. He suggested that I play it and I’ve been interested in Interactive Fiction ever since, although it was only until 2011 that I started cowriting text adventures.
We used to go biking around our local area, but since all his bikes are now out of action, we make interactive fiction instead. We also hang out for lunch every so often where we play chinese checkers while discussing Interactive Fiction goings on, game ideas and concepts.
It would be good to participate in a gathering of Interactive Fiction fans, although I believe my friend and I are the only two people in the local area with an active interest in Interactive Fiction.
I knew a few people back when I was at school (in that long distant era known as the 1980’s) who were into IF, but I don’t know any of them now. The last time I tried to talk someone at work into trying an IF game, they were like “what, it’s just words on a screen? That sounds boring” and told me I should check out Call of Duty instead.
You can count on your hands fingers the number of active IF interested people in my country. I met one of them, both an author of IF works and an IF-creation tool developer, a couple of times in real-life before. One of them was in one of the informal IF meetups they used to make once a year here. The other was when we made an IF stand in a little local retro-gaming fair back in 2006.
In a totally unexpected way, one fine day last year I’m sitting at my desk at job when I see him comming in through the door for a job interview in the same company I’m working in. Eventually he got the job, so now we are workmates, but that has happened just by pure chance! 
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I.F. has a big presence around UC Santa Cruz. All of the computer science and game design students are expected to at least know Adventure and Zork as a matter of history & aesthetics, but I’ve also been in classes that required playing Photopia and Galatea, among others. Twisty Little Passages is commonly assigned for reading, and I’ve watched Get Lamp in two of the classes I’ve been a teaching assistant for.
I also live in a house with three multi-classed digital artist/writer/game designer/computer scientists, including Aaron Reed. We talk about I.F. a lot around the house. My friend Heather is friends with Dan Fabulich and she had a ChoiceScript project Kickstarted, which was awesome. Sometimes Emily Short stops by and shows us the incredible things she’s working on. Plus, I’m constantly writing to other I.F. people who aren’t physically present in Santa Cruz.
I.F. is pretty plentiful in my life!
I voted for the last option. I know there are other Minnesotans in the community (gregb, for example), but I’ve never met any of them.
I suppose I probably should have voted for the 4th option, as I played a few Infocom games with a buddy 25-30 years ago. He would still remember who Floyd is, but he lives 1200 miles away, and I’m pretty certain he hasn’t played any IF since then.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet American IFFers at PAX last year, and some of the german crew in Munich. In my vicinity, I have some creative types who are mildly interested, but mist prayer they mostly have their own interests.
Living in the Big Apple, I have no doubt that there must be a fair number of people here who have some interest in IF (simply because there are so many people in general). However, I am not tied into any IF-related groups (organized or otherwise) and, with a single exception, I’d be hard-pressed to identify any specific people I know in real life who are interested in the subject. The exception is one friend with whom I played just about all of the Infocom games back when they first came out. He introduced me to Inform 7, and while he still has a passing interest in the subject, is no longer heavily involved in playing or writing.
Robert Rothman
How about if the only people you know that have heard of IF have heard of it because you won’t shut up about it, while they listen and nod politely?
Because I totally fit in that category. There is only one person I know that has even the slightest clue what a text game is, and he stopped playing them around 20 years ago. (I tried to get him interested in modern IF, but he just wasn’t buying it. He’s older and richer and the world is full of flashier toys now.)
I live in a city that is famous for its population of computer-geek types, but I have yet to meet any in person who are enthusiastic about text games, either as producers or consumers thereof. I suppose it’s a narrow demographic.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with the slightest interest in IF. And I can go even further than that: Only one person that I’ve met have played the graphical adventure game that I made. I’ve tried to get friends and family interested (interested in these kinds of games in general using games that I like, and trying to get them to try my game) but without any success.