marriage and civil society

This most-emailed NY Times article, which turns the "save marriage" hysteria on its head, totally rings true for happily-married, socially-isolated me. Here's a snippet:

Three sociologists at the University of Arizona and Duke University found that from 1985 to 2004 Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters. People reported fewer close relationships with co-workers, extended family members, neighbors and friends. The only close relationship where more people said they discussed important matters in 2004 than in 1985 was marriage.

In fact, the number of people who depended totally on a spouse for important conversations, with no other person to turn to, almost doubled, to 9.4 percent from 5 percent. Not surprisingly, the number of people saying they didn’t have anyone in whom they confided nearly tripled.

The solution to this isolation is not to ramp up our emotional dependence on marriage. Until 100 years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty and religion.

My extra-marital "important conversations" mostly happen (or, rather, happened, before this extended leave of absence) in the classroom, with my students. But the community of the classroom is constantly changing, and so no real lasting networks are built.

Blogs count, of course, and the author (Stephanie Koontz) notes that blogging clearly signals a growing desire/impulse to "discuss meaningful matters" outside the nuclear family. But I'm thinking about face-to-face conversations that build somewhat stable networks in local communities. What about you? Who do you have important, face-to-face conversations with? And what counts as an "important conversation"?