00:25 – Intro
00:40 – What did you eat?
06:10 – Bringing back your social life.
06:24 – GF dinner party with GFmagazine fans!
07:53 – GF by myself – connecting with people over the internet
11:10 – Rebecca & match.com
14:29 – Taking online relationships offline
16:30 – GF with a diagnosis vs No diagnosis – Whats your point of view?
26:24 – Gluten Free Single dot com
29:16 – Why not start your own group?
Andrew: Welcome to the GFMagazine Podcast. Andrew Cordova here with my co-host, Rebecca Black, episode no. 15. Today we’re going to be talking about how to bring social back into your life. How are you doing today, Rebecca?
Rebecca: I am much better than yesterday. I’m recovering from a cold. I feel really good today. So it’s a good thing we’re recording today and not yesterday.
Andrew: Yeah, you don’t sound like you have a cold at all.
Rebecca: No, I feel just a little groggy, but it’s probably from the meds I took yesterday, but I actually feel really good.
Andrew: Sounds good!
Rebecca: So pretty good!
Andrew: Have you had anything to eat since you’ve been sick yesterday.
Rebecca: Yesterday, I ate a lot of gluten-free crackers. We always screech about not eating a bunch of gluten-free junk food, but that’s basically what I ate yesterday because I just didn’t feel like eating a whole meal.
This morning, my stomach was kind of queasy. I don’t know why. But I had just a little bit of coffee and apple and some grapes. And then basically I’ve had fruit today. I just realized now that I’m telling you. And then I had a shake that I made with hemp seeds, chia seeds, blueberries, raspberries and water because I don’t have any coconut milk. So that’s what I had.
And then for dinner, we will probably have some shrimp and green beans with broccolini and maybe some rice or something like that with it.
Andrew: That sounds really good.
Rebecca: Yeah. How about you?
Andrew: Me, I had just leftovers today. I made Cornettos yesterday and also broccoli. That’s what I had for breakfast today. There’s still leftovers because I made a ton of few. That’s what I’ve had. I’m just drinking a cup of coffee right now. I’ve had some water. And of course right when I woke up, I had two tablespoons of coconut oil. So that’s me today.
We’re getting close to Thanksgiving time. I can’t remember what I did last year for Thanksgiving, but this year, my whole family or most of my family is going down to Mexico. They’re going down to the border. We have a condo in Rosarito.
My grandma really wants to go see her last sibling, her last sister. They’re getting really old, so they’re going to go meet. We’re going to have Thanksgiving down there.
It’s probably really unconventional. Honestly, I’m not going to take anything down there. We have an oven. We have a full condo. There’s a store nearby. It’s not going to be anything fancy, probably just some really basic food. We probably won’t even do a turkey. I’m thinking probably some chicken and probably some Mexican food.
So I will definitely be in charge of cooking the food down there. It’s probably going to be me and my mom. Maybe one of my aunts, but I’m not sure if my Aunt Esther is going for sure yet. She’s the other cook in the family.
So yeah, I’m thinking, if anything, I’ll probably make a desert – probably a pumpkin pie. I’ve been working on a pie recipe. I think I’ve probably made like five or six different versions of it. I think I finally have one. So look out for the recipe.
So yeah, what are you doing for Thanksgiving this year?
Rebecca: Well this year since we moved out of state, we are not doing anything. I’m very excited about it. Not that I don’t love my family or my in-laws or anything like that, just we’ve been together for almost nine years and every single holiday, we go to someone’s house.
When you don’t have kids, you’re always the people who go to everybody else’s house, so it’ll be nice this year just to not have to drive all over the state of Ohio and visit people and then worry about getting back and being tired and then being burned out the next day and all that stuff.
So I think it’s going to be a good time. My in-laws might come visit the day after Thanksgiving. So that would be fun for the weekend. We literally are just going to relax I think.
Andrew: Sounds good! Now that I’m thinking about it, I think that’s what I did last year.
Rebecca: My husband will, I’m sure, watch football.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. That’s for sure.
Rebecca: There’s no debate about that. It’s football time around at our house.
Andrew: I remember before going gluten-free back when I was a little kid, Superbowl was such a huge thing – oh, I’m sorry, not Superbowl. Just watching football on Thanksgiving. It would be literally probably like another Superbowl at my uncle’s house because he’s a huge football fan. And my Aunt, she loved to cook. She would make everything in the world.
At the time, they had a huge house. It’s like a 12-bedroom house. They have like five people – I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s like in-home living for elderly people. It was like a private, private thing like not anyone can get into their place. People would go on waiting lists to go. Anyway, it was awesome!
During Thanksgiving, I swear, like I said, it was like Superbowl Sunday. There was so many different fixings she’d make. Honestly, there’s probably like twenty different dishes or fixing or side dishes to eat. It was awesome!
But yeah, now they live in a really small house and they don’t do that anymore.
I love getting together with my family. People would always say, “Oh, you’re so lucky,” but it’s because my grandparents had like 14 children, so that’s what happens when you have over ten kids.
Rebecca: There are three people in my family. My Mom, my sister – well, I guess there’s four. My stepdad, my Mom, my sister and me. That’s it! And then I have my in-laws and stuff, but that’s just my immediate family.
Andrew: Yeah. Now I have a ton of cousins.
Anyway, so today we’re going to talk about bringing back social in your life. The reason that we brought this up or that we thought about this is because I was recently invited to a dinner from a person that reads as a subscriber and him and his wife invited me to go have dinner with them. I think I talked about it in the last episode. I was telling Rebecca like, “Oh, I’m stoked! I’m going to go have dinner with them.”
And then right when I was about to leave, I went back to my email to confirm the address and everything else and I saw that the subject line said December 7th and November 7th, so a big fail on my part. I basically wasted all day. I was preparing. And then I told Rebecca…
Rebecca: And now you had your gift three minutes late.
Andrew: Yeah, my bottled wine…
Rebecca: We talked about what you take hosts and everything.
Andrew: I was like super stoked! And then right after that, I was like, “Argh, forget this.” And then, I went to the bank. I always talk to the girls at the bank and she’s like, “Oh, what are you doing today?” I was like, “Oh, apparently nothing. I prepared all day to go out to dinner. And so yeah, now I have a day off.” That was not good. But now I’m extra prepared for December 7th.
Rebecca: I think that’s funny.
Andrew: I thought it was ridiculously hilarious. I literally was like preparing the whole time.
Rebecca: It would’ve been funnier if you showed up.
Andrew: Oh, I know! I know. I know. That would’ve been hilarious. I was thinking that. Yeah, I was glad I checked my email that one last time because I already had like directions printed out and everything.
But yeah, I thought I’d just give you a little story about me socializing on the Internet or whatever.
When I first went gluten-free like after the thing with my girlfriend (I broke up with her, she left… it doesn’t sound that bad), I was left alone going gluten-free by myself. There was no one. My cousin wasn’t gluten-free yet. My other cousin wasn’t gluten-free yet, Daniela.
I had this website. I was growing a website. People were following me on Facebook. I have email interactions with people. I never really reached out to anyone. No one reached out to me to talk on the phone. And then one day, I just thought, “Hey, I just want to start to get to know people more.”
There’s one woman that had emailed me. Her name is Jennifer. She has her own little website. I had read about her daughter’s story. She was on the autism spectrum. She changed her life going gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free. I just reached out to her.
I can’t remember how we ended up talking on the phone, but she help with a couple of recipes. She told me some recipes that she liked.
And then at the time also, I was attempting to cook one different dish every single day for a whole year. I was on day 146 or something like that when I started talking to her. She was telling me all these different recipes that she had made. And I was like, “Whoa! This is crazy! People are actually making recipes that I post.”
I just hadn’t really connected at the time with Facebook because it wasn’t as popular then as it is this year or even last year. I don’t know, I just felt like Facebook was – I was disconnected from the Internet and I didn’t really feel like you could actually build relationships. But I figured out through talking to Jennifer that this is someone who have followed me for a super long time. She felt like she knew me.
And then, anyway, we were on the phone. I was like, “Whoa! This is crazy.” And that’s really what really sparked me to be more active – post more and start out the magazine. Even interacting and replying more to emails.
When I would get emails back in the day, I would get people asking me stuff and I still felt so disconnected like, “Who is this person emailing me? Why would they even email me?” Not in a mean way, but I just felt like almost insignificantly. There was such a disconnect. It’s almost like a bulletproof glass in between me and a person on the other side.
It just feel so weird honestly. It took me a long time to really accept and embrace connecting via the Internet. That’s just really weird. I used to use the Internet for purely marketing back in the day and it was just a medium to connect a person to a product that I’m selling. Right now, I’m not selling anything. I just thought it was so weird to build a relationship online.
Rebecca: It’s interesting you say that because I actually met my husband on Match.com.
Andrew: Whoa!
Rebecca: So for me, meeting people online is very – well, let me take that back. When we first met, I had just graduated college. I didn’t have any friends or anything. It was 2004. So you can imagine when online dating came out then, it was not really widely accepted.
My Mom thought I was going to get murdered every time I went on a date and I would have to give her the whole rundown of who they are, what their phone number is, where we’re going, what we’re doing just to make sure I didn’t die on this trip or on this blind date. So she was very cautious about that for me, but yeah, that’s how we met.
And so I didn’t have any friends. All my college friends had left. They graduated and moved away. I was like, “Well, how am I going to meet and date people?” I was living on the college working for the university. And so I didn’t have anywhere. So for me, it’s just very natural to be like, “Oh, there’s cool people out there in the world.”
I mean, there’s also creeps on the Internet. I’m not trying to imply that everyone is perfect on the Internet, but definitely, there are certainly some cool people out there.
Andrew: Honestly, I’m kind of shocked it took me so long to feel it’s okay to have a relationship with people over the Internet as weird as that sounds.
It took me a really long time because I think as my email list grew and my Facebook page grew and I got more attention, it made me feel even more drawn back to like, “Oh, this is too crazy. People are just following me just because they like what I’m posting or they agree what I’m saying” and it’s not like because, “Oh, because he sells the most awesome sandals or the most awesome shorts or t-shirts or whatever. That’s what he’s known for,” so people would know directly like, “Okay, go to Andrew because he sells really nice jewelry or something.” It was like, “Go to Andrew because he talks about gluten-free stuff and he was kind of like me.”
For me, there was still that disconnect because I didn’t have the relationship with any of the people in my normal day-to-day life. Pretty weird, but anyways, I got over it. And actually, I wouldn’t even say I’m totally over it yet because sometimes it just feels odd when someone asks you a question. It’s like, “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what to say.” Sometimes I’m just silent.
So if you email me a question and it’s something that you probably should be asking a dietitian or your doctor, don’t be sad if I don’t reply. It’s just because I don’t want to give out any bad information or there’s other people more qualified to speak on certain subjects than I am.
So anyway, I began to reach out to different people, I reached out Jennifer Fugo, I reached out to you, I reached to other people that was online maybe a little bit in a selfish way just to connect with people for me to make this all feel more normal. I’ve talked to a bunch of different people that are – maybe you’re listening now and I’ve spoken to you before. I send people my phone number, talk to them over the phone just to feel like a little more normal.
But anyway, what we’re talking about today is bringing the social back into your life. What I want to talk about is taking that online relationship that you probably have with some people and taking it offline whether it’s making a phone call or meeting together for lunch or something like that. Yeah, that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
So any tips, Rebecca? What do you think about that kind of thing offline?
Rebecca: Well, I’ve created an entire community for this. Especially for those of us living with Celiac disease, I think there’s two different routes for this because I do think that sometimes the community can be not very welcoming to people who are just living gluten-free for the heck of it or because they want to versus needing to. I have met people throughout my journey with this that they don’t see that as being as serious or as big of an issue as people who live and breathe gluten-free for medical reasons.
And so if you have that point of view, we have to remember that a lot of people are choosing to live gluten-free for whatever reason. It doesn’t have to be because it’s medical. And so we need to embrace and to help everyone who lives a gluten-free lifestyle, not necessarily just because they have gluten-free where they’ve made the personal choice.
So I have encountered that before and I wanted to bring it up because I don’t know if anyone has ever mentioned anything to you about that, but I do think that there’s a little bit of a stigma for people who choose to live gluten-free versus have to live gluten-free for medical reasons.
So I just wanted to put that out there that if you have that point of view, please make sure that you realize it. Just because some people make the choice to live gluten-free, it doesn’t make it any easier for them. And actually, I think it’s more difficult, wouldn’t you agree, from a social standpoint?
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca: If you go into a party and you say, “Hey, I’m going gluten-free today,” people are going to be like, “Okay… why? Whatever.” But if you go into a party and say, “Hey, I was diagnosed with this illness or this disease and now I have to change my lifestyle and I have to change my diet completely,” I think it’s a little bit different than people who just say, “I’m just eating gluten-free now.”
I mean, I don’t know, that’s just been my experience.
Andrew: Yeah, I haven’t had an experience where someone comes in and says either or the other one, but I had someone come in like when my cousin was just starting to go gluten-free, Daniela. She’s gluten-free for I think about a month or two now.
I remember when she was first asking me questions about it and we were talking about it. I think I said on a podcast that I’ve seen her cheat before, I didn’t go up to her and be like, “Oh, Daniela, what are you cheating?” But anyway, she’s really strict now.
I was at – whose birthday, was it? It was my cousin’s birthday. She was there. It was a different cousin’s birthday. It was my cousin [inaudible 00:18:12] birthday and Daniela went there and she was helping to make food.
Someone asked, “Oh, Daniela, have you ever tried this?” It was another friend. She goes, “Oh, I can’t have that.” She asked why and she said, “Oh, I’m eating gluten-free and dairy-free and then she gave her reason why.”
I think it’s important to be educated. This is the reason why it’s important to be educated so when you tell someone why you’re gluten-free or someone asks why you’re gluten-free, you should be able to give an educated, valid response and not just like, “Oh, I’m going gluten-free because I heard it’s not good for you.”
It’s a big step. It’s like a whole life commitment, so you shouldn’t be making decisions on a whim because you read at one book or you heard one thing or someone said something bad about gluten.
And then also, when you said people choose to be gluten-free and people for medical reasons, I just want to make it clear, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re just saying people that have a medical diagnosis like Celiac disease, gluten-sensitivity and then there’s people like me.
I haven’t gone to the doctor to say, “Hey, you should be gluten-free.” There’s symptoms and things that happen to me that I’ve not talked about on the podcast that I just think are gross. Honestly, it’s kind of embarrassing I wouldn’t want to say it. I’ve told probably just maybe two people. I don’t eat gluten because 1000%, it sucks! I mean, I wouldn’t wish what I have upon anyone else to be a symptom. I mean, I would be so horrible.
Rebecca: Right! No, no, no. No, like I said, I mean the people who have Celiac disease or have something else where the doctor has advised them to eat gluten-free or have a wheat allergy or whatever it may be versus someone who comes in and just says, “I made this decision to eat gluten-free,” that seems to be where people get the most resistance.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Rebecca: Definitely.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rebecca: Especially with all the media crap that goes around and stuff. That seems to be when it hits people the hardest.
Andrew: Actually, I do understand what you’re saying now because there was a few articles now that – I don’t know if [inaudible 00:20:39] or you’re talking about them, but there was a few that I read the other day and I was like, “This is so dumb.”
For people that don’t know and then do something so horrible and some bad articles where people are just trying to get traffic to their website, so they can make advertising money, yeah, I’m on the same page as you.
Rebecca: Regardless of what the reason is whether if you’re on a group where you’re trying to help someone, we should be welcoming everyone and not just Sally Celiac.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rebecca: Everyone struggles with this. If you’re looking for a resource and you see a Celiac group, but you’re just living gluten-free for personal reasons or for health reasons, reach out to them anyway. I don’t see a problem with that.
Yes, people with Celiac has some very different issues, but a lot of them are very similar to people who just have gluten-sensitivity. If you’re already struggling with living gluten-free, I would say the best place for you to go – if not the only place for you to go, it’s probably the best place to go, if there’s a Celiac support group in your area.
I can tell you that the Celiac groups, those men and women know the in’s and out’s of living gluten-free. So if you really want the truth as far as how to do that, reach out to them. I would not understand why any Celiac group in your area would say, “Oh, sorry, you don’t have Celiac disease. You can’t come here.” I mean, it’s worth a shot. It’s worth asking.
My advice always is just ask. I mean, the worst people could say is no. And then you just move on and find another. I mean, I’ll ask a hundred questions and hope for two to say yes. So it can’t hurt anything to ask.
Andrew: Yeah, and then there’s also another group. There’s the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. [Inaudible 00:22:44] does one in the Bay Area. She’s super active. I think they have at least once a month if not more often. Yeah, they’re super educational. They have experts going by and talking about everything to do with gluten.
Rebecca: So where are some places that you think that people could go find to go meet up with people? Andrew, if you’re going to look for something, what would you do?
Andrew: Yeah, so one place that’s really good is Meetup.com. It’s just basically a website that holds up different meet-ups for people that like to do different things, different hobbies or support groups. Meetup.com is one that’s really awesome. I know if I go to Meetup.com and search Celiac or gluten, there’s probably about 20 or 30 different places within a 50 mile radius from me.
I know that there’s one locally. I think there’s a chapter in [inaudible 00:22:44] and there’s some in Santa Cruz. I said there are some in the Bay Area. So they’re all over North America.
Also, Facebook groups. I know that there’s a lot of localized Facebook groups.
Rebecca: I have one if you want to join.
Andrew: What was that, Rebecca?
Rebecca: I have a little Celiac group, support group.
Andrew: Yeah, and even just connecting through small support groups like that. Rebecca, your support group is…
Rebecca: Not everybody in there has Celiac disease, so you don’t have to have Celiac disease. It just is pretty little Celiac support group, but not everybody in there has it.
Andrew: So do you guys accept people that aren’t Celiac?
Rebecca: Yup!
Andrew: Oh, you’re nice.
Rebecca: We accept everybody wanting to live gluten-free.
Andrew: Nice. I would just urge you, if there’s any people that you’ve been in contact via email online, just ask if they have a phone number, ask if they want to meet some time. I think it’s cool to meet people that you’ve never met in person.
I met Jennifer Fugo – when was it? Probably about a month or two right now, about a month ago. I was really thrilled just to meet her. It just happened to be that she was in California. So I made the initiative and reached out and had lunch with her, so that was really cool.
Rebecca: That’s awesome. I mean, there’s also a lot of the expos that you can go to. The gluten-free and allergen-free expos are great ones. They have stops. They’ve actually added a few stops for next year. So if you look, there might be one in your area. You could head out there. I’m sure you would meet people from your area there.
People are really willing to talk about this if they know you’re interested and they know you’re going through the same things. I have found this community to be very welcoming.
Andrew: Yeah, and I think everyone is so welcoming because we’re so rare.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I think everyone’s been there. Everybody started with this and found out how hard it is and what a challenge it is to live this lifestyle. So it’s much easier to want to help other people when you’ve been through it. I mean, that’s why I started my blog. It’s to help people.
So Andrew, you know what I saw the other day?
Andrew: What did you see?
Rebecca: …since we’re talking about groups. I think it was on Ellen and she was kind of making fun of it, but there was this website called glutenfreesingles.com. So since you’re single, you should try it out. Go see what kind of mates you can find down there.
Andrew: Glutenfreesingles.com.
Rebecca: Yeah, it’s a dating site for gluten-free people.
Andrew: I wonder…
Rebecca: Since you are – you did! We’ve talked about that, you know how to approach it. You were going to go get juice for something so you didn’t have to broach the subject.
Andrew: Actually, I might try this. I would be curious just to see how it might look like.
Rebecca: Just do it as an experiment.
Andrew: Yeah, I’m going to join just to see how many people – yeah, I’m really curious how people there are locally.
Rebecca: I can’t wait! This is so exciting.
Andrew: Actually, I should probably do – would that be mean if I did a date and then talked about it?
Rebecca: Uhm… you might want to…
Andrew: I’ve got to ask her.
Rebecca: Yeah, you have to give – I mean, you wouldn’t have to, but I’m pretty sure you should.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rebecca: I mean, there’s a lot of people that – I mean, look like Sex & the City, you know like that, that’s based on…
Andrew: I’ve never watched Sex & the City.
Rebecca: Well, okay. Any of the shows. Even if you were going to a restaurant to review it, you wouldn’t tell them who you are, right?
Andrew: Yeah.
Rebecca: I know they’re a person. It’s different than a restaurant.
Andrew: Oh, no! I’m totally going to do this.
Rebecca: This is journalistic.
Andrew: I know. I think it would be cool. I think it’d be good. We would have something in common right away.
Rebecca: I think that’s the point, right? There’s also one for clowns. There’s a clown dating site.
Andrew: Oh, my God!
Rebecca: So if you’re a clown in a second life, you can also join that one. Actually, can you do that one first? That would be funnier.
Andrew: Oh, that would be horrible.
Rebecca: Do the clown one.
Andrew: I don’t know.
Rebecca: Oh, I’m excited about this. I can’t wait. I think my husband would be excited if I had tried that. I think you’re on your own on that one.
Andrew: Yeah, well I’m single, so I’m going to try this. I’m going to register. Yeah, I’m definitely curious to see how many people are here locally. If there’s someone here locally within – I’m going to say a 45-minute drive, I will do it. But if I have to drive like two hours, I’m not going to do it.
Rebecca: Oh yeah. That’s cool. Right!
Andrew: Okay, so yup, just to recap what we talked about today…
Rebecca: Oh, wait! Before we recap, we didn’t talk about starting your own group.
Andrew: Oh yeah, go for it!
Rebecca: I mean, really, the biggest way to meet people is to just start your own group. You’re going to find people that are interested in this that need help that are looking for resources.
I know Craigslist is kind of creepy, but you could definitely start a group maybe at the library or if you have a local Church that would be willing to do a meet-up maybe once a month for people to bring in recipes or just have a pot luck or something like that where everybody can get together.
The reason I think of that is because when I had my blog party, I had about 40 people show up. Twenty of them, I don’t think I knew that came from knowing the website or events that I have posted locally on different websites. I’m bummed! I wish I would’ve done it sooner because they said they wish we could have it more often, more frequently.
There’s a lot of people that will take the initiative to program and run something like that, but there are a lot of people looking to go to something like that. So if you’re like me who loves planning things or about organizing and all that stuff, then why not? What’s the harm in doing something like that?
Andrew: Yeah, I would definitely second that. If you’re the kind of person that likes to plan events or get things started or you would like to even be a resource or just a friend for someone that’s brand new to being gluten-free, maybe that’s something that you want to pursue, helping other people going gluten-free. Starting a group is an awesome way.
The whole point of bringing the social back into your life is to build relationships. So if there’s something going around the road that you can’t email me or Rebecca or you can’t email someone else online or maybe you don’t want to post it on some public Facebook group, there’s something private you want to talk about, you can have a friend that you can talk about all these stuff with. What if you don’t have that person to talk about? It’s really difficult to go through things by yourself.
And like what Rebecca was saying, the community is very open, everyone is willing to listen, willing to learn, willing to teach. So I think that building those relationships is the most important part for the long-term whether you have kids right now or you might have kids down the future, down the line, you might meet someone who already has kids so you know what they’ve gone through, they can give you tips.
As much as I know that we’re helping with the podcast or [00:27:14] post or maybe the book that we’re going to be publishing, those are all awesome things, but you can’t really beat human interaction one-on-one, building relationships or having friends and family that are concurrent with your lifestyle. That’s not always possible right off the bat, so you have to take the initiative to begin growing those relationships.
Rebecca: Right! And keeping it positive. It’s so easy to go in and complain about how hard it is and brag on different restaurants and be negative about the media and do all that kind of [beep], but it’s much more productive to help people navigate and find easier ways to live the life and talk about the great thing because that is waste of crucial and so lacking in this community is the positive, the reinforcement, the support, the network, the trust and the community is what is really needed.
Anybody can grout and complain that they got gluten, that this restaurant is horrible, that [00:27:14], that cross-contamination, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, but it takes a special group to really keep it on the positive side and that is what we need in this community.
Andrew: And it’s way easier to be negative when you’re by yourself even if you’re a happy person. If you don’t have someone else to tell you maybe the good side of something or to give you a different angle at whatever you’re thinking about, it’s difficult for you to bring up those thoughts in your own mind. If all you do was complain and no one ever said, “Oh, but what about this or what about that?” It’s really difficult for someone to change their mind. I just think it’s really important to not be alone especially when it always feels like you’re the only one that’s gluten-free.
Rebecca: It’s nice to know everything is going to be okay. That’s the key to any of these support groups, knowing that you’re not alone, knowing that someone’s been there before and knowing that everything is going to be okay.
Andrew: Yup, you’re going to get through it. Okay! I think that’s it for today. I’m just going to do a quick recap. I messed up my dinner on December 7th, not November 7th;
Go to Meetup.com to find meet-ups locally or Facebook groups. You can just search for maybe a state or something gluten-free – Texas or Austin or wherever you live;
Glutenfreesingles.com if you’re looking to meet someone online. I don’t know how the site works. I’m going to try it out and I’m going to let you know;
Maybe start your own group just like Rebecca was saying. She started her own. A Facebook group or something as simple as that or going to the library and starting your own group there.
I’m pretty sure the library has open slots for people to have a little corner, so you’ve got a place to meet and stuff like that.
And also, churches. I know that churches for sure, those are awesome support groups.
I’ve read some comments or suggestions in the book suggestion post and there were quite a few women that suggested adding some comments about asking a church if they have a Celiac support group or a gluten-free support group.
She’s told me in the comment and said that not everyone in the group has Celiac disease, but there’s other people that have other autoimmune diseases or go gluten-free like you said just for choice and they welcome everyone.
She just said that if you don’t go to church, there are other groups just like this and she was just praising how awesome it was having relationships and talking about other stuff besides their bible study. They talk about their diet and whatever. She was saying that it was really important to her, so…
Rebecca: Yeah. I mean, you can’t get a better community than a church. Typically, everybody’s willing to help others and go out on the line for their other parishioners so it’s a good opportunity for sure.
Andrew: Yup. Alright! So that’s going to be it for episode no. 15. If you want to leave a comment on the episode, go to GFMagazine.com/15. If you love the podcast, make sure to leave a 5-star review on iTunes. Just search GFMagazine Podcast in iTunes and leave us an awesome review. We’ll read it some time in the future.
That’s going to be it. Hope you have a great day! Thank you so much for listening. Goodbye.
Rebecca: Bye everyone!
