So I gather you are looking for "Stories of Gay Life in the pre-SmartPhone Mid to Late 20th Century"?
"Before the Web", there were these things called "bars" - they seem to be vanishing these days. But you'd go to one and meet friends, perhaps new friends, and socialize face to face. You'd even have a chance to meet up and then go to social gatherings or parties at people's houses. There were also baths and parks for "just the sex", and social groups such as bowling (the Judy Garland Memorial Bowling League comes to mind) or baseball, hiking, gay men's choir, even cooking etc. that were all for gay men (women had their own versions of all these too, except the baths).
But you actually had to interact in person. Well, aside from want ads in the newspapers. That was your 70's. 80's and early 90's "Grindr". You'd still have to meet up somewhere and chat, usually, since there was no photo exchange possible this way. And you couldn't really know how honest the other guy was in his ad or reply. Could be an undercover cop (they did that sort of thing a lot back then) mailing you. Or it could be a nice gay guy you could get it on with. Or just a guy you had nothing much in common with.
"Swiping left" (or right) was a very, very long process. So you weren't as quick to dismiss someone because they didn't quite fit the fantasy man mould you had set up. You actually got to meet and know guys who weren't 10's and, even if there was no sex spark, there could, perhaps, be a social connection made.
You pretty much had to go to the nearby Big City for these things; smaller places wouldn't have the "out" community to support such in a suburban locale or smaller towns. But this also got all sorts of gay people together either as visitors to the cities or becoming residents by moving there. This created gay neighbourhoods which led to more political activism and stronger alliance between LGBT folks that wouldn't have happened if everyone stayed in their small rural towns or suburbs.
That's not to say there was no small town activity available but it was a fair bit more difficult to connect with other gay guys in a smaller area. But it happened. And once you connected to one guy, you could now connect to their other gay connections (and they to yours), and pretty soon there'd be a small clutch of semi-secret gay guys forming a mini-community. Even if the numbers were small, you could still find someone to play with.
If you could get your butt to a larger place and meet other gay guys, there's a good chance you'd do the trip somewhat regularly. That's what I did; even though I was still living out in the burbs and going to college, I made it to Toronto regularly, got involved in gay politics, worked at The Body Politic (c 1974?), a gay newsmagazine, made lots of out gay friends, all well before I eventually moved there in '79 with the BF. But even before making the move, the BF and a few gay friends (and our fag hags) would regularly all trek down from the depths of the 'burbs to the city on Fridays or Saturdays for fun, dancing and socializing.
Since none of us had a car at that point, it meant relying on train service and that you'd either have to catch the last one back at 12:30 (which cut into late night activity!) or spend the night going to bars then clubs and then hanging out until you could catch the first train back out at 6 a.m..
Sex was never a problem though. Bars were definitely the centre for that sort of activity but there were still other venues for getting it, even though many overlapped with a social aspect, like the Out & Out Club (nature walks, sports, etc group) if you wanted more than just getting your rocks off.
