I certainly don't qualify as one of the first LotR fans and not as an early Tolkien fan either, but as I became a LotR enthusiast before the films came out and before I discovered internet, or at least before I discovered discussion forums, so I feel like I have a "right" to ramble here...
I was introduced to Tolkien's work in 1996 when I was only six years old. I saw the Bakshi animation and TH and LotR were read aloud to me, later followed by Sil and UT. I did not know any other people who liked Tolkien except myself, my father (who introduced me to it), my sister (who also became a fan) and a friend of my mother's. It really didn't bother me, I was so small that I didn't care about discussing about LotR deeply (only things like "who's your favourite character" and those could be well discussed with my sister) and I could always immerse myself in ME by playing ME with my sister. I also introduced several friends of mine to LotR - means I told them about the races and the places - and then we played ME together. My friends didn't totally grasp everything it was about, but they thought it funny and some even read LotR.
Mostly my classmates thought I was a bit odd. It maybe is no wonder as when they read those "I just learned to read"-books with big font and less than 50 pages, I read LotR.
Later, too, they considered my fascination with LotR (and history and other stuff they thought strange) as something odd and abnormal and I didn't meet any fellow enthusiasts.
When the movies came out, everything changed. Everybody knew what LotR was about and suddenly it was much easier to convince people to read LotR. Not only did I either meet my current best friends or more or less managed to make them Tolkien fans back then, but I met other people of my age who liked LotR. I soon became disappointed, though, as they were mostly just interested in Orlando Bloom and had never read the book.
Then, some years later, I had become more interested in and accustomed to the internet and my English skills had developed into a satisfactory level. So, when I came across a certain forum, I registered - first just to ask a question that had troubled me - became hooked and have met lots of awesome Tolkien fans since then.
And I don't know if it's because the people who I socialise with are older, or because I hang around in certain sort of places or because the movies have raised LotR awareness significantly, but it seems I really meet/discover fellow Tolkien fans far more often than before in RL too.