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The Challenge of Making Friends as an Adult
an article in The New York Times by Alex Williams
(our site's article review)
Make a new friend
Adults making new friends can find the going tough—and challenging. As you get older, "you have been through your share of wearying or failed relationships. You have come to grips with the responsibilities of juggling work, family and existing friends, so you become more wary about making yourself emotionally available to new people"—you are more aware of the downside, and of your own capacity to disappoint.
Making new friends is simple on Facebook, but is it worth the effort, since so many people just reveal stong points and skip weak points—they're looking for acceptance; pursuing such relationships will only make you lonely
See Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? for a well-developed discussion on the effect of Facebook on loneliness. And see Who's Living Alone to see the percentage of people who are living alone. And see First Person Singular: Living the good life alone to see a How-To book that guides the reader toward successful single living.
When you host an event or party, your Facebook and Twitter friends are often irrelevant
Williams' article give lots of first-hand examples of the friends challenge. He brings up some good points, as well. Like when you host an event or party, your Facebook and Twitter friends are often irrelevant, except for the ones that have been IRL F2F friends all along, usually located on Facebook by use of the friend finding feature. He doesn't list any websites that can help with the friends thing. Below is the name of a website set up just for this friends-making purpose:
Not4Dating "is a totally new way to expand your social network. We’re here to help you meet platonic friends online and then connect in real life."
What is not4dating for?
Meeting new people.
Get together with people who share common interests.
Exploring your city with new friends.
What is not4dating NOT For?
Finding someone to date.
Getting back in touch with old friends.
Meeting people that live in far off lands.
If you are trying to set up an MC (microcommunity), you may wish to look for people with similar interests on the Not4Dating website. Once you locate people you become good friends with, you could then do the signup on this page where you Register for MC Search and Match. Alternatively, you could register for the search and match first, and use the Not4Dating website to find more members for your MC. Just be aware that most people have not heard of MCs, so are not going to find this website, let alone the search and match page where one registers. See Why Register for an MC?. So the number of registered people will obviously be very small right at first. There is no reason why you cannot make the MC member quest a discussion group on Facebook, and discuss this MC quest on your various Facebook pages.
Registering for MC search and match