Finding Friends... Again

Hey everyone! I've made some new friends!

We've written on the blog before about the challenges of making new friends as an adult. The office is a great place to make some connections, but it's hard to keep it up once you've moved on to another job. And if you're a freelancer or have an unconventional job, you may not even interact with people enough to build anything substantial. I myself have complained about it before, but I've come to realize that even though I hit some plateaus here and there, I'm actually quite lucky in the friend department.

My main source of friendship is still work, and I've gotten really good at relying on first impressions to see who I'll get along with. I find a few things we have in common and, bam!, instant friendship! Even now that I've gotten some freelance gigs, I've discovered the beauty of the work date. If you aren't familiar with this, it's basically just meeting up with one or two other freelancers or folks who work from home (whether you work together or not), heading to a coffee shop or some such place, and doing your work together. You inevitably spend most of the time with your head behind your screen, but you also end up talking about whatever comes up throughout the day when you take breaks to check Facebook or Twitter, when you get a random phone call from your crazy mother, or some other happening. It's a great way to be social while still staying focused on your work. Then when you're done with work, you can walk down the block to a bar, share a glass of wine, and get to know each other a little better.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I've finally gotten the hang of the whole making new friends thing, even with my general shyness and somewhat anti-social ways.

How do you make new friends?