I’ve been really lucky in the past few years in that I have made a large number of great new friends. I’m not just talking about the people that I kind of know and see around. I’m talking about good friends who are really there for me.

It wasn’t always this way. I’ve often found it difficult to make new friends as an adult. Since I work from home, figuring out where to meet new people is tough. And since I’m busy, it’s hard to make the time that you need to make in order to really build up friendships.

But I’ve been successful at it lately and I’ve benefitted from that greatly. Here are some tidbits of info on how I’ve managed to make new friends:

• Met people through the Internet. Whether it’s Craigslist or Meetup.com or just via commenting on the blogs of local bloggers, I’ve used the Internet to make that initial connection. It’s just so much easier than approaching someone in a coffee shop, I think.
• Found things I like to do. It helps to have some shared activity when making new friends so I find things that I like to do and then invite along new people that I want to be better friends with.
• Said yes when people invited me to things. The more you go out, the more chance you have of making new friends, right?
• Maintained connections online. I find that sites like Facebook and chat conversations on AIM make it easy to really trade information and get to know someone even when you can’t get together in person all of the time. It’s not a substitute for real face-to-face connecting but it’s definitely a great supplement.
• Shared myself openly. The more open and honest I am about who I am and what’s going on with me, the stronger the connections that I’ve been able to make with others.

What else are people doing to make new friends as adults?

I wrote an article earlier today over at my Real Words blog all about how I’ve seen a recent shift in the way that my online social networking communication is taking place. In the past, I’ve had two types of connections online. First, there were my friends in real life who I chatted about normal stuff with on sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. And then there were people who I know only from online who would add me to those sites just to send me links to their online work.

What I’ve noticed recently is that more and more people on these sites are truly interested in starting real conversations. The line between my real life friends and my online friends is starting to blur. People I don’t know are asking me how my day is going and responding to my general status updates. They are inviting me to meet them in the real world or at least expressing an interest in knowing what my real world is like.

At the same time, my real world friendships are getting closer as a result of staying more frequently updated with everyone’s activities online. I know that this revelation isn’t new - many people have experienced this with online social networking. But I still sense an even greater shift in this going on right now, at least in my own life, and I’m excited to see how it develops.

I love being surrounded by other smart people who are also into writing. There are tons of places that you can find these people, of course, including coffee shops and book clubs. However, I think that the best place to go to get yourself in touch with smart writers is any kind of event where writers are reading their works.

I’m a big fan of literary events. Be it an open mic night at a local cafe or a big regional poetry slam at a large warehouse venue or a small book signing and reading at the indie bookstore, I think these things are a great chance to hear writing and meet writers.

Usually I end up feeling inspired just by attending one of these events. There’s something about meeting other people who are also doing writing for a living (or hobby) that makes you feel supported in the work that you yourself are doing as a writer.

And I find that going to these types of things doesn’t just inspire my writing. It inspires how I feel about life. I feel better about people in general after being around a lot of smart, creative, literary people in a group like this. Don’t you?!

One of the things that has become really important to me in the last year or so is the great friendships that I have with other women. I’ve always had female friends around me but I wasn’t always good at truly developing a close connection with the other women in my life. I feel like that is changing as I get older and I think that part of the reason that it is changing is because I am more and more capable of being a good friend to other women as I get to know myself and become more comfortable with myself.

How I’m approaching my female friendships and working on improving them can be explored a little bit in today’s article on How to be a Great Friend to Other Women. In that article, I focus on a few key things that we as women can do to make sure that we are being the kind of female friends that we want other women to be for us.

Would love to know your thoughts on female friendships and how to make them better!

March means springtime and springtime means all kinds of different parties, doesn’t it? I don’t get the chance to go to too many baby showers but I did have the opportunity to do some research into them this morning. Specifically I got the chance to write about baby shower games.

What I love most about my women friends is how creative they all are. We have a lot of fun together because everyone in our group has great ideas. And yet we’re collaborative so we work together to make those ideas happen in a non-competitive way.

Baby shower games are an example of this. Of course, the hostess of the baby shower is the one who picks the games that are going to be played but the women who participate have to add their own creativity and sense of fun to the experience for everyone to have a good time.

Whether you’re pinning the pacifier on the baby, passing the dirty diaper or turning baby food into delicious adult treats, you’re probably having fun at a baby shower. Games aren’t all that a baby shower is about, of course, but they sure do make the baby shower fun.