"Man"dates and the quest for a BFF: using the web to make local friends

Women make it sound like men have it easy when it comes to making friends; that they can just turn to the guy next to them in a bar and easily strike up a conversation. However, I’m sure that’s not always the case and that there was more than one guy who watched “I Love You, Man” and thought to themselves, “Is that me?”.

Let’s face it. In this uber-connected world, we are probably more disconnected than ever before from each other. After school, we got jobs thinking we would meet new people and do more awesome things because we now had the funds to back us up. Yet, for a lot of people that’s not the case. Work keeps them busy and other life changes (entering a relationship, getting married, having a kid, moving away) get “in the way” and suddenly despite having 549 Facebook friends you are more friend-less than ever.

Or worse yet, you have your tight-knit crowd of friends from high-school but slowly you start to realize that your interests have changed and your friendship is based more on history.

Then there’s the BFF who one day tells you that she is moving. She’s the friend that you can call at any time of day and say-“Meet me at the corner of-” and she’ll be there.

In her blog, Married White Female Seeking BFF, Rachel documents the challenges of moving to a new city and starting over and searching for that elusive BFF. A line from a recent guest post by her BFF in her hometown really resonated with me:

Making best friends (the kind you call up for no reason other than to recap what happened on Glee, those you know will be excited if you stop by their apartment and curl up on the couch just because you’re in the neighborhood) is just plain hard to do.

And she’s right. It’s not easy. It can be an instant connection or one that slowly develops over time. But how do you even get the chance? Do you just respond to endless ads on Craigslist and hope someone takes the bait?

I think the first step is putting yourself out there. Just like the perfect guy isn’t going to ring your doorbell one night with a bouquet of flowers, your BFF is not going to show up at your door (unless he or she is the pizza delivery person!).

So, like our buddy in “I Love You, Man!”, maybe “Man-Dates” are not such a bad idea and in our time-pressed society a good solution.

But where? How? The plethora of social networking sites have made our efforts somewhat easier but only if you take the relationship offline. Doing a local search in your area can be a great start to connecting with people with similar interests. Meetup.com is a good source for activity groups & even popping into a local Tweetup can offer the opportunity to connect with others. Another site you could try is The Social Woman, which is a local network for women to make friends online and meet at events offline.

Have you had any success finding a BFF? Would love to hear your story!