Rather be with you

One of the biggest issues that you never see coming on your way out of college is making new friends (romantic or otherwise). In college it is ridiculously easy to meet people. Hell, your class schedule alone affords you with a constantly changing cast of new friends (and enemies) and potential paramours. There are parties every weekend and people are for most part willing to meet new people on a pretty frequent basis. In the real world, you have significantly fewer chances. There's work, which is the epitome of a mixed bag no matter where you earn your check, and depending on the situation the faces might not change for awhile (if ever). There's bars and clubs, where some people thrive and clichés abound. And then there's... Oh wait not a whole lot else. There are always the random encounters: a chance meeting on the street or at a library but those are the stuff of movies and tv shows and never happen as often as you'd want. Decades of creepy guys and sensational news stories have taken a lot of luster out of the friendly stranger approach to meeting people. There's a whole other world of connections happening in the form of online dating. This world is full of disappointments, one night stands, epic stories and almost merits its own entry (which it very well might get in the near future). As someone who's been on multiple Internet incited dates,, I won't bash on it too much. I will say this it's a less than idyllic way to go about things but again not completely without its merits. All of the methods discussed only really help with meeting the opposite sex though. As any guy will tell you (and maybe some girls), its tough to make quality friends of the same sex. Looking back, it's always been more or less an organic process. You meet, talk a bit, share some common interests, and then awkwardly exchange contact info. Then, barring any mishaps, you're friends. With drastically different social spaces that accompany the initial part of adulthood, it becomes more of a challenge to find quality friends. There always seems to be a bit of a gap whether it be ideologically or financially. So where then does the impressionable young post grad find companionship? The consensus seems to be that you just get lucky. Maybe I'll have an addendum for this by time I tackle the wacky world of online dating in my next post.