Making friends is hard to do

In a city as big as New York, you would think it would be easy to make friends right away because there are so many options to choose from. As a female adult, it can be difficult making other female friends because the opportunities to meet new people aren't like they use to be. You work with the same people every day. It's not like you have classes or clubs to really join like you did in high school or college. You can play in urban young-professional sports leagues, take some kind of cooking/sewing lesson or class, join a book club, etc...but these can be expensive and don't always yield results. Or if you do happen to participate in one of these things and become friendly with some girl(s) you don't really keep in touch after they end. You swear you'll will, but never do. Very common happening.

The most common way I have made some new friends is through other friends. You meet a girl, usually a friend of a friend at a party, a bar, some sort of social outing together and you start talking with this girl. You guys seem to have a lot in common (besides your mutual friend) and are kind of hitting it off. You are talking about cute guys, judging some of the other girls around you, or even just bonding over the fact that you are getting hammered together. Usually in your drunkenness you exchange numbers and swear you will "hang out next weekend for sure." This sounds like its a happens all the time, right? But then you don't text her right away for fear of being a stalker/creeper and she doesn't text you right away for fear of the same thing. However, you really would like to hang out again and potentially become friends. So what do you do? Without coming on too strong and looking like you want more than a friendly relationship with this person can be tricky.  But if everything works out well, you could end up with a brand new friend.

This has happened to me a few times in the past year. I have made some new good friends this way and now we joke about how we were "courting" each other and how awkward it can be to make female friends. My other friends make fun of me too sometimes because girls tend to "pick me up" when I go out. I can't help it if people are just drawn to me and want more. Duh. But seriously, I have hung out with friends of friends at parties or bars and we exchanged numbers and said we are "totally gonna call each other" but then neither of us did. Did we just enjoy hanging out because everyone else there was lame? Were we just trying to be polite? Prob not, we aren't loser-guys after all. We actually enjoyed each others company at that time and thought it would be fun to hang out again. But the next move is the trickiest. If seems cool and like she would be fun to hang with again or fit in with your circle of friends already, just text her to see what she's up to that weekend. No one ever wants to make the first move, but obviously one of you has to. Who is going to send the first text? And what do you write? It can be weird. But once you do it, you might end up with a good friend. Go out for drinks or go to another party together. If there is too much time between when you meet and when you first contact each other that can be weird too, so don't let that happen. So, if you meet a cool girl at a party and want to hang out again, don't worry, its not creepy. She'll know you aren't hitting on her. Ask for her number so you can hang out again and just make the move. Who knows, she could end up being one of your closest friends a few months from now.