So, is it possible for a heterosexual female to meet women on the internet?

July 27, 2005 5:14 PM

So, is it possible for a heterosexual female to meet women on the internet?

Basically, I'm wondering if any women in the post-college, pre-baby/family stage of their lives have made female friends using online communities like Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and even MeFi and tried to translate that into a real world face-to-face friendship.

In talking to some of my female friends, we've all noticed how difficult it is to meet women to hang out with once you're away from your college crowd (in a new city, for example). It seems really easy to make male friends, but not as easy to meet women with which to hang.

MySpace and Friendster purport to be a place you can make new friends and find new connections, etc., but is it really feasible for same-sex friendships? I'm a member of both, and most of the messages I get are from guys. I've thought about sending messages to women, but figured they'd get the wrong idea or I'd just come off as a little random and weird.

Have any females actually gotten to know women online and then developed real world friendship? How did you do this? I'm really just wondering if this is possible and/or a good idea. Good stories and horror stories are both welcome. I know there are lots of ways to meet friends in the real world (community service, alumni groups, etc.), but I'm purely interested in the online-to-real-world dynamic. Help a perfectly normal, socially adjusted and outgoing 26-year-old meet some cool gals online to hang out with.

posted by awegz to human relations (26 comments total)

I've met a few female friends through e-mail lists and the like (common-interest things like dogs, literature, films, etc.). I expect having a common interest to start off with makes things easier.
posted by biscotti at 5:25 PM on July 27, 2005

I have a friend, female, 27, just finished her MLIS. She is very active on LiveJournal; when she first moved to the Twin Cities, she only knew a couple of people in the area, and their friends were on LJ and she became friends with friends-of-friends &c. She also met a bunch of random people in her area through LJ.

Sorry, I'm not being awfully helpful. She did run into a problem with a 'stalker' and some clingy undesirable guys trying to hit on her. Her LJ is "friends only" and she tells people not to use her full (real) name on LJ - seems to have solved the majority of the problems.

A lot of her friends, however, are young parents/couples but a lot of the people she's met through LJ were in pretty similar situations as she's in.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 5:29 PM on July 27, 2005

What biscotti said. I've met plenty of women online who have become friends or acquaintances offline, but none from sites specifically designed for meeting people.
posted by cali at 5:39 PM on July 27, 2005

The way I've made female friends online is through groups that meet regularly. I've made several good friends by joining local interest Yahoo! Groups.

Meeting one-on-one can be pretty awkward. Not only is it hard to ask someone to meet, but it's unusual enough to be strange on the receiving end as well. Setting up or getting involved with a group is a great workaround.
posted by frykitty at 5:45 PM on July 27, 2005

You're in the same boat I am in, and if you were in my city, I'd hang out with you.

The only thing I can think of is LiveJournal, like PurplePorpoise suggested. I have a journal, which I don't use as much as most. The real plus is you can "friendslist" other journals, so you can be a voyeur into someone's life (and vice versa). And if you start leaving comments and holding online conversations with these LJers, then it should translate over into real life. One of my coworkers met a new friend that way. But alas my real-life shyness is too much to overcome even on LJ, so I haven't had any success.
posted by lychee at 5:49 PM on July 27, 2005

I don't know where you are, but craigslist has some pretty active activity group listings. Some cities more than others, of course.
posted by trixie_bee at 5:58 PM on July 27, 2005

Craigslist is a great resource for this. You can browse the activity listings as trixie_bee said. Additionally, I have had good luck by posting and stating fairly narrow requirements for the people you would like to meet.

"Hi, I'm looking for X kind of people to hang out with. You should be into activities E, F, and G, and have time on the weekends."

You'll want to elaborate, but that's the gist. I've had 5-6 responses every time I try it, and I end up meeting up with 1 or 2 of those people.
posted by agropyron at 6:13 PM on July 27, 2005

I've participated in online communities of one kind or another for over a decade, and I count some of my closest friends among people I've met through them. Like cali, I don't find sites that are ostensibly "for meeting people" useful for this purpose.

I find the key being a community in common that already makes for substantive shared interests + fairly low-key/casual opportunities for in-person interaction. I have an LJ, but LJ doesn't come close to qualifying in this way for me; it's just a place where my friends and I, well, leave each other notes about our lives. (I add someone to my friendslist after I establish a relationship with them, not before.)

I've definitely met some fantastic women at MeFi meetups - in fact, cali springs to mind - so I'd heartily encourage you to organize one. It's easy!
posted by caitlinb at 6:14 PM on July 27, 2005

I meet women online often, usually through blogs that are somewhat professionally oriented. In fact, when I read PurplePorpoises post about her friend getting her MLIS I said "huh, I might know her..." So, I'll read people's LJs and sometimes the people in their friends list, or I'll comment on someone's blog and if I notice they're coming to town I'll invite them out for a beer. When I lived in a bigger city, I'd meet more women the friends-of-friends way but now that I live more out in the country I meet more people online and, like caitlinb says, many at MeFi meetups lately.
posted by jessamyn at 6:49 PM on July 27, 2005

I've met a couple of local people - orange swan amongst them - via web communities that I hope are becoming friends. One of them, that I met via a MMORPG, is unfortunately moving away soon. But another one, that I met via Chowhound, is starting to invite me to parties and we go to concerts and such together. I haven't tried to social networking oriented communities that you mention, but wanted to point to some success with meeting people via the shared interest community route.

I meet far more non-local people the same way, and have developed a number of very close online friendships, as well. It's not quite the same thing, but I find them fulfilling in and of themselves.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:04 PM on July 27, 2005

The activity listings (unlike the "strictly platonic" ones) at craigslist worked for me too. I linked a few lectures, concerts, and other upcoming summer events I wanted to attend in mine and heard back from a few folks. One was a woman close to my age with similar interests, and we've been meeting almost weekly to hang out and do things we like. It's developed into a nice friendship and she is someone I'd like to keep in touch with after she leaves at the end of the year.
posted by PY at 7:24 PM on July 27, 2005

I have been on San Francisco-based Tribe.net since it launched two years ago. I have made many wonderful, wonderful women who I now count as my closest friends. They aren't local, but I'm so busy, it hardly matters. I've met several of them in real life, too.

Here's the thing. If you join interest tribes, and you put up cute pictures, you're going to get unsolicited interest from men (and sometimes women). It's just the nature of the beast. Tribe and sites like it always have ignore features that are very handy.

I'd also like to add that I met my boyfriend of almost 1 1/2 years on Tribe. We became friends first, and that lead to us sharing messages, and then eventually talking on the phone.

There are people that use Tribe like a dating site, but there are couple hundred thousand people there. You just have to experiment around a bit to find the people and the tribes that match what you're interested in. And let me recommend that you avoid any tribes that have more than about 100 people. It gets a little unwieldy.

All that said, Tribe is just one site of many like it. I just happen to know the most about it because I've been so active there.

I'll also add that I have met some women through blogging, although I haven't met any of them in real life... but one of my blogger friends in Paris (we both write a lot about food) has said I can stay with her if I visit there.

It's certainly possible. Good luck.
posted by abbyladybug at 7:36 PM on July 27, 2005

I thought the same thing as Jessamyn (in regards to the MLIS person), except for the Minneapolis connection. I moved to Minneapolis about 3 years ago, and have met 50% of my close friends online (Livejournal, specifically). I initially met most of them through a casual LJ gathering someone organized for their friends' list and then grew closer to specific people once I realized how much we had in common.

Meeting someone online doesn't have the stigma it used to -- I remember 10-12 years ago when my mother would be paranoid if I mentioned an "online friend." (Hell, I was even paranoid -- the internet was full of stalkers and murderers, don't you know!) I suggest joining Livejournal and finding the largest community for your city. You can comb through the list, click on names and see if anyone interests you, or just read the community for a while.

Good luck!
posted by Zosia Blue at 7:51 PM on July 27, 2005

Another vote for LJ. Here in Baltimore, there's a LJ group specificlaly for this. Twenty-something women who are looking to meet some new faces. We have a monthly "hons dinner" at a different place each time and it's a great, low-key way to meet some awesome ladies.
posted by amandaudoff at 8:25 PM on July 27, 2005

there's quite a few women on xanga who seem to have gotten acquainted through each other's blogs ... it's a friendly place ... the problem is, it takes awhile to find the adults there
posted by pyramid termite at 10:06 PM on July 27, 2005

I've met folks through online communities based around shared interests or shared geographical setting, mostly with friendships growing gradually over a long period of communicating in the group. I've also made a couple of friends by meeting other bi women through online dating: one I dated for a while and then we turned into friends; with another, it was clear to both of us on the first date that we weren't interested in each other "that way" but that it would be fun to hang out friend-wise. (This second situation won't be applicable for heteros, though, unless you want to lead someone on.)
posted by matildaben at 10:43 PM on July 27, 2005

I'll chip in with another vote for LJ. As well as looking for LJ groups in the area, check out LJ's interests thing - it lets you find people also interested in what you're interested in, and loads of people put their location in it. Check out other groups as well - yahoogroups might have something for your area.

It's easier to talk about other stuff then work out if you want to become friends than to say "Hey I need some friends I like X".

There are some people I met through usenet over 10 years ago who I still see fairly regularly.
posted by handee at 2:04 AM on July 28, 2005

And, did you get the job?
posted by handee at 2:06 AM on July 28, 2005

I've met a lot of female friends online through different communities. Many of them I've met on old-school telnet BBSes: Quartz, ISCA, Prism, etc. I've also met people from Livejournal and some other places. True, many of them don't live in the same area as I do, but it's nice to have people to see when I go somewhere.
posted by SisterHavana at 7:40 AM on July 28, 2005

Check out supernaturale.com.
posted by agregoli at 8:03 AM on July 28, 2005

When I lived in New York I met friends with a common interest in knitting and crochet through the message boards at getcrafty.com. We'd meet up every couple of weeks or so and hang out in coffee shops and work on projects. That eventually involved in members of the group hosting "naked lady" thrift parties, and sometimes group dinners. So yeah, I think it's easier to meet people through an activity and to start out by meeting in a group.
posted by MsMolly at 8:52 AM on July 28, 2005

PMJIH as a guy. It's generally hard for straight people to meet members of the same sex (or, I suppose, gay people to meet opposite-sex) without some excuse. The excuse can be a flimsy one, though and interest/activity groups generally fill the bill. Check out meetup.com (though it's for-fee now), tribe.net, etc. Find a local community of like-minded people and do something.

Curiously, when I was doing the whole Internet-dating thing, I learned that a number of women were checking out each others' profiles and forming a sort of ad-hoc community on the dating site--they'd do things socially.
posted by adamrice at 10:19 AM on July 28, 2005

I made a good friend via a messageboard about a shared interest. She was one of those posters who's thoughts I always found interesting and enjoyable, so we were delighted when we realized we lived in the same city.

We made a date to meet for lunch, and talking about our shared interest gave us a place to start, before moving on to jobs and SO's and other interests. It helped that we're both outgoing, talkative types, so there was never any awkwardness. It's weird to tell people, "Oh, we met online," but otherwise it's been great to have a new friend I have so much in common with.
posted by junkbox at 10:40 AM on July 28, 2005

I'd recommend message boards or groups based on a common interest over livejournal and/or myspace/friendster, personnally. It is definitely possible to make some new friends, but it will probably take some time. Meet in groups first, and then hang out with the people you click with. I met one of my really good female friends through a message board, and I ended up living with her for a year and becoming good friends with our other roommate as well. Hooray for the internet!
posted by jetskiaccidents at 10:51 AM on July 28, 2005

Ha, the interview went very well handee. I did not wear pantyhose and they asked me back for interview #2, but ultimately I decided that job wasn't for me (long hours working solo).

I had a different interview five days later (again, no pantyhose) and I got the job. I start on Monday. I suppose I'll make all sorts of new friends at my new job ;-)
posted by awegz at 6:00 PM on July 28, 2005

I have two real-life friends I met online. We met on The Knot, which is a site for people planning weddings, so we had something in common at the time. When we met IRL, we hit it off and became friends.
posted by suchatreat at 10:58 AM on August 7, 2005