I welcome your feedback if you find this valuable.

Thanks.

Still, a yahoo group for my apartment building is an interesting idea. I’ve met several of my neighbors in passing (the laundry room is the best for that!) yet I’ve been in the building almost two years and don’t know any of their names.. and some I’ve never met at all.

I have recently made a new friend through a local biking club, and I think I’m going to try out a version of meetup. Volunteering also sounds good.. I just have to get off the couch!

And from personal experience, when a good friend moves on make the point of sending a few cute emails (or even a post card) after they’ve moved letting them know your thinking of them, even if you don’t keep it up, it will make their day. There is nothing worse than moving away and feeling like all your friends have dropped you like a hot potato. I don’t expect to be able to keep up but a few friendly emails after your gone make all the difference in the world.

Two months ago, I called the group leader to tell her I could not attend that meeting due to work commitments, however, my way home passed the meeting restaurant and I would stop in to say hello.

I was told by her in no uncertain terms that I was NOT “permitted” to come into the restaurant or join the group that night – - – I might want a cup of coffee or to sit down and, after all, I had not paid. This would cause all the other members great distress. I assured her I would not want a coffee nor would I sit down and that I believed being “distressed” over my visit was very petty.

Was I wrong not to return to the group, even tho I gave it time?

By the way, I am going back to volunteering.

I have lived in Indiana for 20 years now, and easily the best thing about it is the people. Folks here seem willing to go out of their way for you, and I appreciate that. While I do not belong to a church, I volunteer all the time in my kids’ schools and I have made DEAR friends. This has been a blessing when all my relatives were still back east. I feel that all my efforts at the schools are “paid back” tenfold… Volunteering is a GREAT way to build a network!

I live in Jersey City, directly across the river from Manhattan and sometimes I’ll walk my dogs around 6-7pm where I always see the Wall Street types getting off the ferry. One would think that these men and women take the ferry all the time together so I’m always surprised to see very few of them disembarking together, walking together to their cars. They make beelines to their cars solo and drive out of the lot as fast as they can to reach their homes and families in other parts of Jersey. I guess that comes with living in a such a big city.

On the other hand though, I just recently moved into a new high-rise building about 2 months ago and someone started a yahoo group for all of the unit owners. We’ve been “chatting” for almost a year now but finally a woman thought up the idea of all of us meeting in the lobby/waiting area last night to meet each other. I’d say about 15 people showed up and it was very nice. I thought it’d last for about an hour then everyone would go their separate ways.

Needless to say, I’m still recovering this morning from last night lol. We did split up to eat dinner but then about 8 of us regrouped later and walked to a local bar for some drinks. It was a really great experience and then on the way home, since less than a third of the building has moved in, we gave tours of each other’s units and even spied into units that are still under construction or haven’t been moved into yet (like the penthouses!). Great bonding and now I seem to have made some potentially good friends.

Networking can’t get any better than that.

Perhaps, I’ll bring them over some of Trents homemade bread sometime soon!

Regarding your second complaint – what kind of groups or meetups have you joined/attended?

Trent – I like the ideas you put out there. One thing I have found very rewarding is a language lesson swap.

I live in San Francisco, so for me it was easy to do. I put an ad in Craigslist to trade English lessons for another language lesson. You don’t need to be a teacher – often times people are just looking for someone to converse with and ask questions.

I learned a decent amount of Japanese that way, and for free. The truly rewarding part of the entire process was taking someone out for a meal who had never been to a restaurant before. Turns out, they did not know how to order from the menu.

At the time I found that odd, but when I travelled to Japan and went to a restaurant by myself, I knew exactly what my conversation partner was talking about.

I’m glad I made a little effort to meet some of my neighbors. It’s nice to shovel someone’s walk or brush off their car even when I don’t expect it in return. And if someone is watching out for my house when I’m on vacation and storing my packages, all the better.