How do you make new friends online these days?

chat.metafilter.com

I have the same issue, and was just thinking today about posting a question similar to this (but different enough that I'll likely still post it). I used to rely very heavily on LiveJournal to meet people in my area, but LJ is all but dead now. The people I meet there now are all over the place, of necessity -- fewer people are active than were before Facebook came and stole most of them away. meetup.com was good when I lived in a more populated area, but there don't seem to be any interesting meetups near where I now live. MetaFilter IRL events that are e-mailed to me seem to be concentrated in the Washington DC area which is usually at least a two hours' drive.

I used okcupid for a few months, and I noticed that a lot of people were on there because they were new to the area and were trying to meet people. I'm not new to my area but I've never been good at making friends, so I actually messaged a few girls explaining that I was trying to meet new female friends, and most of them were pretty open to the idea. I didn't end up pursuing any deep friendships, but when life settles down again, I might try it again. I actually like that idea more than meetup, because I tend to feel overwhelmed or awkward at meetup meetings, although that's more my own issues I need to work out.

So, do you want to keep the friendships just online? Or do you want to meet people online that you then also see in person? If the latter, I'd suggest checking out meetup.com or metafilter IRL. If only the former, I'd suggest a community based on one or more of your interests. I also like this site: surveycentral.org Yeah, nominally it exists for people to create and answer surveys, but in fact there is a pretty substantial "community" feel to it, with people who have been there for many years and who feel they know each other despite many never having met in person.

Twitter is also good for meeting people and hanging out without too much hassle.