The Internet. Admit it, the internet is a fantastic invention. Without the internet you would not be reading this. It's a great source for all kinds of information. Including friendship.

I have been online for about 8 years now. In those 8 years, I have met a huge variety of people. Some were very good and some were VERY bad.

You have to watch out for those bad ones. They can be rude, crude and socially unacceptable and for very good reasons. I have talked to many who turned out to be nothing but nasty old men. YUCK! Of course, if you want to talk to these types of people then have a blast because there are tons of them online.

I, on the other hand, wanted to talk to people more interesting and similar to myself. I started searching the internet for�topics that interested and pertained to my life as a wife and stay at home mother. Parenting, Family, Marriage, Womens Issues. There were so many places to visit online. It was had to choose which ones to visit first.

I finally found several places on the internet focused on the subjects that interested me. My very first place was an "Expecting Club" message board. This is a message board for women who are pregnant and are due to give birth in the same month. Our month was July 2000. Since I was pregnant with our second daughter at that time, this was the perfect place for me. I could talk to women going through many of the same things that I was going through. And boy did we talk about it all.

We all had a great time. We gave birth to our babies and then we became a "Playgroup". Through these past 7 years our group has changed sites several times for our message board. We have lost some members, gained some members, had some HUGE farguements and some small disagreements but the Playgroup is still together and going strong.

Some people broke off to create new message boards also. That gave me more message boards to visit and even more new people to meet. It's fun when a friend of a friend becomes a friend of your's. It's a big wide world out there full of potential friends.

That brings me up to 3 years ago. The hubby and I were trying to conceive our third child. It always takes us a while to get pregnant, due to fertility issuses, so off I went to search the internet for ways to speed up the process.

This internet search brought me to a very popular fertility charting website. It had message boards full of all kinds of different people. Some were crazy but most were very sane. I met up with a few very interesting and friendly ladies who were also trying to conceive their babies while dealing with fertility issues of their own.

Over 3 years there were many moves to different message board locations, many fights, many pregnancies, some losses, many births, loads of happy daily events and then MORE pregnancies. These ladies are my "sisters". We have all been through so many life changing events together. They are there with a shoulder to cry on during the bad times and they are there to share your joy during the great times. You can't get much closer than discussing your fertility, sex life and how many home pregnancy tests you have peed on in a 24 hour time period. Not to mention the discussions we've had that I probably shouldn't mention here on a very public place. -Haha!

I've met an online friend or two in person. It was so great to put a face with an online name. Of course we shared photos of each other but it's just not the same as seeing this person you've known for years in real life. You measure up each other and see if you can spot the same personality that you know online. It's very exciting! There are still many others I would love to meet in person also. I have formed lasting friendships that just keep evolving into bigger and better things. I hope we are all friends forever.

If you are interested in making friends online then I suggest searching the internet for things that interest you. Once you find places you like, just jump right in and start posting. Don't be bashful. No one can get to know you like that. Most people will welcome you with open arms.

Get out there! Make some lifelong friends and, most importantly, have fun while you're doing it!