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" When Carrie Stallwitz relocated to Houston from Kansas City four years ago, the 37-year-old says she had almost everything she could want: a solid marriage, two healthy young daughters, and a career as a freelance public relations consultant. So what could be missing? Well, close friends.  While she had a tight-knit group of pals back in Kansas City, Carrie has yet to find any girlfriends in her new town. &amp;quot;I miss that female connection,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Just being with my family doesn&amp;#039;t make me feel 100-percent complete.&amp;quot; And even though Carrie has found a few neighborhood pals, she still hasn&amp;#039;t found &amp;quot;the one&amp;quot; \u2014 a friend she feels truly at ease with and can confide in. &amp;quot;I want someone who could pop by on a Friday evening for a glass of wine, just to talk about our daily lives or the last episode of 24,&amp;quot; she says. For Carrie \u2014 and for many women \u2014 forging new adult friendships can feel as dreadful as dating. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like I haven&amp;#039;t felt that spark yet,&amp;quot; Carrie says. &amp;quot;And the times I have met someone who I think is cool, it feels awkward and pathetic to ask them to meet up, like I&amp;#039;m begging them to be my friend.&amp;quot;  But she hasn&amp;#039;t given up. After her daughter&amp;#039;s birthday party recently, Carrie decided to send out an email to the other moms who attended. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m inviting them to a wine night at my house,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m still plugging away. I think it takes work to cultivate new friendships.&amp;quot;  Carrie&amp;#039;s right: It does take work to find new best girlfriends. And it can feel especially tough when you&amp;#039;re juggling your career and your family and you no longer have the luxury of aimlessly hanging out with people for hours like you did when you were younger. But if you&amp;#039;re willing to reach out, you can find a new partner in crime. The stories you&amp;#039;ll read over the next few pages are proof \u2014 these 13 women all found a best friend (or two!), long after leaving high school. Let them inspire you to do some soul mate-searching of your own.  &amp;quot;She read my blog.&amp;quot; Lori MacGregor, 32, marketing director; Nicole Blum, 34, line producer; Los Angeles  Lori MacGregor had some acquaintances in Los Angeles when she moved there a few years ago, but no close friends. And while her social calendar quickly filled up with invites for lunch and coffee, it wasn&amp;#039;t until about five months after her move that she realized she needed more meaningful relationships, friends she could count on in an emergency. &amp;quot;I was washing dishes and I cut my hand \u2014 deeply \u2014 on a glass,&amp;quot; says Lori. &amp;quot;I had no idea where the nearest ER was, or how I would get there. And I didn&amp;#039;t feel like I knew anyone well enough to ask for help.&amp;quot; Up until that point, she says, &amp;quot;everything had kind of been a vacation, still new and exciting. And then all of a sudden I realized: This was life.&amp;quot;  She soon found her makeshift family in L.A., thanks to a blog she&amp;#039;d started on a whim \u2014 a place to write about her new life in Los Angeles. About a year after she moved to L.A., other local bloggers started leaving comments on her posts and emailing about what she&amp;#039;d written; most of them were also single women in their late 20s. One night in February 2007, after a series of &amp;quot;We should meet in person!&amp;quot; messages, the women got together at a local bar. &amp;quot;With blogs, you really get involved in people&amp;#039;s lives and begin to feel like you know each other,&amp;quot; says Lori. &amp;quot;So I didn&amp;#039;t view the meet-up as just another drink with strangers but, rather, a chance to put faces to the names of people I already knew.&amp;quot;  Nicole Blum was one of those people. At the group&amp;#039;s second meet-up, at Nicole&amp;#039;s house a few weeks later, the two women clicked. &amp;quot;We had the same dry, sarcastic sense of humor,&amp;quot; says Lori. &amp;quot;And she had a spark that I connected to.&amp;quot; They made plans to hang out alone, and soon were regularly going out for brunch and after-work drinks. &amp;quot;She became both a partner in crime and a big sister,&amp;quot; says Lori. Nicole invited her along to parties and brought soup to Lori when she was sick. Now, two years later, Lori says that their friendship is &amp;quot;less about what we have in common and more that our lives are intertwined.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;She picked me up.&amp;quot; Kristen Kayross, 26, financial reports officer; Sarah Cook, 27, dental hygienist; Austin, TX  Kristen: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d been living in Austin for a year with my 4-year-old son, but I still didn&amp;#039;t have any close girlfriends. Then one day, in September 2007, I went to a concert. I met Sarah at that show \u2014 she and her friend were standing right in front of me, and her friend was dancing wildly and kept bumping into me. Each time, Sarah would turn around and apologize. I told her I didn&amp;#039;t mind; we were all there to have fun. Finally, Sarah introduced herself, and after the show we started talking about where we lived in town. We really hit it off. She&amp;#039;d just moved to town too, and we both said we needed to meet more people, so we exchanged numbers. I had no idea if I&amp;#039;d see her again; I just thought, She seems great, it&amp;#039;d be fun to hang out. Later that night she called me, and we made plans for that week. If she&amp;#039;d waited longer to call, we might have forgotten about each other. But that was a year ago, and now we&amp;#039;re inseparable. We have dinner once a week, hang out on weekends, and talk on the phone every day.&amp;quot; Sarah: &amp;quot;At the concert, I remember thinking, Wow, this girl is so cool \u2014 she doesn&amp;#039;t mind at all that my friend is invading her space! Kristen and I connected right away. My memory is a little different, though \u2014 after the concert, she called me first; I remember being surprised that she actually followed up. I think we both felt casual about it, like there was no pressure since we didn&amp;#039;t know each other well yet. But when we had dinner that week, it felt like we&amp;#039;d known each other forever.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I sought her out on MySpace.&amp;quot; Irisa Najera, 27, account coordinator; Andrea Enciso, 28, patient access representative; Austin, TX  Irisa: &amp;quot;Three years ago, I&amp;#039;d just moved back to my hometown of Austin from New York. I&amp;#039;d assumed I would pick up where I&amp;#039;d left off with my high school friends, but most of them had either gotten married or moved away, so I didn&amp;#039;t have anyone in my same situation \u2014 single and professional \u2014 to hang out with. After spending a bunch of weekends alone when I first got here, I thought, Okay, that&amp;#039;s enough \u2014 I have to make new friends! &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d never used my MySpace profile for anything other than messaging with existing friends. Then I spotted Andrea on a mutual friend&amp;#039;s page. She lived in Austin, was the same age, also Hispanic, and into outdoor activities and concerts, just like me. She seemed more like a professional than someone who just wanted to go out and party. Back in New York, I&amp;#039;d constantly networked for my job, so it didn&amp;#039;t feel awkward to write her a note. I figured, What have I got to lose? I messaged her out of the blue \u2014 saying that I&amp;#039;d seen her on our friend&amp;#039;s profile and it seemed like we had a lot in common \u2014 and she actually wrote back, which honestly surprised me. Someone else might have thought, Who&amp;#039;s this random stranger emailing me? But I think it&amp;#039;s because she was new in town too and also looking for friends. We started to email about our jobs and what we liked to do around Austin. &amp;quot;Three months later she invited me to meet her in person at a softball game, and we just hit it off. After that, she&amp;#039;d ask me to join her and her boyfriend when they went out, and I&amp;#039;d invite her along to work events. We both love to see live bands and check out new movies and restaurants, and we&amp;#039;re both really close to our families. We always joke that if one of us were a guy, we&amp;#039;d be the perfect couple! She&amp;#039;s the closest thing I have to a sister; now we even live together as roommates.&amp;quot;  Andrea: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always been kind of shy, and I work long hours, so even though I&amp;#039;d moved to Austin four years before Irisa emailed me through MySpace, I still hadn&amp;#039;t made a lot of close female friends. My friends from work are all a bit older than me and married with kids; I didn&amp;#039;t have many single women my age to hang out with. I remember being impressed that Irisa felt confident enough to send me a message, even though we&amp;#039;d never met. We started talking back and forth. She asked me about my job and where I lived and what I did for fun; it felt a little like online dating!  &amp;quot;After talking over email for about three months, one of us finally said, &amp;#039;Okay, let&amp;#039;s meet up.&amp;#039; I had Saturday plans to see a friend play softball, so I invited her to watch it with me \u2014 just like with online dating, I felt like it was safer to meet in public first. We had a great time hanging out, and from there it just evolved. We&amp;#039;re both passionate and opinionated, and because she&amp;#039;s more outgoing, she&amp;#039;s helped me come out of my shell. I&amp;#039;m so grateful she came along; I was starting to feel so lonely here and discouraged that I hadn&amp;#039;t found any close friends. I think of her as equal to one of my sisters. And yes, we do joke that we&amp;#039;d be the perfect couple!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I joined a gym to find a friend.&amp;quot;  Kate Lichter, 39, meeting planner; Debbie Bedell, 49, business owner; Naperville, IL  When Kate Lichter quit her job as a meeting planner in 2005 to freelance from home, she felt lost without her office pals. &amp;quot;I remember sitting at my mom&amp;#039;s house one night, nearly in tears, telling her that I needed to make some new friends,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t have anyone to talk to about work or family \u2014 it was like living in a vacuum! My husband tried to be supportive, but sometimes I needed to vent about him \u2014 and then I was out of luck.&amp;quot; Where could she meet new women? She remembered the yoga conference she&amp;#039;d recently planned for her job; those women had all seemed to befriend one another. Maybe something like that would work for her, she thought. So even though Kate had never exercised before, she joined the local gym \u2014 it would break up her day, help keep her fit, and possibly introduce her to new girlfriends.  Kate loved how the changing room was full of supportive women. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;d pump each other up, complimenting each other on our increased strength or weight loss,&amp;quot; she says. In kickboxing class, she met Debbie Bedell \u2014 who&amp;#039;d also recently started her own business. The two women quickly realized they had a lot in common: They&amp;#039;re both moms, and they both run their companies from home. Today, after two years of workout dates, says Kate, &amp;quot;I feel like I can tell Debbie anything. We&amp;#039;ve kept our friendship to just us girls; we haven&amp;#039;t brought our husbands and kids into it.&amp;quot; They can talk freely about what&amp;#039;s going on in both their personal lives and their business lives, she says, &amp;quot;and I know that there&amp;#039;s someone who can go beyond just listening and sympathizing \u2014 who really relates and understands.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I joined a club \u2014 and found two new friends.&amp;quot; Kimberly Pepper, 40, PR consultant, Virginia Beach, VA; Nora Young, 42, actuary, Chicago; Nina Young, 42, paralegal, Seattle  Kimberly: &amp;quot;Eight years ago, I was working 70- to 90-hour weeks at my marketing job in Seattle. I had no time for a boyfriend, but when I did have some free time, I wanted to get out of the house. So I joined a singles &amp;#039;events and adventures&amp;#039; club, which planned everything from going to museums to white-water rafting. Nora was in the club too; we met during a dancing night at a local bar. I was trying to avoid this annoyingly flirtatious guy and sat down next to Nora to escape. &amp;#039;I saw you trying to get away,&amp;#039; she laughed. We both cracked up, and from there we started talking about men and our jobs and our lives in Seattle. We gravitated toward each other during the next few group events, and then we started hanging out on our own. If we went out to a bar, we usually found different men appealing, and I&amp;#039;d be her wing-woman \u2014 I can easily chat up anyone, so I could get her talking to the guy she thought was cute. &amp;quot;After a few months, Nora and I became so close that we started to feel like sisters \u2014 and in her family, that&amp;#039;s a package deal: She has an identical twin, Nina. Nina welcomed me too; I joined their standing Saturday-morning brunch date, and we&amp;#039;d go shopping and see movies and go to bars together, to catch up and to flirt with guys \u2014 until I got married a few years ago, we were all pretty much single together. We call ourselves the Redhead Brigade; I even laugh with their parents about being the &amp;#039;lost triplet.&amp;#039; Our joke is that we&amp;#039;ll be 76 together and in three matching rocking chairs. Whenever we get into arguments, I&amp;#039;ll yell out, &amp;#039;Seventy-six!&amp;#039; and we just dissolve into hysterics.  &amp;quot;When I decided I needed to escape for a while and headed off to Ireland for two years, Nora and Nina supported me wholeheartedly; we talked multiple times a week. They were my rocks.  &amp;quot;Now, Nora and I have both moved from Seattle, but we still talk every few days, and the three of us make sure that we get together at least two to three times a year. My life wouldn&amp;#039;t be complete without them.&amp;quot; Nora: &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know if it&amp;#039;s because we both have red hair, but I took to Kim right away; she&amp;#039;s so fun and bubbly. My sister, Nina, and I are pretty inseparable \u2014 we finish each other&amp;#039;s sentences and have a sort of sixth sense when it comes to what we&amp;#039;re thinking and feeling \u2014 but it felt natural for Kim to join us; I knew Nina would love her too. It was only a matter of months before Kim joined Nina and me during our weekend brunches and when we went out shopping. Now Kim&amp;#039;s a part of our family. Our relationship feels like a constant in my life \u2014 we talk almost every day, even about inconsequential things, and we&amp;#039;ve got our ridiculous inside jokes that make us howl with laughter. I know they&amp;#039;ll both always have my back, no matter what.&amp;quot; Nina: &amp;quot;When I met Kim, it was instantly easy to see why Nora liked her so much: She&amp;#039;s so positive, she&amp;#039;s a ton of fun to be around, she has an infectious laugh, and she&amp;#039;s incredibly loyal and concerned about those around her. Even though she&amp;#039;s closer to Nora and they talk more often, Kim and I have our own special relationship too; when we do catch up, it&amp;#039;s like we haven&amp;#039;t been out of touch at all. Of course, Nina and I are so close \u2014 we think alike, and there&amp;#039;s that unconditional family loyalty. But when Nora left Seattle, Kim and I hung out alone a lot; she really is like our long-lost sister.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I asked my friends to set me up.&amp;quot; Wendy Goldstein Pierce, 41, publicist, Boston; Millie Dayton, 37, teacher, Palm Beach, FL  Before Wendy Pierce took a year off from work to give birth to her first child eight years ago, she had an active social life, regularly meeting up with friends from her job and her charity work around Boston. But after she had Jack, Wendy yearned for a different kind of friend \u2014 someone with whom she could share her newborn&amp;#039;s ups and downs, someone to answer her &amp;quot;Does your kid do this?&amp;quot; questions. Her existing friends either didn&amp;#039;t have children or their kids were older. &amp;quot;My friends just didn&amp;#039;t want to hear about whether Jack was pooping or not,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;In the arena of parenting, I felt alone.&amp;quot;  So she sent an email to about 15 of her friends. &amp;quot;I said, &amp;#039;Everyone has to introduce me to someone who&amp;#039;s pregnant or has a new baby,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; recalls Wendy. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t really know what to expect; I was just looking for women to help me fill my days and to share these experiences with.&amp;quot; From that initial email, she collected names of some other women and formed a new-moms group. Coincidentally, one of the women in the group, Millie Dayton, lived just around the corner and had a son four weeks older than Wendy&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;At one of our group meetings, Millie and I agreed to meet at the neighborhood playground the next day,&amp;quot; Wendy recalls. Soon the two were seeing each other almost every day. &amp;quot;Millie and I had such similar instinctive parenting styles \u2014 from what we fed our babies to how we disciplined \u2014 and I think that&amp;#039;s what solidified our friendship,&amp;quot; says Wendy. &amp;quot;Those first few years of being a mom really felt magical, because I had someone I trusted to share all the details with.&amp;quot; After she had her second baby, Millie and her family moved to Florida, but she and Wendy still email or call every few weeks, and their families visit each other every year. &amp;quot;Our friendship has expanded beyond just having kids in common,&amp;quot; says Wendy. &amp;quot;We still talk about our kids, but now we also talk about our work and marriages, our mutual friends, and caring for our aging parents. The connection is still completely there.&amp;quot; Finding Her Ready to seek out your new best friend? Try one of these fresh ideas. Throw: a dinner party, a cocktail party, a wine tasting, a poker night. Invite neighbors, coworkers, or other parents from your kid&amp;#039;s school \u2014 and ask each guest to bring along someone from outside the circle.  Join: a book club, a knitting circle, your neighborhood&amp;#039;s newcomers group. Check out meetup.com, a social-networking site geared to &amp;quot;offline&amp;quot; activities for groups in your area. Or start one yourself. Love movies? Ask a few women you&amp;#039;d like to get to know better to see a Sunday matinee.  Volunteer:in your community, in your city, or with a specific group, such as special-needs children or seniors. Perhaps there&amp;#039;s a community garden that needs tending. Just be sure to choose a group activity \u2014 not something you&amp;#039;d do on your own. Check out volunteermatch.org to get started, or consider joining the Junior League. (Find your local chapter at ajli.org.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/friends-family/how-to/a4828/make-friends-as-an-adult-old/>