My friends and I use IM a lot, plus email and even Skype. Since many of my friends are scattered geographically that seems to work best.

We also make weekend visits, and host friends for the weekend. We like visiting them because they're in the city, so we can do "city" stuff, and they like it because we're in the country and they can do "country" stuff.

I'm also trying to reconnect with old aquantances that live local to me but I'm not social with anymore for no reason other than drift.

Email is key, so is text msg. Free long dist on the cell helps also. I only have a hand full of close friends. Im not the social butterfly type. So meaningless conversation drives me away from the phone. We keep in touch then usually plan a long weekend to visit. We're pretty open about visiting. My friends can come and go as they please. If they showed up at the airport and called from out of the blue. I'd pick em up no questions asked. As long as they respect my place and continue to love my kids things are golden. They are the same way.

my friends and i plan to go to dinner together without wives and girlfriends once every month or so and then hit the bars for an evening of debaucary (nothing too scandoulous). wife is happy to let me go.

Seems like once you move even 50-100 miles away, it gets damm difficult, plus bringing a spouse into the game can complicate things.

We had one friend who completely dropped out of sight, went into depression or someting.

You just gotta make the effort.

I'd love to do that with my friends. Unfortunatly most of my friends live a couple hours away. Working on changing that though by getting to know more people where I now live.

I'm the guy who moved out of state (+100 miles), and who now works 2 hours from home. Been that way for over 13 years.

My 10 year old is in Cub Scouting, so I know several of the dads, but I can't say any of them are 'friends'.

About the same as me then (I'm an hour away from work).

We did the Scouting thing (my son eventually earned his Eagle) and that's a good way to meet folks. We didn't have any close friends in the program, but it kept us busy.

I'm in Rotary now, same as scouts - no close friends, but I am getting to know more people.

I guess the thing to do is to just keep plugging away and see what happens.

It's tougher to make close friends as you get older. We become less energetic, less willing to give our time to others, less tolerant of others' differences while at the same time more unusual.

People rarely get better with age; some do, but not many. Most become impatient, self-righteous, less tolerant and unhappy. Not all, but most. IMO.

What is Skype?

Software that allows you to do voice communications via the computer. You can, for instance, get a Skype phone number, or make/recieve calls on your PC from phones. Kind of like Voice over IP (VoIP) meets voice chat.

> I'm in Rotary now, same as scouts - no close friends,
> but I am getting to know more people.
>
> I guess the thing to do is to just keep plugging away
> and see what happens.

Kudos to your son reaching Eagle....(I made Life, myself)

When I think back, I never had that many truly close friends. Lots of buddies, but hardly any friends.

I've been the Cub Scout Den Leader for 4 years; come February, my oldest boy and his Den cross over to Troop. I will likely keep my hands inside Scouting to some degree, but I am looking forward to stepping back for a few years. The younger son, 3, will be up for Cub Scouts in when he's 6, so I imagine it'll start all over again.

The overall point is that I don't mind not having any real friends... I won't turn down an opportunity to make friends with people, but I don't think there's a need for an effort.

Oh yeah, cool. So you don't have to use the keyboard, just speak and your message appears as email?
I've been thinking about getting some voice recognition software, so that I can talk to the computer and have word processor product. Do you know if this type of product is very efficient these days? I watch the TV on Mute at the bank sometimes, and there are always glaring errors in the script which is taken from the voices of the people pictured. I have held off on this kind of software because it just doesn't seem to be very efficient. Any tips? Thanks

The overall point is that I don't mind not having any real friends... I won't turn down an opportunity to make friends with people, but I don't think there's a need for an effort.

Well, I was in KC on business this week and called up a buddy of mine (one of the few who still live here). Turns out he has season tickets for KU basketball and invited me along for a game (against Florida Atlantic).

Had a great time, and hopefully we can do more stuff in the future.