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As a child there was no trick to making friends, it was very simple. My family moved to a new home when I was 6, just entering first grade, and the neighborhood kids automatically became my friends. It was like a logistical default of some sort. No effort had to be made at all. I rode my Big Wheel heading East on the side walk, 3 doors down another little girl rode her tricycle West, within moments our vehicles were upon each other and VOILA! Instant friendship. For the most part this pattern of simple success follows us through our entire schooling career. Elementary school, middle school, high school, and college; all virtual one-stop friend shops.

But now you have been released into the "real world" and things are much different here mi amigo. You've been funneled from a sea of candidates for potential friendship to a fishbowl crammed with a few meager prospects. Yes it is the "working world" of which I speak (she said with a shudder). No longer are the people surrounding you the same age, nor do they reside down the street or even on the next block. The friendship bonds for the first time in your life are not automatic.

Here is where my tale of caution and my words of sage advice shall be bestowed upon you. Take them for what you might think them worth:

Friendship is in nearly every way like a marriage. Effort is required on a perpetual and consistent basis from the moment of contact until the day that one of you stands at the Pearly Gates. The only fortunate difference is that an argument doesn't lead to one of you sleeping on the couch.

So you're an adult now! Time has gone by at your new job and you've weeded through the idiots, the blow-hards, the back-stabbers and the weasels. Rewarding relationships are on your horizon! Perhaps now there is a person, or a group of people, that you have established a rapport with...so what now? Is it good enough to gossip about your boss's rumored affair by the water cooler? Is that a "friendship"? I'm afraid not comrade. You've taken the time to get to know these co-workers, now it's time to make them your true cohorts. There must be contact outside of the work environment to truly intensify and establish your ties. So you go to the movies, you have a few drinks, and eventually this person or people know your deepest darkest secrets and you theirs. You will laugh and cry together at times until tears blind you. Now you are connected, there are no reservations or inhibitions; you are free to be as imperfect as you are.

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