How to make friends ONLINE.

[Zerox]

Now, I have a pretty good understanding of psychology (I'm no expert on the subject but done my fair share of research)
And while I don't find it too difficult to engage in conversations in real life.
(Finding the interesting people is the hard part. I may be picky but most seem so unaware of anything.)

I spend most of my time at home, online. (While I'm working fully on fixing this I do believe having friends would be nice too)
Since I'm broke I cant go do.. anything. Anything at all! (Let's not get into getting a job, just ignore that)

And it's also to satisfy my curiosity and desire to know as much as possible.

How do you make friends online?
I mean, on forums. You chat, you post your opinion or help or whatever. And that's it but you don't make friends from it. (I don't anyway)
On sites like myspace, facebook (Although I just cant figure facebook out...)And similar community pages the only option is to PM people.

Personally, I think getting a PM from someone I don't know is a bit intimidating. My immediate reaction or thought is "What does this person want from me?" And I get cautious. And it's from my experience that most people react the same way. [It's the internet, OH NOES big scary pervs!]

So, are there any ways to make friends online? What works? What doesn't work? How do you not come off as some attention seeking needy person?

Real life and online are completely different. This is my opinion based on my experiences. I'm not that old yet, but I have been online since I can remember.

[runningbird]

I went to a gathering once through a certain website where anyone with over 100 posts was invited. You could try to just set up a gathering in a central place near your hometown ... like a camp out or something. Its not like you need to be the center of attention.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Zerox

Real life and online are completely different. This is my opinion based on my experiences. I'm not that old yet, but I have been online since I can remember.

Not in my experience. The friendships I made online happened pretty much in the same way as IRL ones. You post to answer someone, they'll answer you, a conversation starts. If you get good vibes and feel common interests or mindsets from that conversation, you'll remember the person in a positive way and want to answer their future posts more often than those of other random posters. Private jokes are born, you feel at ease writing in a more relaxed manner to that person - you're not afraid they'll misinterpret your humour, for instance. Hopefully you can tell if it is all mutual ; then PM, email, chat and, if the circumstances are right, IRL meetings don't seem creepy.
It's a bit more tricky through blogs, because you are a lone commenter among others, and can feel that you know the blog author really well when they barely have an idea of who you are. If you are mutual blog readers though (ie. they read and comment on yours too), it can work really well and really fast.

I have formed friendships online that became real-life friendships, I have formed OL friendships that never lead to anything IRL, I have maintained and developped IRL friendships online when I couldn't see the person IRL anymore (that happens a lot when you live around the world like me!) All this to say that online relationships can be as real and strong as real-life ones and are based on roughly similar social skills.

[Eric Roosevelt]

Most people you get along with online, you'll get along with in real life as well. At least intellectually. There could still be other compatibility issues which only show themselves when you're face to face.