By Pattie Mihalik

newsgirl@comcast.net

After I wrote a column about the new era of relationships, I got an email from a reader saying I left out one important thing in my column.

“You talk about seniors who found new partners late in life but you never said where they went to meet those partners,” she wrote.

Thinking about the women I wrote about in that column, I realized they met their new love interest in a variety of places.

One met at a grief counseling group. One met by going to a community band concert. And two others met because of the Internet.

One used a dating site and the other one went to a meetup group after seeing it promoted on a local social media site.

In my subsequent emails back and forth with the woman who responded to my relationship column, she said she doesn’t use her computer for much besides email. That was after I told her to search the Internet for meetup opportunities in her area. If she doesn’t use the Internet to find more social opportunities or more local groups she might want to join, she’s limited.

I think that’s called if you don’t get up to bat, you’ll never get a hit.

Then a close friend of mine who hasn’t recovered from the loss of her husband three years said she was “dying of loneliness.” She too wants to meet new friends or even a special interest guy.

Because she lives in Florida for some of the time, I could direct her to Internet sites that list all the social opportunities in our area. What I can’t do is give her the courage to show up at one of them. But I’m working on it.

She’s coming here next week and I’m hoping to introduce her to the ladies who run some of the best social opportunities in our area. We’ll see how that goes.

The area in which I live abounds in social opportunities. That’s because we have a well-oiled machine we call our community Facebook site. It lists everything going on in the community — all the clubs, special groups, hobby opportunities and meetup opportunities.

Last year Rotonda got a new meeting center that offers ongoing classes and activities five days a week. That also helps people find new friends.

All that didn’t exist when I moved here. I had to do it the old-fashioned way — through trial and error.

What I did is use our local newspaper to find clubs and activities I might like. I figured I would also meet new friends that way.

Some of those activities were duds. I didn’t like the activity and no one stayed around before or after class to talk.

But joining two kayak clubs worked for me. I certainly met like-minded people and enjoyed all the kayaking I got to do. Truth be told, the president of one of the clubs and I had a special interest in each other. We married two years after we met.

I now find there are so many social opportunities in my Rotonda development that I can’t do half of them.

I like the monthly ladies breakfast because it’s a smaller crowd and it’s easier to get to know the women there.

Ironically, that group only came about because of one woman who said she was “too intimidated” to join in the big gatherings. In fact, she and her husband came to one of the potluck dinners but didn’t stay.

“There were too many people,” she said, “and everyone seemed to know each other.” They left without talking to anyone except Diane, one of the women on the committee.

Diane took to heart what she said about the big crowd being too intimidating for some newcomers.

That’s why Diane started the monthly ladies breakfasts, keeping the event much smaller.

Diane is an extraordinarily social being and is super helpful to boot.

When the woman told Diane she wouldn’t have enough nerve to walk into the breakfast alone, Diane personally drove her then introduced her to some of the women.

I think what happened next goes under the “you can lead a horse to water” category but you can’t make it drink.

The woman sat there not making an effort to talk to anyone. When someone asked her where she was from, she didn’t respond by asking the same of them.

She told Diane she was “moving back home” because no one was friendly here.

With all this as I background, I spent the last ladies breakfast asking women how they made friends after they moved here.

They all said they joined the social groups and went to some of the activities they found on the internet. In no time at all, they each found a social circle that interested them.

While it’s easy to make friends here, you still have to make the effort.

“You gotta put yourself out there and reach out to others,” stressed one woman. Another woman who claims to be shy added: “And sometimes you have to push your comfort level a bit.”

All agreed the way not to find new friends is to sit at home. No one will break down your door offering friendships.

Diane summed it up perfectly in this way: “You have to realize you are responsible for your own happiness.”

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.