Every woman needs a good friend. Someone she can tell her troubles to, laugh with, ask to babysit her kids and most importantly, someone to share popcorn with at the latest chick flick. Since all women are so busy with their careers, family and/or school obligations, many of us have turned to online friendships to fill the void that success-driven/time-deprived women face each day – the loss of the BFF.

BFF is “Best Friend Forever,” a term you may remember from Junior High that is rampantly popular on online social networking sites, especially among women (and teenagers, but we won’t savor that connection just yet). For example, my BFF lives 1,000 miles away, so my contact with her is pretty limited and we just don’t get to hang out without an airport security check interrupting our fun. I work online, I go to school online and I have a slew of children in my home that make it nearly impossible to join an activity IRL (In Real Life).

When you’re sitting in front of your computer at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, daydreaming about what the weekend could hold if you had a PIC (Partner In Crime) with which to entertain yourself, you may wonder how to meet someone special to share your life with (who doesn’t want to feel you up). Its time to friendship network! Forums, blogs and social networking sites (like Alpha Women!) are great places to meet women and men with similar interests. You can define your own interests by selecting an online forum and meet like-minded people there. If you’re feeling extra ambitious, you can stalk, I mean, butter up a blog writer who’s work you find interesting (not that I’m taking applications or anything *hint*) or put an ad on a classifieds site.

If you’re really serious about friendships (or lazy, depending on your view) you can join sites that specifically cater to friendship matchmaking. They’re much like dating sites, only they try to find platonic relationships based on interests, location, age, etc. The downside to these is that you will invariably be hit upon or asked to join a chain letter.

The paradox of any online relationship is that you can live a completely different life under the guise of Internet anonymity and impress dozens, if not hundreds of unsuspecting people with your fictional skills and life. On the other hand, there is an intimacy that is given to any relationship where you can sit in your jammies and discuss politics, hair care or past life regressions. You have to be ready to meet some real freaks, but also, some really fabulous people, as well, and those fabulous people can translate into actual BFFs, IRL.

Al Gore didn’t invent the Internets for business, after all, he invented them so we’d all have a basis of communication that brings us closer together in our careers, families and friendships. Go make some friends!