My situation looks quite a bit like yours, though for entirely different reasons. I too rarely go out of my house and to an outside observer it probably appears that I have no friends. What I have found over the years is that most people don't want the type of friendship that I am interested in having. I am not looking for companionship or someone to 'hang out' with in a friend; I'm looking for someone that I can call at three o' clock in the morning, say 'I need you now' and they ask no questions and are at my door in 10 minutes. Those people are few and far between.

Oftentimes you hear stories in which someone says, "When something like this happens to you, you really find out who your friends are" I don't want to find out then and so I vet my friends well before I choose them. I'd rather be alone than with people that I can't count on because those 'friends' end up causing more heartache in the long run.

Anyway, I guess my point is this: True friends are hard to come by but so worth it. They are worth waiting for. Most people will sell out their wish for a true friend to just have someone around so they aren't lonely. When I meet those people and see them engaging in a superficial relationship with their 'friends' I pass them by cause I don't want superficial in my life.

Okay, so how do you make a friend... that's hard to describe. I will say this, people are used to having superficial relationships but they yearn for something more. Most people are afraid to bring their authentic self to the table bacause they're afraid people won't lik them if they really know who they are. They wear masks and take a layer off occasionally but still they hide. What I have found, for me, is that when I am open with people - they latch on. People try to relate to one another - they are looking for a connection. If you greet them with superficiality they respond in kind. It's a connection, but a weak one. If you don't have any other connections to another human being, you might settle for that - if you have other connections that are stronger, you let this one go.

For instance, I met a woman the other day who is in a similar situation (we both have spouses in prison). We were having coffee and she told me that she sometimes worries about her husband. I shared a very personal story that spoke about my own fears surrounding my wifes situation and the sleeplessness and nightmares that it had caused. As I said, it was very personal. She immediately tried to relate by sharing something very personal about her own life and fears. I countered by sharing where those fears had come from for me, sharing a portion of my childhood and the abuse I lived through. She blinked. Then she shared her own abuse history. And so on and so on.

When I got home I had two e-mails from her. The first talked about how much she enjoyed the coffee meeting and how it felt so good to share, the second was to tell me that she wasn't sure the first e-mail got the point across strongly enough. That it was like I knew more about her than anyone else in the world after one meeting. It was my own candidness that got her to open up. She wanted a connection with someone and I made it easy by taking off my masks and allowing her to do so too in a nonjudgmental environment. People are reluctant to let such a connection go.

And so here it is in a nutshell, at least for me. Share honestly and openly, listen nonjudmentally and try to understand the person, not the facade. Accept them. Good luck.