All alone, all alone, all by myself

I read Beth's blog entry about wanting to make friends, and I guess I'm in much the same situation. The thing is, though, that being largely alone doesn't bother me as much as it used to. When I was in college, everyone else seemed to have friends, and while I hung around with people, going to the cafeteria with them and such, I never really felt that close to anyone. The fact that other people around me seemed to have more friends than I did, and hence to be happier than I was, made me jealous. Nowadays, I don't see as many people hanging out with their friends, so I don't feel as much need to compare myself to others in this respect, so I just don't think of it all that much. Besides, I have Beth, and I'm very close to her. I do sometimes find myself wishing I could meet new people, but I have no idea how to go about it, in either the online or the offline world. I guess the most success I had meeting people was on the TMBG off-topic list, which is where I met Beth, as well as Colleen and Jamal, whom I've actually met and hung around with, and several other people I've never met in person, but I still communicate with online. But I didn't join that list with the express intention of making friends; that was a pleasant but unexpected outcome. I'm not the kind of person who feels comfortable going somewhere or doing something (on the Internet or otherwise) just to meet people. I'm signed up for Friendster, but the only people I've communicated with through that were ones I already knew. Besides, I'm too shy, scared, and worried to just start talking to someone I don't know. To get technical about it, I guess I don't want to MEET new people; rather, I'd like to already KNOW more people than I do now, but I realize that's not possible. Like I said, my inability to make friends hasn't bothered me much as of late, but I sometimes feel that it would be nice to have more people to talk to.