I get up at 7:00 a.m., put coffee in the machine, feed the cat, then the dog, and head downstairs to my home office. I hold conference calls, prepare power points, and analyze the monthly budget all in the comfort of my pajamas … with un-brushed teeth.

Where do you start when you have to start over? I had to figure that one out by trial and error, and some of what I learned surprised me.

Less than a decade ago, most people preferred to say they’d met a significant other at a bar rather than admit to having found someone special online. Today, the convenience of picking and choosing potential dates from the comfort of home has become so accepted that one in five new committed relationships (including marriage) are between people who met through a dating website. Job hunting using just the newspaper want ads is all but unthinkable. More and more of us make career connections and reconnect with old friends on websites like LindedIn and Facebook. Still, there is sometimes hesitation about taking the next logical step and connecting with like-minded, similarly interested, potential friends through a friendship networking site. The question is, why?

Kay and Joan – they were both total B’s: best friends, bridesmaids, book club members, and … oops, seems that only one of them was actually a boss. In fact, turns out that Kay was now Joan’s boss. Yikes!

This article started as a way to address women and their feelings of isolation, but as I spent time with the topic, I kept coming back to the words “connect” and “connection.” Connecting, I thought, is the opposite of isolation, and if it’s the opposite, then surely it’s also the solution. One study I read suggested that the opposite of isolation is belonging—that to no longer feel isolated, one must feel a sense of belonging.

It took two years and a dog for me to finally meet my neighbors.

As soon as we moved to our first house, I began an evening ritual: to walk the neighborhood, rain or shine. Enjoying the quiet suburban streets, wondering what happened to sidewalks and stepping onto the nearest lawn when a car (or, let's face it, a truck--I live in the South and people like their trucks) got too close.