Do you find it easy to make conversation with new people you’ve just met? Or does the thought of trying to make conversation with someone new make you break out in a cold sweat?

If you don’t feel comfortable making casual conversation with new people you have just met, you will find it harder to make new friends. You will also find it more difficult to fit in at your work place.

One of the most common reasons that people have difficulty making conversation with someone they don’t know very well is because they put too much pressure on themselves.

They think they have to really put up a great performance to impress the other person. They don’t just let themselves just be ordinary, and talk about fairly ordinary things.

Depression can be a very lonely illness and your relationships are a key part of how you cope with your depression. You need friends for support. Not just good weather friends but friends who can support you when you’re down. If one of these friends is also depressed it is not necessarily a bad thing. You can understand each other and perhaps be there on each other’s bad days (but not if you’re having a bad time at the same time). However, you need to be conscious when choosing sexual partners that your depression will have altered you as a person. It is likely that the person you get together with when depressed will not be the person you want to be with when you are better. When you are depressed you are a different person – you may not even know who you really are – but your partner will be with the person you are at that time. Also, depression alters your view of the world and therefore your view of other people, so your view of your partner will not be the same when you are better.

In my counseling work, I often work with clients who have a deep fear of commitment. These individuals generally say that they want to be in a loving relationship, yet they keep picking “the wrong people.”

Susan, 38, sought my help because she was in two relationships at the same time. This didn’t feel right to her, so she knew that she had to make a choice. Yet she could not seem to decide which relationship was right for her.

Susan had been in a relationship with Shawn for two years. Shawn, 43, was a delightful man, fun loving and sweet. However, Shawn would emotionally disappear for long periods of time, and he was clear that he did not want children – which was very important to Susan. In addition, Shawn was always living on the edge financially.

A profile is an online representation of yourself so why not represent the best parts of you? There are four areas of a profile that you should keep in mind: honesty, creativity, research, writing. By mastering these areas, you will be able to write an excellent and self-elevating profile that can capture anyone's attention.

Part One: Honesty

Always be honest with the readers of your profile; remember that you and the others on the site are searching for that special someone--how can a relationship grow when there is deceit from the beginning?

Speak candidly about who you are and what you are looking for. Then, at least you will know that, when someone messages you, they are genuinely interested. Putting up a pretense will only summon people who are interested in your lies; this will not build a solid relationship.

Falling for a friend is nothing out of the ordinary. Falling for a friend can happen quite often, especially between two people that share a lot of things in common with each other.

Friends usually spend a lot of time together. Friends often do the same things together. Commonality is the main reason people become friends. However there are times when too much familiarity can be mistaken for something more.

This type of situation happens mainly between friends of different gender. Kindness and friendly affection can easily be confused with feelings of love. Quite often, women are the ones that fall prey to this attraction. However many men have also been in the same situation.

You walk into a bar. You survey the place and instantly you catch someone looking at you. So, naturally, you look at that someone too. It is only later that you find out that both of you have actually caught each other’s eyes. So what is the next best thing to do?

Do not be afraid. Having confidence in yourself will make it a lot easy for those from the opposite sex to notice and take a second look at you. Eye contact is just one of the many ways to attract an equally eager would-be friend or special friend.

It is good to take note though that direct eye contact is very important to establish that would-be initial romantic moment and spark an on-going – who knows? – romantic relationship.

Christine Hancock

Okay. I’ll take a look, but I’m not saying that I’m going to participate in online dating just yet. I’ve heard the success stories and the horror stories about online dating, but I do not have any first hand experience to share with you on the topic.

What I plan to do in this article is take you with me while I explore the different online dating services available on the web. Brace yourself and buckle your seatbelt, I’m going to try something I saw in a cartoon.

Just kidding. That’s something I like to say to the passengers in my car just before I start to drive. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m having dating problems in the first place.

Dr. Dennis W. Neder

When you set up early dates (first, second, etc.) with a woman, do you schedule it for the end of the week or the beginning? Evening or afternoon? Here are some ideas that will help you make this choice:

Weekend evening dates (Friday, Saturday): these are the west's most common dating time. They are also the most common hunting time. The reason for this is that most people are ending their work or school week and want to blow off some steam. Further, since they don't have to work or go to school the next day, it's often easier to stay out late at night. Likewise, we learned early-on that we had to be in early on "school nights".

William Martin

Some of the advice given out by various relationship experts does not work. Some of us have found ourselves apparently 'failing' to follow their advice and then wondering, 'What am I doing wrong'. But, it is the advice which is flawed not us.

Often the advice makes a basic assumption about human nature that I believe misses the point. If the basic assumption is wrong then the advice won't work; no matter how clever, insightful or helpful it may seem.

A lot of advice I've come across makes the assumption that what blocks people creating good relationships is lack confidence of some kind. While there is some truth in this, the advice goes astray after that. They assume this is down to some kind of 'fear', or ‘nervousness’. They assume 'shyness' is just a form of fear. That is simply not true.

Jeff Rose

Relationships and marriages are seldom easy all the time. No matter how perfect a relationship is, your and your partner are bound to hit some bumps, or long stretches where you have trouble of some kind. If you meet a couple that seems to have no problems getting along, it could be that they discovered a simple little secret early in their relationship. Simply, show love and affecting in tons of little ways, and don't save it for just those big times when things are going badly, or you need to apologize for something major.

On your way home, why not stop and pick some wildflowers for your wife (or girlfriend if you're not married) from the side of the road. Maybe she had a hard day at work, maybe the kids have been driving her nuts, or perhaps you've both been a little less intimate recently. Picture it now, she's at home frazzled and expecting you to come in, and then you arrive with a big bunch of wildflowers you picked JUST FOR HER; you will have made her day no matter how bad (or good) it had been. It's like a second chance to start fresh with one small, yet powerful gesture.