Missed connections?

I'm still not sure how it works.... this whole friendship, love, relationships deal.

I guess what I'm wondering about these days is how a potential "connection" can be so wildly different for two people in the same situation. After working on following my New Years resolution to make on average one new friend a day, I've been led in so many different directions its hard to really understand whats going on.

I decided that maybe just "a new person" wasn't all that would count..... for YEARS I've been known as, well... a bit of a talker.... and yeah, I still am! I just downright can't shut up sometimes! I thought that in addition to meeting totally new people, I could spend some time with acquaintances, drinking buddies, even friends I just haven't really caught up with in a while. Ask them some more questions, let them lead the conversations, and do as much listening, understanding and thinking (in silence) as possible.

At almost 8 and half months into the year I've found 3 things:

1) Meeting new people isn't nearly as hard as you think it is!
2) Once given the chance to speak, you'd be AMAZED how much some people really have to say.
3) Peoples views of the world around them, the same one you're in, can be so incredibly different that it never ceases to amaze me.

Another lesson I seem to be learning over and over again, from both sides of the disaster, is this phenomenon I keep referring to as "missed connections". Not like the one's on Craig's List where you see the beautiful girl from across the street and don't have the balls to go say hi, or the girl of your dreams suddenly appears on the opposite metro platform and, like a scene in a movie, is gone by the time you can run over there.

This is much more of a timing and perception issue. Maybe its because of how simply amazed I am at human nature combined with my picky-ness and total lack of a normal span of attention. (Whoever said everyone grows out of ADD either never really had, or is just crazy!) I've spent a ton of time socializing and working to foster some of these relationships into better friendships with more understanding, more emotion and most importantly more trust. You'd be amazed how attractive it is to just find someone that can speak without interruption and hold my attention for hours at a time. Its rare, refreshing and wonderfully motivating.

Am I kidding myself? Maybe I'm just masking my embarrassment in admitting that I'm 31 years old, single, building a career, life, and future all the while wondering when "that girl" is finally going to show up. I've caught myself really developing serious interest in someone I set out to merely add to my life as a new face, a new story and hopefully after some hours of conversations, drinks and good times.... add some new life lessons and some new great stories along with it.

Here, is where it starts to get dangerous. I've found it VERY hard to distinguish between my quest to be a better friend and my never ending parallel quest for the ideal relationship. The question I have left unanswered at this point is: What's so different? What makes a "relationship" so different from a "friendship"? Is it love, faith, physical attraction, comfort, lust, loyalty or respect? Is it that one of those emotions exist in one and not in the other? or is just the level of all of them combined is more in a relationship then a friendship?

If meeting people is easy, finding new friends is too. Its falling in love that seems to be so damn hard. Will I continue to fall for the wrong person at the wrong time?

Hell, if it happens to me, is it happening to them too? Are they *MY* missed connections, or *OUR* missed connections?