ii. read the magazine article below. six sentences have been removed from it. choose from the sentences a-f the one which best fits each gap. there are two extra sentences which you do not need to use. tired of talking to yourself? are you stuck at home or feel shy about going out on your own to meet new people? it's not hard to learn how to make friends online. first, scan the website. when you join an online community, it's smart to scan the site or "lurk" on (browse) the forums, comments and message boards. just like when you walk in the door of a social event, you want to feel the atmosphere or the place and find out how the people are interacting. you can tell from the comment conversations if these people will be the ones you can relate to or not. some online communities require that you sign up before you can read the boards or comments. you can do a little research about websites by reading reviews or reading the website itself to see if it might be a good match for your personality. identify users who share your interests. once you're signed up on a website, it's time to find users that you think might make good friends for you. the easiest place to start from is identifying others who share your interests. you can contact them immediately using the methods the website provides (such as clicking on their username to open a chat or clicking "new message" by their name). you can also copy and paste their name somewhere on your computer (or write it down) so that you can write a message to them later when you feel more comfortable. decide on a good username. even though you'll likely want to join more than one website — which means you'll be setting up several user accounts — you obviously want to be able to remember them all. creating a username that you can use across all the websites is useful for this. you may have to tweak the name for different sites but in general similar names will prevent you from getting confused. for example, myrajane might be in use, or myra_jane might be available. use a different password for each site to protect your identity. create a file on your computer (such as word or excel) and save all the username/ password combinations so that you don't have to keep resetting the them. be kind and polite. in your comments, don't be biased or rude. although you want to be able to express yourself, jumping into a conversation with your guns blazing makes people want to get away from you, especially if they disagree. instead, maintain a polite and kind tone — even when you do disagree — to avoid polarising the conversation and losing friends before you even start. don't personally attack anyone. online spaces are just as particular about this as real-life places. this fact is easy to forget on online, where you aren't seeing people's body language.

a) just like in real life, listening is a key for making online friendships. b) be open about your life when you are asked questions, because just like in real life, being shy will push most people away. c) save your passionate opinions for a one-to-one chat with someone who agrees or for forums specifically designated as a space for debate. d) if a website already has a user with the name you picked out, adding a number, letter or special character can usually allow you to still use that name. e) if you see a comment that someone left about how much they love football or baking, and you love that thing too, you may want to pursue friendship with that person. f) the internet is a great place to shake off your shyness, meet new people from around the world and form friendships with people who share your interests and passions.