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• If you don’t know any relatives, you could try the friend-of-a-friend route. Do you know someone who knew her that you are still in touch with and who may be easier to find?

• Any clue to the kind of work she is doing? Perhaps, you can find her through LinkedIn, a professional association, or the human resources office of her former place of employment.

Even better than digging: If you develop a blog or personal website, your old friends may come out of the woodwork looking for you. I was so delighted to hear from some of my childhood friends who serendipitously found me when I started to blog about friendship.

The practice of making friends of your friends’ friends can be tricky; you may inadvertently offend your original friend. Looked at through one lens, “friend poaching” or “social poaching” (as it is nicknamed) can be viewed as the ultimate betrayal, akin to “friend-napping.” Through another, it can be seen as a reasonable way of networking or making new friends through vetted introductions.

The key is to think about the consequences of what you are doing, to make sure it isn’t done behind your friend’s back, and to try to make efforts to be inclusive rather than exclusive.

“Our Mutual Friend,” a 2004 essay by Lucinda Rosenfeld in New York magazine, expressed the jealousy and hurt the author experienced after she had been poached. When she learned that her two friends were planning a ski trip together—without her—she felt excluded (even though she had no interest in skiing). It harked back to the days of junior high school.

I’ve been poached, too. I had two close friends, let’s call them Marcie and Hayley, whom I decided to introduce to one another. I knew they would instantly click because they had so much in common: neither worked outside the home, both loved competitive tennis, and had two kids around the same ages. It was a good hunch because they soon became best friends with each other as I drifted into the background.

Admittedly, the first time I bumped into them at Starbucks having coffee without me, I felt a bit strange and awkward, even hurt, but as soon as I regrouped mentally I realized that I didn’t have as much time or motivation to spend with either one of them as they did with each other. Now we get together as a threesome occasionally. Rosenfeld also found that being poached could be a blessing in disguise. Prior to the treachery, she had found herself in the unpleasant role of constantly ministering to one of the women who was needy and always crying on her shoulder. It gave her a way out.

With the booming popularity of social network sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, the ethics and etiquette of friend poaching may be turning upside down. In cyberspace, becoming a friend of a cyber-friend is not only socially acceptable, but is actually one of the raisons d’être of participation.

Being poached offline isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. Because friendships change over time, a friendship that is “stolen” may have long been gone. It may offer the poachee an opportunity to change, take a break from, or get rid of a friendship that was draining, all-consuming, or toxic in other ways.

For this reason, don’t feel guilty about poaching. Unlike family or marriage, friendships have no blood or legal ties; the good ones are totally voluntary relationships that enhance our lives. Feel guilty? Remember that your new friend has the free will to add, subtract, or realign her friendships.

One other caveat: friend poaching is unacceptable, and maybe even pathological, when an individual consistently tries to derail friendships and hurt people around her.

PREVENTING UNNECESSARY LOSSES

Given the fluidity of our lives, it is often challenging to hang on to female friends, no matter how long or how well two friends are connected. A relationship is at risk if two people lose the common ground between them, no longer being in the same place at the same time or sharing the same circle of intimates.

The past two generations