When none of your friends are online or you’re tired of chatting about the same old stuff, try finding someone else to talk to. Talking to a random stranger can bring exciting variety. Besides, you never know whom you might run into.

Should your chat partner turn out to be an idiot or plain boring, you can quickly, but politely end the conversation and move on to another random stranger. No reason to feel guilty. The internet is full of interesting people. NEXT!

Here are a few websites to get you started.

[Editor's note: Please exercise caution when conversing with strangers online.]

Omegle

Omegle is very simple and straightforward site with online free chat rooms to meet strangers. All you do is click the “Start a chat” button and the site will pick another user at random and match you up for a chat. If you are not happy with your match, disconnect and start a new conversation.

It may take a couple of tries until you find someone interesting to talk to. However, if you take all of the failed attempts with a grain of salt, you’ll see that there is a lot of humor in this activity. Be original.

OnlyChat

OnlyChat is different from Omegle in that you can specify your gender and choose with what gender you would like to be matched for a chat. Also, if a conversation was disconnected, you’re automatically thrown into the next one.

I mostly ran into teenagers. This one was from Latvia. With only 131 users online I was matched with him twice.

AnybodyOutThere

Here we have the most advanced site to match you up with a random stranger. You have 110 characters to express what’s on your mind: Post a thought, topic or question and start talking. The site will then compile a list of potential chat partners. Based on their own message and eventually a short profile you can click the “Let’s Talk” button and hope your pick will accept.

Before the conversation opens, you have to select a nickname for yourself.

A new conversation will open in a tab. You can always go back to the results page and pick another chatter. You can have as many tabs open as you like and eventually someone will want to chat with you. If you want to add someone to your contacts or vote for them, you must sign up. But up until then, signing up is optional.

While the other services were fun, this one was the first to result in a good conversation. And if you meet someone you would like to talk to again, you can sign up, add them to your contacts, and vote for them.

I have tried a few other services. The problem with all of them was that apparently the number of users isn’t very high and so it took forever to find a chat partner. You may still want to give them a spin.

At RandomChat you can select the languages you speak and you might find someone to chat with in your native language or a tandem partner to practice a foreign language with. Blabngo is similar to ChatOnly. Apart from finding a random chat partner, you can also create an online free chat room, protect it with a password, and invite people to join it. At iddin you can chat with anybody or someone from a specific country. Once you’re in a conversation, you can easily exchange pictures through a photo sharing box next to the chat window.

Tworl was previously mentioned in my article about Top 7 Things To Do Online When You’re Bored. You can select age range, gender, and chat client of your potential chat partner. The site only serves as a matchmaker and the conversation will be redirected to the respective chat client.

Did you ever have a good or even better, a hilarious conversation with a random chat partner? Let’s hear the details!

Image credit: mzacha, miamiamia