Some of my friends have had the same problem with this, we found a kind of work around.

The way we do it is to meet up on a ventrillo server, or you could use steam chat. Or if its a local friend your mobile phone?

Then both get to the menu you before you join (in a public game of course) , the screen where you select which map you want to play on. then do a count down from 3, or whatever your desired number may be and both click on the map you want to play at the same time when you get to 1.

This has been the only way we have been able to play games together. Only downsides are you will get thrown into a public lobby with people who will be really rubbish and not listen to anything anyone has to say or youl end up in different lobbies in which case you can just leave and try again.

We normally get into the same lobby about 70% of the time. It can be hit and miss.

kan hende du har satt på "lobby closed"?. da kan ingen joine eller bli innvitert til lobbyen din