I don’t have a lot of friends. I have two, maybe three, people I consider friends and none of them live close to me. They are all an airplane ride away.
I do think that my definition of friend is fairly limited, though. For me, a friend is someone that I can call up and not have a reason for the phone call. There is one woman I work with that I’m just getting to the point where I would feel comfortable asking if she wanted to go to a movie with me. I’ve known her for five years, and she subbed for me while I was on maternity leave. I’ve roomed with her in hotels at conferences, and we’re going to do a 12K walk/run in May. But, it still feels like I’m presuming too much to call her a friend. That’s pretty ridiculous, considering she’s the friendliest person I know.
This is really part of my personality. I’ve always only had one or two friends at a time. I’ve always been a bit of a loner and I was very shy as a child. I don’t strike up conversations with strangers and I feel awkward and uncomfortable when they initiate conversation with me. I hate small talk. I want my interactions with people to be real, to mean something, and talking just to fill space doesn’t make sense to me.
I do have acquaintances and I’d hang out with every person I work with. In fact, when we get together, we have an amazing time. But, are they my friends? Eh, not exactly.
It’s just so complicated now that I’m older. I don’t have tons of opportunities to meet people. I had hoped that I might get to know one of LouLa’s friend’s moms. Some of them are very nice, but there is high school clique behaviors that I just don’t have the time or energy for. What is with grown women acting like that? Ick.
I guess I’ll continue hanging out with my family and wearing pajama pants all weekend. It sounds just fine, actually.
(This post is brought to you by Kate’s Carnival. Check it out.)
You know, I was exactly like that… until I forced myself to get active in the PTA at my son’s school. I couldn’t get past the high school clique-ish stuff either. But I wound up meeting a group of women that today I would practically give my life for. We have been together for roughly 12 years now, through divorces, kids growing up and leaving for college, (many were in preschool when we started) second careers, cancers, etc. We are all so different, that you would never in a million years think we were friends, but that’s exactly what we are. We still get together for a couple of hours once a week. How the conversations have changed. But what hasn’t is the support we all have for each other. It’s nice to know that they’re there. Hang in there.
Comment by Andi — March 18, 2009 @ 6:59 pm |
It’s interesting, I have that same difficulty giving in and calling someone a friend. It’s like this innate fear of rejection, or something – like I’ll call them a friend and they’ll give me some sort of look (quizzical, frustrated, turned off, something) and I’ll realize, “Crap. Misread that one.”
So I don’t have a lot of friends, and I deeply appreciate the ones I do have – especially those within driving distance. I’ve had precisely zero success in creating and maintaining a friendship with any of my kids’ friends’ moms. It’s just so much work, somehow – and I never made friends easily as a kid, so it’s not like it has really gotten harder. There are just fewer opportunities to screw it up (or imagine I am) as an adult.
Comment by Kate — March 18, 2009 @ 9:34 pm |