Asking her if she wanted to be friends was awkward. Embarrassing. On a scale of one to ten, it fell somewhere between spinach in the teeth and accidentally texting an ex. It was akin to passing gas in church or bouncing a daycare check.
The only other woman at the meeting for new employees was a rare breed: a woman I instantly connected with. She was smart, smarter than I am. She dressed stylishly without a hint of materialism or snobbishness. She probably wouldn’t judge me for watching The Bachelor, I thought. But I shouldn’t tell her about The People’s Court.
I’d moved back to my hometown to get married, and in the five years I’d been gone most of my friends had moved away. In the past I hadn’t had trouble making friends, but suddenly I found myself in between single gal and mommy. In college there were roommates and sorority sisters, classmates and coworkers my age. Things in common weren’t hard to find, especially over a pitcher of cheap beer.
But in the years since, friends had spread out across the country in search of themselves. Some had married. Some were coupled up like me. Some had chosen to pursue grad school, and others were on their way up the corporate ladder. No matter where we were in our lives, it seemed that girlfriends had been pushed to the back burner and other priorities stood out in front.
I missed it.
As teenagers we were inseparable. The kind of friends that travel in herds, slinking out of bedroom windows, coming to each other’s rescue. We were a wild tribe of blood sisters, howling at the moon.
I’ve cherished other friendships, stood up in other weddings, held other women’s chubby-legged babies. But I’d never again have friends like the girls I grew up with. And sure, we’d stayed in touch, but there was still something…missing.
One day I realized that there was no one local who I could just call.
The friend to see the silly romantic comedy with, both of you knowing it’ll end with kissing and a triumphant song by “The Supremes.”
The friend to get a manicure with on a Saturday afternoon.
The friend to approve my thrown-together outfit for the fancy work affair.
In a late night conversation with my brand new husband, I admitted a secret I’d been holding in my heart: that I didn’t want him to be my best friend. I missed the companionship that only girls can provide, the raw honesty when you need it, the white lies when you don’t. The intuition, the phone calls, the borrowing of earrings and the trading of truths.
It sounds like you need to find some friends, he said.
And with that, I made it a mission. I was going to recruit a new tribe, not to replace the old one, of course, but to move into this new stage of life with me.
The woman at the new employee orientation was just the beginning. Sure, it was awkward asking if she’d like to meet for coffee sometime. Yes, I felt like I was asking her out on a date.
But I did it. And I’m so glad I took that step.
Even if it ranked up there with realizing toilet paper was stuck to my shoe.
Curvy Girl Guide Contributor, Mary Lauren Weimer, is a social worker turned mother turned writer. Her blog, My 3 Little Birds, encourages moms to put down the baby books for a moment and write their own stories. Find her on Facebook.
Loved this post Mary Lauren! I can totally relate. I’ve moved a lot in my adult life and am always nervous about making new friends. My old friends already know I’m totally awkward and snort when I laugh and they accept me for that. but then again my old friends got to be my old friends when I met them new when I moved wherever I was going.
Oh, yes. I do understand. The internet is a wonderful tool for finding like-minded friends, but I’ve longed for years for the kind of friend who is always on the other end of the phone, a friend who is like family. I think that’s harder to find nowadays. People seem to be so busy that they don’t have time for real friends. 99% of the time I am the one making all the effort to sustain relationships and that gets old.
I can relate to this too. Not only have many of my girlfriends moved away, but those that are still around are all married and/or have babies. This has been a bit of a barrier for me because as a single girl, I don’t want to always be around couples or feel like I’m the childless woman in a mom group.
Recently, though, I’ve reached out to a few girls in my neighborhood. Yes, they are all married and have kids too, but we’ve been planning and hosting all sorts of “girls’ nights” recently, and we’re having so much fun! We take nightly walks once the kids are in bed, and we try to get together at least once a week just us girls. It’s nice to feel like I have a community of women in my life again. There’s just something about hanging out with the girls that men can never replace.
It seems that since my husband and I married, that I have missed out on building friendships with women (except with the new family members–I have a great sister-in-law). Its not that he doesn’t let me, it just seems that there is so much other stuff that I need to do. I have no kids, but my husband is kinda a homebody. We have lived in a small town (10,000) for about a year, and there are a lot of retirees. We are in our late 30s The next town over (12 miles away) has many more people, but it is a college town and so everyone is in their early 20s. I have joined the quilting guild just to get some female companionship, but the other women are all in their 60s or older. I finally found a friend my age, and the hubby doesn’t like her hubby. But that’s okay. It just means that I get her to myself….
YES! Making girlfriends as an adult is hard. We aren’t able to mold ourselves to our girlfriends as well as we could when we were teens, and we don’t have the time to spend in cult-like devotion to one another. Plus, I’m weird. My awkward teenage sense of humor has bloomed into full-blown impropriety, and lots of women I meet aren’t into that. But all men are. Which means I get along very well with men. Which creates resentment in women. Which then perpetuates the cycle of difficulty in making female friends. Honestly, most of the female friends I have, I’ve had since high school. It’s just easier, and we live close enough to home that it works most of the time. They know my back story better, and they “get” me.
I am currently in the process of moving to a new city (I have been everywhere, but one place for more than a few weeks for the past 6 months) and miss my friends terribly. I work from home and don’t have any children so I have no idea how I am even going to meet people to ask to be my friend in this new city. Gym maybe? At least maybe I will fit into my summer jeans that way.
About 7 years ago I moved away from the only home I’d ever known with my husband. I managed to make two girlfriends, the three of us could hang out in any combination of 2 or 3. Our husbands all liked each other and hung out too. We could do things as couples! This month we moved again. I left them all behind, now I start the daunting task of once again making local friends. It’s so hard but bravo to you for making the move, I hope I’ll get a chance to do the same soon.
I moved to Israel about 2 years ago- and Ive made work friends, but not friends I can just go see a movie with. That makes me sad. I totally relate. Great post!
I’m loving reading these comments. It sounds like many of us have felt this way. It helps to know when you have a shared experience, huh?
Thank you all for taking the time to read my post : )
Exactly this. I read a book recently called MWF seeking BFF and it chronicles one woman’s rather methodical attempt at finding new friends. It was a fun and interesting read and has helped me relax more around new people. Trying to find a new friend is a lot like asking women out on dates and just like dates, sometimes it works, sometimes it works for a little while and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Since reading that book, I’ve joined one book club and two women-only fitness groups through meetup.com. I’ve also reconnected with some friends I’ve had for a while but we drifted apart due to job changes and scheduling issues.
I moved back to the town I went to high school in after spending four years away at college and returned to a ghost town. Everyone has moved away. Six years later and I’m still having trouble making friends with other women in the area. I totally relate to this post.
I also suspect that one reason I can’t make friends is because I continue to spell my name wrong. Geez.
I would totally still be friends with you. One of my friends ended up with her nickname because she so consistently spells her name wrong when she’s signing off on emails
While I didn’t move around, I had a pretty crippling social anxiety disorder that saw me change friends and situations a lot. I laugh at my the facebook account because I’m sure I pissed off 95 percent of the people on there at least twice before I got medicated and regulated.
It’s easy to relate to this if you’ve went away to college and changed (like I did).
well written
My three closest friends all moved away this year. That sucked. I have many other friends, but none that I’m close to. To make matters even weirder, my husband and I seem to be in some sort of weird transitional phase where couples our age already have kids, whereas we don’t (okay, I guess that’s kind of off the subject of girlfriends, but you get my point).
Funny how finding new friends is a form of courting…be on your best behavior and wear your cutest outfit. Now if only you had a close friend to help you chose said outfit.
Yeah I totally don’t have friends cause I’m socially awkward and don’t know how to make them. I do have one “best” friend that lives close, but other than that, the rest live all over the country; from Maine to Oregon. The girls I grew up with live like 40 miles away, but they all say I’ve changed. Whatevs.
When I asked my “best friend” to hang out for the first time, it felt like I was asking her for a date…and when she said no the first time, it was super awkward.
Sometimes I feel like such a loser, because I have no friends – my situation is pretty similar to what you’ve written here. I’ve made an effort to make friends at work and grad school, to no avail. there were a couple of people with potential, but they apparently just weren’t that into me.
I’ve pretty much given up on making friends here. Not in a “that’s so sad” type of way … we’re going to be moving to a different state sometime after May 2013, and I’ll just have to start the friend train all over again when we get there.
Oh, but what I meant to say was …
Thanks for posting this. It makes me feel like less of a loser now. I thought I was the only person experiencing this!
Oh, this is so painfully true. Especially the part about missing those friendships.
It’s not any easier when you’re single…at least, it isn’t for me. But then, I’ve never had an easy time making friends, or not since I was 11 or so. Being friendly? Yes. But real friendships are hard and take time for me, especially when you don’t have that enforced closeness that school gives you.
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