I am facing an interesting problem for the first time in my life. I have absolutely no bloomin' idea how to make friends. I am 27 years old (I'll be 28 in just a couple of weeks), and all of my friends have kind of been handed to me on a silver platter. Let me explain.
When you are a little kid, as I once was, you are automatically friends with anyone who lives on your street or any of your parents' friends' children. It is a given. Let's call it friendship by proximity. There isn't much to friendship at that point. Do you like to play outside? Do you like barbies? Do you like cartoons? Cool. Let's be friends. Early friendships in life are easy to come by. Or at least I assume so. I guess I don't really remember that part of my life clearly, so I could be romanticizing what it is to be 3 years old. And, if you don't have real life friends, I'm pretty sure those of the imaginary variety are even easier to make.
When you start school, you become friends with the kids in your class. If you go to the same school from 1st grade through high school graduation, like I did, you often know the same circle of people from beginning to end. You spend quite a bit of time with them, you live near them, you have something in common - you go to the same school, you are both children/teenagers, etc - so you are friends.
Then you go to college. Once again, you often become friends with the "kids" in your class. There are a few awkward days before class starts where you make your temporary friends. You all know what I am talking about. These are the people who would not be your first choice for friends, but you don't have any friends yet, so you make do with the temporary friends until you connect with the people you like better. Then you don't have to pretend to like the original, temporary college friends anymore because you get to hang out with people who you actually like a lot better. It's okay though. Your temporary friends felt the same way and have moved on to their new friends, so no feelings are hurt. While I did have some first week friends at college who I never really made an effort to hang out with ever again, I would see them on campus and they became friends of friends, so I would talk to them from time to time. I guess we always had the first week of college in common. While I did make temporary friends, I also had the benefit of a couple of friends from high school going to my college, so I knew people right from the start.
After college, I went to graduate school. I didn't even have an awkward time where I made temporary friends before classes started for 2 reasons. 1.) My best friend just happened to apply to the same graduate school program as me, so we both moved to Columbus to go to OSU, and 2.) I went to Europe between college and graduate school, and had about 12 hours between when my flight landed back in the US and my grad school orientation. So I may not have had any friends for those 12 hours, other than the friend I brought with me, but that quickly changed.
I changed graduate programs after a couple of years. During graduate program 1 I had made friends, joined a church where I also made friends, and had gotten married. When I started graduate program 2, I not only got to keep my old friends, but I also made new friends. That is pretty much awesomesauce when it comes to making friends.
But now my dilemma: I have been living in Pittsburgh for 2 months now and I don't really have any friends here of which to speak and I don't know how to make friends. I'm not really sad about this - I keep pretty busy with Gwen and Keith, and I talk to my family every few days on the phone. I also talk to friends from other parts of the country from time to time. I'm just stating a fact that I am at a loss for how a grown-up stay-at-home mom makes friends.
I know I will make friends when we pick a church, but we haven't liked the churches that we have tried. Keith and his colleagues are way too busy to hang out outside of work, so I have only met them a couple of times and I couldn't tell you the name of any of their significant others. We joined the CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association), but have only been to one event, and are unsure of the next time we will see any of those people. I put Gwen in Gymboree so I could at least see other grown-ups a few times a week. I have made some progress in meeting some other mommies, but it is one of those things that takes time to get to know people, especially when people attend classes on a hit-or-miss basis. I don't want to be the creepy person who meets someone once, asks them for their phone number, and then calls them 30 minutes later to see if they want to get coffee (that is a good way to get your phone number blocked).
Really, what I need is some sort of mommy dating service. You make an online account and can make dates with other mommies in your area. You can match in 29 areas of compatibility: child's age, nap time, coffee drinker vs. non coffee drinker, etc. I read about something like this in Baby Talk magazine, and now I could kick myself for not writing down the web address. (Note: if anyone knows what I am talking about and did write down the web address, I would appreciate it if you could share it with me - I think it was in the January issue).
I've just got to say that I am thankful that I met and married Keith while in school. Now I know why so many love stories start with "We met in a bar" or "We met online." Because once you become a real, grown-up person, especially a grown-up person without a job, the playing field becomes a whole lot smaller for dating and friendship.
When you are a little kid, as I once was, you are automatically friends with anyone who lives on your street or any of your parents' friends' children. It is a given. Let's call it friendship by proximity. There isn't much to friendship at that point. Do you like to play outside? Do you like barbies? Do you like cartoons? Cool. Let's be friends. Early friendships in life are easy to come by. Or at least I assume so. I guess I don't really remember that part of my life clearly, so I could be romanticizing what it is to be 3 years old. And, if you don't have real life friends, I'm pretty sure those of the imaginary variety are even easier to make.
When you start school, you become friends with the kids in your class. If you go to the same school from 1st grade through high school graduation, like I did, you often know the same circle of people from beginning to end. You spend quite a bit of time with them, you live near them, you have something in common - you go to the same school, you are both children/teenagers, etc - so you are friends.
Then you go to college. Once again, you often become friends with the "kids" in your class. There are a few awkward days before class starts where you make your temporary friends. You all know what I am talking about. These are the people who would not be your first choice for friends, but you don't have any friends yet, so you make do with the temporary friends until you connect with the people you like better. Then you don't have to pretend to like the original, temporary college friends anymore because you get to hang out with people who you actually like a lot better. It's okay though. Your temporary friends felt the same way and have moved on to their new friends, so no feelings are hurt. While I did have some first week friends at college who I never really made an effort to hang out with ever again, I would see them on campus and they became friends of friends, so I would talk to them from time to time. I guess we always had the first week of college in common. While I did make temporary friends, I also had the benefit of a couple of friends from high school going to my college, so I knew people right from the start.
After college, I went to graduate school. I didn't even have an awkward time where I made temporary friends before classes started for 2 reasons. 1.) My best friend just happened to apply to the same graduate school program as me, so we both moved to Columbus to go to OSU, and 2.) I went to Europe between college and graduate school, and had about 12 hours between when my flight landed back in the US and my grad school orientation. So I may not have had any friends for those 12 hours, other than the friend I brought with me, but that quickly changed.
I changed graduate programs after a couple of years. During graduate program 1 I had made friends, joined a church where I also made friends, and had gotten married. When I started graduate program 2, I not only got to keep my old friends, but I also made new friends. That is pretty much awesomesauce when it comes to making friends.
But now my dilemma: I have been living in Pittsburgh for 2 months now and I don't really have any friends here of which to speak and I don't know how to make friends. I'm not really sad about this - I keep pretty busy with Gwen and Keith, and I talk to my family every few days on the phone. I also talk to friends from other parts of the country from time to time. I'm just stating a fact that I am at a loss for how a grown-up stay-at-home mom makes friends.
I know I will make friends when we pick a church, but we haven't liked the churches that we have tried. Keith and his colleagues are way too busy to hang out outside of work, so I have only met them a couple of times and I couldn't tell you the name of any of their significant others. We joined the CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association), but have only been to one event, and are unsure of the next time we will see any of those people. I put Gwen in Gymboree so I could at least see other grown-ups a few times a week. I have made some progress in meeting some other mommies, but it is one of those things that takes time to get to know people, especially when people attend classes on a hit-or-miss basis. I don't want to be the creepy person who meets someone once, asks them for their phone number, and then calls them 30 minutes later to see if they want to get coffee (that is a good way to get your phone number blocked).
Really, what I need is some sort of mommy dating service. You make an online account and can make dates with other mommies in your area. You can match in 29 areas of compatibility: child's age, nap time, coffee drinker vs. non coffee drinker, etc. I read about something like this in Baby Talk magazine, and now I could kick myself for not writing down the web address. (Note: if anyone knows what I am talking about and did write down the web address, I would appreciate it if you could share it with me - I think it was in the January issue).
I've just got to say that I am thankful that I met and married Keith while in school. Now I know why so many love stories start with "We met in a bar" or "We met online." Because once you become a real, grown-up person, especially a grown-up person without a job, the playing field becomes a whole lot smaller for dating and friendship.
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