Who Needs Friends When You Have Kids?

I've written before about how difficult it can be to make new friends once you become an adult, and how it's even harder for stay-at-home moms.

It's now two years after that initial friendship post and unfortunately, not much has changed on the friend front. In fact, things are even worse. While I've made exactly ZERO new real friends in the past two years, at least two of my mommy friends have moved away...to a different school district, maybe, or a different county, a different state.

Luckily, my kids are now two years older and therefore much better conversationalists. They are my new(ish) friends! And if I want adult conversation, I have my DH to turn to. Pathetic? (Well, honestly, they are way more fun than most of the people around here anyway.)

My husband encourages me to be friendlier and more outgoing. He does this because he knows I wouldn't mind having more friends. He wants me to be happy.

But it's not as if I can change my whole personality. Right? I mean, people don't actually manage to toss off their introverted tendencies and become outgoing types with suddenly packed social calendars, do they?

And it's not like I'm horribly lonely or wallowing in self-pity: I love my life, I'm happy. I don't think about my lack of friends on a daily basis.

Probably because I actually do have lots and lots of friends. Tons! They just aren't local. They are pals from childhood, high school, college, my 20's. They live in Chicago, Seattle, England, Israel, Australia, and so on and so forth. They are scattered around the world--pretty much everywhere except within 30 miles of my house.

I rarely (never?) see my far-flung friends. We don't speak on the phone. Hell, we don't even email anymore. It's come down to the occasional Facebook comment or message.

With some of my "friends," if you break down our communication over the past few decades years, it boils down to the equivalent of "LOL" or " :-) ."

My friendships have been reduced to emoticons and acronyms.

These are the people I used to spend HOURS talking to--either on the phone when we were teens, in our dorm during college, or over coffee (or beers) in the city during our single days.

Yeah, it's sorta sad. But it's also life. I'm pretty much okay with it.

People move on. Priorities change. It's not just about us anymore. No one has time for hours-long conversations anymore.

And discussing ad nauseum the strengths and weaknesses of your and your friends' children will JUST NEVER EVER be as exciting as dissecting what it could have possibly meant when Johnny looked at you in 10th-grade social studies class. Sigh.

What to do?

For now I'll just bitch about it in my blog.

Good Friends Are Like Stars...

...you don't always see them, but you know they are always there. -- Confucius

We went up to Massachusetts to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year. While there, I decided to help my parents by clearing out some of my old junk--stuff that's been cluttering up their space for the twenty years that they've lived in the house. The two nightstand drawers in my old room were crammed with letters from the late eighties and early nineties--these were my college years when I would go back home over school breaks and summer vacations.

I've been going through the letters slowly, trying to decipher my friends' almost-illegible scrawl. My goal was to throw out most of the letters, but yet keep a representative sample that would sum up the place and time, as well as each friend's individual personality.

A large proportion of the letters were from my freshman year at college. I guess this is because my old high school friends and I had yet to form any close friendships with kids at college, so we were, understandably, clinging to our former lives. 

Summer of '88: Me and a few friends, back together
 after our freshman year of college.

As I read through the letters, I wasn't surprised by all the mentions of cute boys, classes, partying, and roommates (whom ranged from awesome to awful). But what did surprise me, what I wasn't expecting to read, was so much written about our friendships with one another--what we missed, what we meant to each other, how close our bonds were, etc. We were surprisingly introspective young women considering we were just out of high school. 

For example, here's what one friend wrote to me in September, 1987, just after we'd gone our separate ways to different colleges thousands of miles apart:

"My problem is I meet a lot of people but have no close friends. I wish in a way you and our other friends were with me. Though we'd all be trying to break away from each other, we'd still have each other there.... I miss you, Sue! I talk about you a lot. It's so weird to be starting new again! I like it, but there are certain security things I miss, like our group."

That is pretty self-aware for an eighteen year old, if you ask me. 

In another letter, a different friend wrote:

"Sue, I really miss you and I know it sounds dumb but I really wish that you were here because you truly have been so strong for me on so many occasions. You are truly my best friend (a term I no longer use so lightly!) and I don't know how come I deserve you sometimes."

I love you, crazy girls.

Twenty years later, I'm blown away by the level of intimacy in these letters. I'm sure at the time I didn't think much of it; it would've just been how things were, how we felt about one another, and the way we communicated and responded to each other. But because I'm so far away from that time, and my focus is on family rather than friendships, it just seems so, so remarkable that we felt that strongly and deeply about each other.

I still love these ladies, though we remain geographically isolated from one another. I miss having them in my life on a regular basis, but even more, I miss having a gang of cool, smart, interesting, and fun women around to whom I can talk, vent, and bitch, and who also completely have my back. My husband and family are wonderful and supportive of course, but it's not the same.  

So if any of you lovely ladies--my dearest friends from childhood and beyond--are reading this, I just want to thank you for all the love, laughs, hugs, support, and advice you've given me over the years.

I couldn't have made it through without you. And I miss you so much it hurts.

Bus Stop Mamas

I was preoccupied all day--my mind wandering while driving, barely hearing my daughter prattle on, etc.--and it was because of something so totally insignificant and stupid. There are days when I'm amazed at how pathetic I am, and today was one of them.

First, a little background: I am way too insecure for someone my age. Seriously, aren't we supposed to "come into ourselves" in our 30's, and then by our 40's be effortlessly self-confident and radiating inner beauty? That's what Eileen Fisher would have us believe, but for me, unfortunately, it hasn't quite happened that way. Oh, sure, I'm less insecure about my appearance nowadays, but that's mainly because I'm old enough to realize that's a battle I'm not going to win.

Nor am I still insecure about what the hell I'm doing with my life, because I ended up getting married, having kids, and quitting my job to raise them--and I'm good with that. Sure, there are days I wonder what it would be like to go to an office everyday and contribute creatively and intellectually to society while a full-time nanny takes care of my kids, but it's not something I actually want. I don't regret the path I've chosen.

I am, however, insecure about my friends--or rather, lack thereof. And it's confusing to me because for most of my life, having and making friends came naturally and easily. Growing up, I didn't even think about it--friends just popped up wherever I went. I used to consider myself something of an Alpha Female--I was usually a leader amongst my various groups of friends.

But as I got older, things changed. Throughout my 20's and 30's, my number of female friends dwindled--people married, moved away, got jobs that left little time for socializing, etc. And because I was no longer making new friends left and right, pretty soon I was down to a precious few. Then I had my own kids and moved to the suburbs where I knew almost no one.

I've been trying to make new friends since we moved here five years ago, but because I've never had to actively pursue friendships before, I am pathetic at it. I've become good friends with about four mothers (in five years--sad), but then two of them moved away. The other two don't even live in our town.

Which is why my current best friend is my 3-year-old daughter.

So, yes, I'm a little fragile when it comes to friends.

For the past two weeks, I've been waiting at the bus stop with a few neighborhood moms. Two of them seem like they could be potential friends but I'm just so clueless when it comes to taking it to the next level. After the bus has come and gone, instead of staying to chat I just say goodbye and head home.

Well, shortly after the bus had picked up my son this morning, I was back at home reading my daughter a book. I looked out the window and saw the two moms I like pushing strollers down the street (they both have young kids) and taking a walk together. They were chatting like old friends, though I know they pretty much met at the bus stop, too.

I instantly felt like the biggest loser. Why not me? Don't they like me? Is it because they both have two boys and both their second sons are still young enough to be taken for a walk in a stroller? If my daughter were still stroller age would I have been included as well? 

I spent all morning wallowing in self-pity and feeling like the greasy-haired, zit-faced girl at the junior prom that no one will ask to dance.

Will You Be My Friend?

I've lived in the 'burbs for four years now. I'm getting the hang of it, finally...but making friends can still be challenging. I have friends, I do. But when you add kids to the equation, friendships have a tendency ebb and flow. For example, when my son was in class and best friends with this one boy, his mother and I saw a lot of each other, but now that the boys aren't in the same class, I haven't seen her in three months. Stuff like that.

So this new year finds me down a friend or two. I could use some backups. But nothing is more nerve-wracking than trying to chat up another chick. (It's worse than hitting on a dude--men are easy.) It makes me feel like an insecure tween all over again, trying to become friends with the popular girl in school. Shouldn't this get easier with age?

That's where the local kids' gym comes in. It's not in our town (there's nothing in our town), it's in the next one over, where we spend most of our time. The town has cool, quirky stores, an artsy movie house, and our kids go to preschool there. It fits us so well that I'm toying with the idea of moving there. I'll call it Priusville (what my husband calls it).

There's a group of moms I see at this kids' gym; they all live in Priusville and seem to know each other from before. My son is buddies with one of the women's son, so we've been to each other's houses for playdates. We're friendly though not quite friends yet. But at the kids' gym, she's got this whole other group. When I see them, I try to participate in their conversation but since much of what they talk about is Priusville-related, I often feel left out.

So I'll find myself standing there, trying to think of witty and relevant things to say, starting to sweat. After ten minutes, I can't hack it anymore. I'm stressed. So I go sit on a nearby bench, open my New Yorker, and pretend to read. I keep an ear on their conversation and whenever possible, chime in with a comment or two. One of the women was reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, and since I've read the first two Stieg Larsson books, I chatted her up about it. No sooner had we started discussing the book, when my daughter began moaning that she needed help climbing the gym apparatus. I had to run off...conversation over.

I give myself pep talks about smiling more and being outgoing. Sometimes it works and I'm bubbly and engaging (which can be exhausting). Other days, I feel lazy and decide that a quick "Hello" will have to do. I hope the other moms understand and don't think I'm a bitch. 'Cuz then I'll never make new friends.