Tuesday, July 13, 2010

When did making friends get so hard?

When I was little my mother would just send me out to the stoop or off with Topher and making friends just happened. There was no effort involved.

Josh went to college and made a thousand friends. Sometimes when people call him, he looks at his phone and then looks at me saying, "I don't remember this guy." Then he answers anyway and they talk and when he hangs up he either says, "Oh yeah, now I remember he's a cool guy," or "Well I still can't figure out who he is, but he seems cool." Josh worked at his dad's office last week and now has made plans to go to Canada with some of them in August. I don't know how he does it.

I invited Jackie over for dinner Thursday night. Not quite the same as going zip-lining in British Columbia, but I'm still looking forward to it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The English language doesn't really differentiate between different types of friends.

Sounds like Josh has a lot of people to hang out with, he has an easy time making friends who might be described as buddies, and because of his money it's no big deal to go off on an adventure in another country with people he barely knows. You had pals like this in high school, people you posted about going to stores with and casual stuff like that after school. In high school it is easier to make these types of friends, since you see each other like every day, don't have to work at staying in touch. Maybe every time Josh meets someone he offers his cell phone number? Is there a simple way for you to be more gregarious, if that's what you want? Can you ask Josh how he does it? You know, sort of how you and Dani taught Alex how to invite someone over?

Making close friends is more difficult. It sounds, though, like that is what you've been describing in these posts as really wanting to have. You probably have enough casual friends to, say, make a list of people to invite to a party, and you could probably consider some of Josh's friends to be your casual friends too. Like you could probably call up that girlfriend of Josh's friend and invite her to do something girly with you. It's harder to find the right person to be a best friend than the right person to be a casual friend, because a casual friend doesn't have to be as "right," if that makes sense, and it takes more effort to develop the friendship. It's great you invited Jackie over for dinner! Definitely something to look forward to.

Yes, making friends when little by just playing outside in the neighborhood is super easy. You are right. That's a huge reason it's such a loss when a child has to move at around the age you did. It's so not just you!

Sam said...

the ppl i was hanging out with in h.s. only liked me b/c i wasn't afraid to fight and i was fun to have in the track 3 classes. once i stopped fighting and moved into regents classes they kind of dropped me

OTRgirl said...

Do you think you get your "I'm busy"/New Yorker face on most of the time? I know when I'm in the city, I pull on this shell and get through the day. I don't give off a 'talk to me' vibe AT ALL. I think one has to have that friendly openness in order to make buddies quickly, but as a woman in a city, that same openness sets you up for harassment. I wonder if it's easier for Josh as a guy who hasn't lived in the 'hood?

Anonymous said...

the ppl i was hanging out with in h.s. only liked me b/c i wasn't afraid to fight and i was fun to have in the track 3 classes. once i stopped fighting and moved into regents classes they kind of dropped me

That's kind of the point; many of the friends you are jealous Josh has may be only this type of friend, having little in common with Josh and being neither true nor invested.

Anyway, sounds like those particular high school friends were no-goodniks.

But you did make smarty high school friends when you moved up. The ones from the Jeopardy party are an example. Maybe you could have a Pi party on the 22nd of the this month. Watch math movies and eat pies. Let Danielle invite her geeky math friends too.

There's also that friend who came over when you were at Josh's parents'. Wow, it seems like so long ago that you were moving out of your aunt's.