I was watching Clerks II yesterday (for the third time!) and I feel a lot like Randal at the end, where he's lamenting how he doesn't want to have to start making new friends at his age. I feel the same way.
It's so much easier to become complacent, to live in your own insulated bubble.
Craig made a good point about it yesterday. He said that there are different stages in your life where you make friends. In school, it's the people you go to school with. When you're in college, it's the people you live with and take classes with because you have similar interests. When you get a job, it's the people you work with, and then when you have kids, you make friends with the parents of your kids' friends.
We moved in-between stages.
I had already made the work friends, and the people-with-similar-interests friends. Then we moved. Now I work from home most days, so my opportunities to meet people are much smaller. Even the days I do go to the office, my coworkers are all older than I am, or we just have absolutely nothing in common. They're nice enough acquaintances, but I probably wouldn't go further than have lunch with them one day.
We of course don't have children yet.
I'm still puzzled as to how grownups make friends. Especially ones that live in the wings like I do. I'm not like everyone else, and consequently, I've attracted a husband who's not like everyone else. We don't watch sports, or Desperate Housewives. We don't like going to bars or clubs and dancing. Our taste in music is even along the sidelines. The fact is, we're specialized in what we like.
So we spend a lot of time online. When your social network is the WORLD, the opportunities to find the commonalities are that much bigger. And we've made some really lovely online friends. But when the people you feel closest to on the inside are possibly on the other side of the continent or across the ocean, it doesn't really make for good dinner plans.
Sunday, July 23
Saturday, July 22
Disconnected
Sometimes I think no matter how hard I try I will always be a solitary person.
It seems no matter how I make an effort, reach out to be social, chat it up with a person or two, I walk away alone.
I lived in Charlotte for 8 years and I can probably count on one hand the people I consider real friends. The people that I would go back to see. The people I know that if I said, "Come to my wedding - I know it's in NJ but please try" that would be there come hell or high water.
Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out who these people are. But when you do it's worth it.
I know too that the handful of real friends I do have understand me. They know if I go off for a little while and they don't hear from me, that everything's okay, and that they don't need to worry. They don't have to wonder if we're still friends. When I see them again, we just pick up where we left off, whether that was a week ago, a month ago or nearly a year.
They know that I will just go away for a while too. And they're okay with it.
I'm not much of a talker in a social setting. I'm much more of a listener. I love to have conversations with the kind of people who guarantee that there will never be an awkward silence. Whether that means that I'm listening to their story about the latest in their tragic love life, or just the great place they had lunch yesterday, it doesn't matter. I will sit and absorb it all. I'm a pretty active listener; I will take and feedback and ask questions and really wait to hear the answer. I just would rather listen to anyone speak than have to tell what I feel are really boring stories about myself.
There's that line from Fight Club where Marla says that no one listens, they're just waiting for their turn to speak. I've always strived to be the opposite of that.
And maybe that's why when I'm put on the spot I have a hard time being idly conversational. I come off as boring. I seem aloof. People worry that I'm judging them because I don't talk. Really, I'm just so interested in what THEY have to say, that I'm not even thinking about myself and what to say next.
It seems no matter how I make an effort, reach out to be social, chat it up with a person or two, I walk away alone.
I lived in Charlotte for 8 years and I can probably count on one hand the people I consider real friends. The people that I would go back to see. The people I know that if I said, "Come to my wedding - I know it's in NJ but please try" that would be there come hell or high water.
Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out who these people are. But when you do it's worth it.
I know too that the handful of real friends I do have understand me. They know if I go off for a little while and they don't hear from me, that everything's okay, and that they don't need to worry. They don't have to wonder if we're still friends. When I see them again, we just pick up where we left off, whether that was a week ago, a month ago or nearly a year.
They know that I will just go away for a while too. And they're okay with it.
I'm not much of a talker in a social setting. I'm much more of a listener. I love to have conversations with the kind of people who guarantee that there will never be an awkward silence. Whether that means that I'm listening to their story about the latest in their tragic love life, or just the great place they had lunch yesterday, it doesn't matter. I will sit and absorb it all. I'm a pretty active listener; I will take and feedback and ask questions and really wait to hear the answer. I just would rather listen to anyone speak than have to tell what I feel are really boring stories about myself.
There's that line from Fight Club where Marla says that no one listens, they're just waiting for their turn to speak. I've always strived to be the opposite of that.
And maybe that's why when I'm put on the spot I have a hard time being idly conversational. I come off as boring. I seem aloof. People worry that I'm judging them because I don't talk. Really, I'm just so interested in what THEY have to say, that I'm not even thinking about myself and what to say next.
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