When you were a kid, making new friends seemed so easy. You had all these opportunities because you were constantly placed in environments predisposed for children to socialize with one another. Your parents would send you off to school and stick you in a room with like 20-30 other kids your age and task you with making new friends. Then when you came home in the afternoon, they would specifically ask you if you made friends with any of the kids at school.
If your parents had friends with kids of their own, those kids became your friends too whether you liked them or not. Every time your parents’ friends came over, they would bring their kids and throw them in a room or outside with you and say “Go play!”. You went to their houses after school for play dates. You were invited to their birthday parties. They were invited to yours.
Your parents would make you go outside to play with the other kids running around the neighborhood. Usually when you moved into a new house, there was even a period of time when the kids of the neighborhood would come up to your front door and knock on it specifically to meet you. They didn’t need to know you or your name. All they had to do was ask your parents if they had any kids, ask to meet said kids, and then as the kids all go running out they ask if it’s OK to go play.
It was so easy because commonalities weren’t difficult to find and your sense of humiliation was significantly lower or nonexistent back then. Generally it followed this script:
Kid 1: “Hi, I’m (insert name here). What’s your name?”
Kid 2: “I’m (insert name here).”
Kid 1: “What kind of stuff do you like?” or “Do you like (insert boys’ or girls’ stuff i.e. Barbies or G.I. Joe)?”
Kid 2: “Yeah! I just got the new (insert name of whatever kind of related toy).”
Kid 1: “AWESOME! Wanna go play (G.I. Joe’s or Barbies or the like) and be friends and stuff?”
Kid 2: “Sure!”
You and your new buddy would go scampering off and become BFF’s and it was just that simple…
But somewhere between childhood and adulthood, somehow for whatever reason, it got much more difficult. At 30 years old, if I walked up to another adult woman and was like “Hi, I’m Niki. Wanna go play Barbies and watch Jem and stuff?” she’d probably look at me like I was insane… or maybe not. Honestly, that still sounds like a fun afternoon to me and I can hardly wait for the day I have a daughter just so I have an excuse to do that type of stuff… probably much the same way men get excited about the prospect of having a son so they can play G.I. Joe’s and create an arsenal of all things Nerf.
I believe secretly all adults long for the moment it becomes socially acceptable to once again unleash our inner Toys R Us kids and go load up on Super Soakers and plan full scale water wars with assaults by both gun and balloon against each other and the noisy kids from the neighborhood that scream constantly while we’re trying to be hungover on the weekends. Unfortunately, at this point, that day doesn’t come until you have kids of your own.
The reason I’m going into all of this is because I’m actually in the process of making a new girlfriend at the moment. Recently, I’ve been doing a bit of a purge and ended friendships with 2 women I’ve known since I was about 14-15 years old because they were unhealthy, codependent friendships. Also, shortly after that, my friend Jeannie moved away to BFE and has no cell service so I can’t talk to her very often. Then my other friend Abby is busy being pregnant and dealing with some family stuff at the moment so her time is very limited. Basically, I’m sort of hurting for friends who are girls at the moment and have a couple open spots to fill. It’s just hard because a lot of women are catty, dumb, gossipy hookers. Finding one that isn’t is like hitting some weird proverbial lottery.
As I mentioned last week in Throwback Thursday Theme Songs in Loving Memory of Steve McGown, I attended my friend Steve’s viewing and funeral. The viewing was sort of a mini high school reunion and we all ended up in one of the rooms catching up and trading stories. As I walked into this room, a guy comes over to me and gives me a big hug and says he remembers me… and even remembered my name, which always makes me feel bad if I don’t remember theirs. It was my friend Paul whom I had not seen in probably 12-13 years. I then sat down on a couch and began catching up and the next thing I know this woman sits next to me and introduces herself as Paul’s Girlfriend Ranwa.
Any time you see your boyfriend or husband hugging and talking to a strange woman, you tend to introduce yourself ASAFP to said strange woman to find out who she is and make sure she knows you are the girlfriend or wife of that man. Once you’ve assessed the woman is not a potential threat then you relax and get to know her. However, if she is a potential threat, then the period of shade-throwing and fake polite conversation begins. Women are very territorial and as a single woman I’ve just come to expect it. I’m not exactly the homewrecking type and most women generally get that vibe off me so we never really have a problem.
After the viewing, everyone went out to dinner at a bar nearby. Ranwa and I were sitting near each other and started talking. Turns out she’s Lebanese like me, except 100% actually from Beirut where my grandfather’s family is also from, which sort of kicked off our conversation. She’s also about to graduate with her Master’s Degree and is looking for a new job in her field at the moment. I thought she was very smart, interesting, funny, and just the right amount of both reserved and off the wall.
She reminded me a lot of one of my other friends Andie whom I’ve known for a few years. I actually became friends with Andie because she tagged along with a couple friends who came over to my apartment after a jungle party one night for a little after party and was too drunk to drive home so she ended up crashing on my couch. In the morning I woke up and she was still there. I wanted to watch my Saturday morning cartoons so I was like “Do you like Sushi Pack and Qubo?” She said, “I’ve never seen it but sure!” I was like, “OK, you can stay and be my friend and stuff.” So easy.
Ranwa talked a lot about how much she enjoys cooking and got rave reviews from our entire table including from Steve’s mother as she had actually been making dinner for the McGowns all week. So I looked at her and asked “What day would be good for you? Cause I’m totally coming over for dinner.” She laughed and we ended up setting up dinner for tonight. As we were leaving, my friend Andrew said, “Well you sure hit it off with Paul’s girlfriend.” I was like “Yeah, I did. She’s cool.” I actually think he was a little jealous because he heard all the reviews about her cooking and maybe even knows how good she is first hand but just wasn’t on the ball about getting an invite to dinner for himself.
I’m ridiculously nervous and spastic right now because I like her and I want her to be my friend. I was probably a million times more nervous about texting her last night to confirm that we were still on for dinner than I ever get when I hit up dudes. It’s entirely possibly I retyped my text like at least 5 times just to make sure it didn’t sound stupid because we haven’t established our text rapport yet. I was super excited though when she texted back and said yes.
Now I get to go pick out a nice bottle of wine this evening for dinner and if you know me then you can picture me going buck in the wine aisle of the local Safeway as we speak. I’m telling you, making a new girlfriend as a woman follows an eerily similar process to what I’m sure dudes go through initially courting prospective girlfriends… except without the whole getting naked, putting out thing... But being grownup friends involves all kinds of effort and niceties that you now have to take care of that your parents used to do for you like dinners and bringing refreshments and confirming your play dates and whatnot.
Funny thing is I actually am supposed to have dinner later this week with another guy friend, one whom I’m interested in in a way that is not platonic, which came about sort of the same way my invitation for dinner tonight happened. While we were at the reception, we were talking about it and I said I wasn’t sure if this was actually a date. But since I’m the one driving this train I guess I can call it one if I want. Ranwa actually said, “It’s not a date if sex isn’t involved.” THAT’s when I knew she and I were totally meant to be friends. I also texted him yesterday because I forgot to give him my number the other night after he programmed his number into my phone... Pretty much retyped that text like twice and wasn’t even half as nervous. He still hasn’t responded yet. But at least now I have a friend to do recon and talk about it with who knows him and was there.
The moral of the story is: Assuming things go well, I actually still have one more spot left to fill so maybe if you invite me over for dinner then I’ll pick up some wine and come over and we can play Barbies and watch Jem and stuff.
