I’ve been lamenting, the past few years, the lack of new people in my life. While friends of mine have been steadily moving away (both physically and emotionally), it’s been a real struggle for me to replace those local friendships with new ones. I’ve made the effort over and over again, trying new things, going to new places, joining the co-op, accepting every invitation that comes my way, but nothing really seemed to work.
And then something changed. I don’t think it was anything that I actively did. I don’t think that I’ve made any recent changes in my life, but all of a sudden, things just started to fall into place.
Okay, so I’m trying to be better about not discounting my own actions in positive things, so let’s reassess. I joined an online group that has local meetings. I still consider those people “imaginary friends”, but they are becoming more and more real. I haven’t changed anything about working my co-op shifts, but maybe that’s just the sort of thing that takes time. The funny thing is that in both of those places, I’ve made friends that moved out of state shortly after we connected and were drawn to each other, so I’m getting a little of both.
But then I sought out a photographer and wound up connecting with someone I went to high school with, but never actually knew, and it turns out we’re really compatible. I like her and she likes me and we have decided to become friends. It was really that simple, but it took a long time for us to go from running into each other in a bar to becoming Facebook friends to actually finding a reason to get together and find out if we liked each other.
I’m also starting to see people who are conditional friends moving into a less conditional role. For example, some of my “co-op friends” are becoming just “friends” and we’re moving away from the single location and getting together after hours and offsite. This is so refreshing, and one of them is someone I’ve been interacting with for almost 2 years now, we just never managed to speak up and say “You know, I want to hang out with you outside of this context.”
I’m a little reluctant to write about this, because I’m hoping I’m at the very early stages of a positive social trend in my life. This weekend alone, I have plans on Friday with new friends, Saturday with my (6 years older than me) aunt, Sunday with a friend from out of town (and one of my favorite people) and the fellas through which we met. And that’s just this weekend. Coming up I still have my regular, standing movie night; another planned photo shoot; the seedlings of events through my online community and who knows what all else?
I feel like I’m finally starting to meet the people who will fill the gaps. I need girls to go to bars with me so that I”m not there alone as the “poor thing” or “brave girl” who came without a safety net of friends. It’s not that I need the net, it’s that I don’t need the pity. I need friends who will have adventures with me, whether that means walking around the streets of Albany for hours on end or checking out that sketchy dive bar that just opened up.
And I’m finally starting to get it. What a nice change of pace.