Friendships are funny relationships.
The manner in which friendships are formed, nourished and eventually blossom is a unique and sometimes strenuous process!
When you go on a date it is obvious that [at least] one person likes the other, but when you meet people you'd like to befriend and extend yourself in hopes of having any-one-thing in common for which to create a bond, it's a little more nerve racking. Anything more sweaty-palmed and anxiety-ridden that asking someone/being asked on a date?? Yes. For me. Friend dates! [I was never really the nervous with boys type. I had a lot of self confidence and really, when you look at it, nothing to lose. Worst they could ever do was say "no."] What if you have absolutely nothing in common? What if this potential friend just couldn't say 'no' to your request to spend time together and is just being polite. Then... I think we are having a good time, so I say, "We should hang out again!" ["We should do this again sometime"-- you know that guy who always says that at the end of a real date and you're like, "Um, were you on the same date I was, this was train wreck!"] Then, potential friend gives some good excuse like being out of town, baby shower, early work schedule the next morning, dinner plans, etc. aaaaaaand the thing is... I am not one to take a hint [because I am never one to give one] so I'll continue to invite you out week after week. [Until Jordan tells me I have scared away any potential friends in a twenty mile radius.]
I am grateful for the friends I have. Especially being a newly married adult. I have never been sure how adults make friends. I am not sure why it seems any more strange or difficult than making childhood friends, but it does, doesn't it? My mom had a good friend pass away when they were in their thirties and it took a long time for me to see my mom with someone I would consider, to her, a close friend.
Sara, Melissa [my two best friends!] and I have been friends since elementary school. We grew up together and have since been there for each other in every major event in one anothers' lives. I can't entirely be sure what bonded us as children; likely a mutual disgust for boys with cooties, no doubt. Truly, though-- we were friends as children and the similarities we three had grew with us into young adulthood. We were able to understand what makes the other tick and because of this we have grown to love each other deeply. We are not friends for our own personal benefit or gain. Though we do each get something out of this friendship, we also contribute to the betterment of each others lives and have become like family. I guess in our youth we grew together and our personalities became in part, what they are because of what the other contributed to our lives.
So... how do you make friends when you are already in adult life and feel very grounded? Personal convictions firmly set? I agree friends should not just be those who agree with you or share a very similar lifestyle, but those who challenge you as well... so it should be just as easy to make adult friends, right? I think the problem is laziness. Laziness? Yes. Adults are likely to already have "enough friends." Have little need to go out of ones way to make awkward small talk. We're married and for some reason expect that we have to find "couples friends" all the sudden now, rather than develop individual relationships with those we [individuals of our spouse] have things in common with. Perhaps we feel guilty to spend time without our loved one and thus we look for couples friends so as we can be with friends and our spouse at the same time. I believe it is healthy for Jordan to have friends of his own and me, my own. I believe it is great when I may happen to get along very well with his friends and vice versa, but it is not necessary that he be depraved of his personal time with friends now that we have cleaved unto one another in marriage. Friends who are different than I am offer a varied view on life, helping my husband or myself to look at situations in ways we would perhaps not otherwise think to look at life or a situation.
Do you know why it seems easier for young children to make friends than it feels for people my age? ["My age," like I'm some old bitty, I'm not even 30!] Why? Because young children are REAL. They feel no sense of obligation. Children do not feel the pressures of society to be nice or polite; so if they like you, they like you. If they don't they throw dirt and then run away from you. They are not afraid to hurt your feelings. They are honest. They are also easy to see the good in people.
Having been married for a little over a year and having moved to a new state directly after being married has been an experiment in friendship. It took me a year to see the girls from work in an outside of work play date. And even then, took a few Girls Nights to become comfortable, passing the point of congeniality. A high school friend set me and Jordan up on a "Couples Friend Date" with her sister and brother in law who live the town over from us. It was slow going at first, we hung out casually, but it took a while to get past the point of awkward silences and gaps in conversation to the point that we started to develop a more natural rapport with each other.
I am grateful for the friends I have. The friends who have been a part of the most memorable moments in my life. I am grateful that these friendships are continuously developing as I continue to grow as an individual. I am grateful for the new friendships with girls who maybe felt as awkward as I did in the beginning, but have forged on. I don't really have a memory of any defining moment of friendship from my childhood. I don't know how they were created; the initial interaction. ["Ew, bologna. I hate bologna!" "I love bologna!" "Wanna trade sandwiches?"] These adult relationships we have have that moment when the relationship goes from that of casual acquaintances to a relationship well on it's way to official friends who will, years later, look back at how awkward their first encounters were.
I like that about friendships. Each one comes to be in it's own unique way.
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