mrsLack-o-friends. for now.

so, okay.
as i mentioned yesterday, i'm not from around here. i've lived in charlotte for over 4 years now, and find it quite difficult to make friends. i suppose the biggest issue, is that most people my age are still thrilled by spending half their income on perfect clothes & modeling them in night clubs. and me? well....i'm 85 years old at heart.

a few years ago, i made roughly...3 charlotte friends. one of them was a real actual friend. we did things together. we went shopping, and went out for lunch, and would get coffee at starbucks. we'd work out together and attend little gatherings at her apartment. she even surprised me with an adorable hot pink cake, festooned with sugar martini glasses for my 21st birthday. but when i traveled back home for a year of college, she met a man who took her down a path i couldn't understand, and we drifted. i still attended both her bridal shower & wedding the following year, but she had changed. we didn't click the way we used to. conversations and get togethers were no longer easy & free flowing. and when she moved an hour away from charlotte, i knew things would never be the same. in fact, this year - i emailed her in april, and didn't get a response until august. and even when i told her i was pregnant, she didn't say a word.

that situation was the most disheartening, for me. she was a friend - one that felt very similar and familiar to the girls i knew back home. she was there for me in every way i needed her to be...and for no other reason than, life happened, she's hardly in my life at all anymore.

the other two girls...i was never quite as close with. one of them was also a co-worker, and although sweet and hilarious - our fun rarely went outside of the work place. sometimes she'd accompany me and the previously mentioned used-to-be-friend for coffee at starbucks, but that's about as far as it went.

the third girl was my neighbor from our old apartment complex. she can be a little overbearing and intimidating, but i found out that we had loads in common just days before she moved out. of course it happens that way. she'd stopped over to offer me left over cake from her bachelorette party, and when we sat down to talk we realized we shared a handful of the same hobbies. i immediately started to regret taking advantage of our close proximity and what could have been a good friendship, but you know...it was a little late. and as you may have suspected, she got married, moved into a house in the opposite direction we moved in, and now i hear from her once every few months. i've suggested meetings and such with her, and while she'll always agree to them in theory - they never happen. it makes me sad, because she's pregnant now too. and perhaps, if i was a little less shy, and a little more open when we used to be neighbors - we could be going through all of this together.

the thing is...i know that i am a little...hmm, picky. i get annoyed/intimidated/aggravated (pick your negative emotion) very easily, and it seems as though there's a very small group of people i get along with. and maybe, it's the culture differences down here that keep me from feeling completely comfortable with people? or i suppose i'm just used to my friendships having history - ones that started when i was 8, 10, 13 - those are the people that i treasure with all my heart. and i'm so lucky to still have some of them in my life. so why can't i find that here? 10 years from now i could say "i met them when i was 24!" and boom, there's a decade of history. but i can't seem to...get it going.

i do have a few things going. gosh, i hate talking about it like that....it sounds like i'm dating around, searching for mr. right. or working on some business ideas that may or may not pay out. really, it's not that. it's just....i'm desperate for a circle of friends, and while i could really forget about it before, it's not so easy now. in the day-to-day, i'm cool with husband & odin being my only social interactions, mixed in with the crazy people at work that i get to leave behind at the end of the day when they annoy me. but now, with a baby coming, and with me about to embark on a new journey of "rarely leaving the house", there's a new panic to find people to fill my life with.

charlotte mommies has been a great outlet. and with the big sister program, i met a really great person who i'm excited about getting to know. she seems like my kinda girl. and then, there's a couple prospects at work. however...i'm not so sure how much they'll love me after i leave (being that this is quite a tight knit group), and....well.....there's issues.

in fact, the whole point of this post was to compare two girls (from work) that i thought could lead to a friendship, but i just about wrote a novel already soo....i'll try to keep it short.

the first girl is almost exactly my age. she's funny, she's sarcastic and witty, and she likes many of the same things i do. for a while we were getting along really well...despite many of her annoying habits (like, for example, breaking out in tears over tiny things like - someone stealing her pop from the fridge, or not having $20 to drive home for the weekend). her hometown is about 1.5 hours from here - and she goes home at least every other weekend. it's almost closer to every weekend. she comes in here homesick on mondays (and everyone handles her with kid gloves), wah-wah-ing about not living at home. HELLO! do you know what i would give to live 1.5 hours from home? if i had the opportunities to see my mother and my sisters and my friends every single weekend, i would do it, i would love it, and i would shut up about it. i wouldn't be crying like a baby, i'd be thankful i wasn't 11 hours away from them (like, i am now).

i felt bad for her at first (believe it or not) because i know what it feels like to be away from the ones you love & have always known. iiii get that. been there, still doing it, practically wrote the book. so one day i told her if she ever had to skip a trip home and she felt lonely in her apartment, she could always call me. i warned her of my lameness and said the most i could handle while pregnant is lunch or shopping, but at least it's company. and do you know what she said? "nah...i don't know why everyone thinks i need to be out doing stuff, i'd rather let home be the best place there is and just deal with it when i have to be here".

okay then. is loneliness really that much better than my company? sheesh. thanks for the ego boost.

i found out later on, that other people had offered her similar things & she turned them down with the same cold response. so, i don't take it quite so personally now. but, really. come on.

another potential friend is G - the girl who hand crafted me a pad of post-its. i'm still trying to figure her out, because she's new, and very confusing. i swear, every time i talk to her i'm left with a totally different impression. they're almost always positive ones, which is a good thing, but like i said...i'm just not sure what makes her tick. last week i spent quite a lot of time talking to her. we had a blow-off day of sorts, and we discussed a lot. she agrees with so much of what i think, and talking to her was almost exciting. it was one of those situations where you just suddenly realize, "hey, this person's pretty cool", and visualize the potential for a friendship.

she is sweet, and very kind hearted. though a little flighty, she seems like a truly good person - one that i may not always relate to (because, she doesn't want kids & i'm about to have one, and although she's in her 30's, she still acts/talks/dresses like she's in college), but that i would really enjoy spending time with. she invited me out this weekend - actually i still need to see if that's happening. it was sort of a casual, loose plans invite. so we'll see. but a person like her is what i need in my life. someone who has a positive outlook and can always put a sunny twist on things (i'm kind of captain pessimism). someone who loves life for the simple things it offers and always points them out. oh, and there's the whole thing about her being a pilates instructor that hands out free sessions to her friends (hellooo post baby body). kidding, of course. the only "gain" i care about in a friendship is a social-emotional one.


to give you an example of her cheery nature, i introduce mr. praying mantis. he was chillin outside my window yesterday (and i wish i'd gotten a better picture before he decided to scale the whole thing and almost make it to the top). i mentioned to G that there was a praying mantis the size of a kitten on my window, and she popped out of her seat to come and see. she kept ooh-ing and ahh-ing at how cool he was. and with total sincerity in her voice she kept saying "those are good luck, jenn! you have some good luck coming to you!". and while it's just "one of those things" people say - the optimism in her voice brightened my day. i could read so much about her in those few short moments (i suppose i should have caught on earlier when she'd say things like "look how you cute you are, your face is so lit up it's adorable!" when i got a scoop of ice cream at the chinese buffet one day at lunch. or how she never hesitates to let me know, "you are so tiny still, that baby must be the only thing growing!" on days where i swear she reads my mind and can tell i feel like a beached whale). but really - it's like she lives to make other people smile. to point out the good. to make sure she's doing the best she can. like when i told her my tumor was bothering me and she asked if she could help (lol). i said "sure, wanna take it out?".

so, my goal? to not be afraid to come out of my shell a little. to try a little harder. and really, i am making some sort of progress. when i was set up with my "big sis" on charlotte mommies i ventured out to meet a stranger that i'd never seen before in the middle of a mall, and that turned out to be such a great day. i'm SO glad i pushed myself to do that. the old me wouldn't even think of it. but a new life is about to begin for me, and for husband - and things are going to change. and i really want to reach out & hang onto some of these great people.

so, wish me luck.