Wanted: New Best Friend
Married, almost-40 year old female seeks New Best Friend (NBF). I like movies that make me cry (Mystic River, House of Sand and Fog, Schindler's List), books that make me laugh (anything by Anne Lamott)and cry (Elizabeth Berg, Jane Smiley, Annie Dillard, Anne Tyler, Jane Hamilton, Barbara Kingsolver) and silence. I wish I were really hip and could claim to like improvised jazz, but it makes me a little dizzy and irritable. Dan Fogelberg and James Taylor and Norah Jones and Marc Cohn are more my speed, though if given a choice, I often opt for silence.
NBF must laugh at my jokes (self-deprecating, sarcastic, shocking) and be available for random phones calls in which I will ask "What are you doing?" NBF must be willing to spontaneously go to movies at 10:00 p.m., yet be self-sufficient and family-oriented as well. NBF should have interest in co-founding a long-lasting spectacular book club with other like-minded, funny women. NBF must have calm, easy-going husband who is willing to assume childcare duties so NBF can participate in Girl's Night Out events.
I vacuumed under my sectional today. Before I could even run the vacuum, though, first I had to pick up the debris the children slide between the cushions. I collected enough unpopped popcorn kernels and popsicle sticks to fill a paper lunch bag. Just knowing that the carpet beneath my sectional is clean makes me feel virtuous. Nevermind that there are still unfolded socks next to my keyboard and an unfolded basket of laundry sitting behind me.
Now, if I had a New Best Friend, she would laugh at that visual picture and then she'd tell me about the dust bunnies and worse under her couch and then we'd compare what we made for dinner and we'd plan our book club meeting.
I am in desperate need of a New Best Friend. No offense to my Old Best Friends (not that they are old, either). It's just that I really, really need someone local, someone not long-distance, someone I know in real life, an actual person who could meet me for coffee (not that I drink coffee). My Old Best Friends live so far away--New York, North Carolina, Missouri--and somehow, I've lived in this house almost six years and I still haven't clicked with anyone. No love connection, no magic, no instant bonding.
I'm mostly a solitary soul. I don't mind my own company and I laugh at my own jokes. I love going to movies alone and I prefer to shop alone. But sometimes, I look above the crowd that is my family and I think, "Where is my circle of friends? The ones I'll grow old with? Am I the only one wishing for friends?" Are they all too busy with their families and their jobs and their Old Best Friends?
In college, it was so easy to make soul-mate caliber friends. You see each other in your underwear, you cry over boys together, you eat too much pizza in your dorm room, you go on crazy road trips, you stay up all night eating M&Ms and studying and you bond.
Then graduation splits you apart and you have to start all over, only this time around, there is no easy camaraderie, no built-in bonding, no simple solution to the problem of finding a local New Best Friend.
Some people are lucky and they continue their Grown Up Lives in the same place where they've made friends. Some people are friend-magnets and attract happy-go-lucky, exciting people to them like bees to a barbecue.
I'm not like that, and I sense that I'm rambling and my eyes are burning because my contact lenses have been in so long today.
So, wherever you are--New Best Friend--call me! We need to get together, soon!
Meanwhile, I asked my husband tonight if it would be asking too much to want to have the legs and buttocks of the Olympic gymnasts without actually devoting my life to working out. Or working out at all. And while being 20 years older than they are.
He said, yes. Definitely asking too much.
Drat.
NBF must laugh at my jokes (self-deprecating, sarcastic, shocking) and be available for random phones calls in which I will ask "What are you doing?" NBF must be willing to spontaneously go to movies at 10:00 p.m., yet be self-sufficient and family-oriented as well. NBF should have interest in co-founding a long-lasting spectacular book club with other like-minded, funny women. NBF must have calm, easy-going husband who is willing to assume childcare duties so NBF can participate in Girl's Night Out events.
I vacuumed under my sectional today. Before I could even run the vacuum, though, first I had to pick up the debris the children slide between the cushions. I collected enough unpopped popcorn kernels and popsicle sticks to fill a paper lunch bag. Just knowing that the carpet beneath my sectional is clean makes me feel virtuous. Nevermind that there are still unfolded socks next to my keyboard and an unfolded basket of laundry sitting behind me.
Now, if I had a New Best Friend, she would laugh at that visual picture and then she'd tell me about the dust bunnies and worse under her couch and then we'd compare what we made for dinner and we'd plan our book club meeting.
I am in desperate need of a New Best Friend. No offense to my Old Best Friends (not that they are old, either). It's just that I really, really need someone local, someone not long-distance, someone I know in real life, an actual person who could meet me for coffee (not that I drink coffee). My Old Best Friends live so far away--New York, North Carolina, Missouri--and somehow, I've lived in this house almost six years and I still haven't clicked with anyone. No love connection, no magic, no instant bonding.
I'm mostly a solitary soul. I don't mind my own company and I laugh at my own jokes. I love going to movies alone and I prefer to shop alone. But sometimes, I look above the crowd that is my family and I think, "Where is my circle of friends? The ones I'll grow old with? Am I the only one wishing for friends?" Are they all too busy with their families and their jobs and their Old Best Friends?
In college, it was so easy to make soul-mate caliber friends. You see each other in your underwear, you cry over boys together, you eat too much pizza in your dorm room, you go on crazy road trips, you stay up all night eating M&Ms and studying and you bond.
Then graduation splits you apart and you have to start all over, only this time around, there is no easy camaraderie, no built-in bonding, no simple solution to the problem of finding a local New Best Friend.
Some people are lucky and they continue their Grown Up Lives in the same place where they've made friends. Some people are friend-magnets and attract happy-go-lucky, exciting people to them like bees to a barbecue.
I'm not like that, and I sense that I'm rambling and my eyes are burning because my contact lenses have been in so long today.
So, wherever you are--New Best Friend--call me! We need to get together, soon!
Meanwhile, I asked my husband tonight if it would be asking too much to want to have the legs and buttocks of the Olympic gymnasts without actually devoting my life to working out. Or working out at all. And while being 20 years older than they are.
He said, yes. Definitely asking too much.
Drat.
posted by Melodee at Monday, August 23, 2004
7 Comments:
Melodee, do we have a mental link? I JUST posted in my blog about my NBF! Keep searching, they pop up very unexpectedly!!! I know how you feel though...until a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling the same way! -TRACY
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I would so be your buddy! You know that. Girlfriends are great aren't they?
I, too, understand how you feel. I have been looking for a NBF for two years now. Seven years ago we moved out of state to a resort area. Since most people can't get employment around here, we live by a ton of retirees. We are younger than most people here by some 30 - 50 years.
I would think your children would open a lot of doors for you to meet other women. Since I am childless, I don't find any opportunities to meet other women my age. I feel really stuck, but I sense you understand what I mean...
Wanna move? Our church is without a pastor...Michigan is lovely this time of year.
I've lived in this area ALL of my 46 years, and I still have no 'bossom friend' (hmmm...i still don't have a bossom!)
We like the same authors, so there's a start!
And, I don't have any dust bunnies. I have dust elephants.
Also, two of my children are married, and one needs to leave the nest before my husband and I need more therapy. Yet, with two down and one to go, nothing's any cleaner around here...
I want to start a book club too. I just finished "Peace Like A River" by Leif Enger and I want to talk to someone about it.
Drop in any time...I rarely go anywhere, now that I'm not driving children places anymore. I need time to heal from all that.
I understand this post very well. I have lots of people in my life...but haven't had that best friend type of relationship for years.
~Tina
hey mel--
I went to college with the guy who wrote Mystic River. I had him as a classmate in a writing workshop and gave him this feedback once: "Dennis, this is Really Dark Stuff. Try to lighten up your writing a little." Yeah. I know what I'm talking about. Yessiree.
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