Making friends

I have found that if I am not in school, I have a difficult time making friends. I am not interested in what most people are interested in. I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't see R rated movies. That severely limits what I can do. I can't go to bars to listen to bands, and I can't go see most movies because very few are not R rated anymore. Before I got married, I felt as if I did not fit in with people from church. I was just about the only one of the women my age who was not married yet and/or had children. I always felt left out and behind. I still struggle with feeling behind, but that is another story for another day.      
                            

                                                                                                                     

                                              Friends: Rustie and Niblet

                                                                                                                           
I finally got married and we moved to Houston. Where we first lived, we tried making friends with the young married couples without kids. For some reason we could never hit it off with anyone. We tried to be pleasant and attend all the social gatherings that our church offered. We would hang out with the people in our age group without children, but after a few hours with them, they never wanted to talk to us again. We would see them pairing off with other couples, even couples who moved in after us, but we never found any friends. It was a lonely time. We felt isolated. And alone. We wondered what was wrong. "What are we doing wrong? Why doesn't anyone like us? Do we smell?" Robbie would say, "It must be because I am fat." I'd have to say, "You're not fat!"

After about six months of living there, our apartment got broken into while Robbie was asleep one morning. After that experience, we felt even more lonely and isolated than ever. Add to that a feeling of fear, violation and paranoia. We rode the last six months of our lease and finally moved away to a town outside of Houston.

It's been so much better for us in this new place. We feel more at home at church than we ever have with this group of people. I have to give credit to our little girl. I believe that most of our friends at church are charmed by her, so we are able to make friends thanks to the cuteness of our little girl.

However, I am beginning to doubt my abilities when it comes to making friends. At this point, I am always on my best behavior, unsure if my friends will accept me as the person I really am. Isn't this just the goofiest thing to ever come from a 28 year old woman's mouth? Maybe so, but I still think it. I am never quite sure if I can say what I am really thinking. My brain to mouth filter works overtime around my new friends. There are just a few people that I know I can say what I am truly thinking and I do not have to worry about offending.

It's not as if I am mulling over evil things or anything. I suppose my biggest worry is my immature sense of humor. I am so immature. I have a very crude sense of humor mixed with some silliness. Of course, that doesn't mix with most of the "grown-ups" I have come to know and admire. I still feel like a little kid most of the time. I think things are funny that I shouldn't, and I can't help it. For example, I could joke about poo and boogers all day long. Ren and Stimpy was my favorite cartoon as a kid. I think hay bales are funny. The Zoloft commercial cracks me up. By the way, did they take those off the air?

I am the last person to get a joke. My husband has a witty and quick sense of humor. He will say something funny and awesome and then, poor guy, he gets a blank stare from me. Then he says, "Wait for it....." And finally I say, "Oh! I get it!" Ha ha! That's me. I am very proud of myself once I "get it." I've always been that way. I remember standing with my group of friends while they all laughed at jokes and I would laugh along with them without knowing what in the world they were laughing at.

In college it seems as if the friends I made all like to hang around me and just tease me. That was how we all got along. Everyone would take a random shot at Kristi. At least it was all in good fun and no one ever said anything mean. They liked to poke fun at my random comments and my silly sense of humor. I miss that. They even still liked me when I wasn't always in a good mood.

With that being said, I am not always in a good mood. I get sad sometimes. I get mad. I get irritable. I get really down on myself. I feel a wide range of emotions. I don't always feel happy. I have a tendency to be a negative person. I have come a long way in that area, but I still have plenty of work to do. I feel whatever I am feeling very deeply and I take things very personally. I want to be liked. I don't have confidence in myself to be liked and I don't have confidence in people around me that they will like the silly me, or the "poo girl" in me, or my random comments.

Sometimes I make mistakes. I recently made a mistake and I have a feeling that I lost a friend. After just one mistake. An accident. Something I would have never done on purpose. I suppose all I can think is, "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

I am very hard on myself when I make a mistake. I suppose that is the perfectionist in me. There is no need for anyone else to punish me because I can take care of it myself. I suppose it's the negativity in me that thinks that I have lost a friend after one mistake. Maybe I have. Who knows?

And this is why I say it is hard for me to make friends now that I am a grown up. When I was in high school, our band director told us that we needed to find someone to sign up to sit with on the bus before our first away football game. I looked to my right, she looked to her left, and we just raised our eyebrows, silently asking one another, "Will you sit with me?" We were best friends from that moment on. What happened to the days when that was all it took? What happened to the days when I could be really mad after band and then happy after my next class and my best friend was still my friend? What happened to the days where I could say something really dumb and my friends teased me and laughed about it? What happened to the days where I felt comfortable being in my own skin around people? What happened to the days where I knew my friends would be there, where I knew they meant it when they said, "call me," and I knew I could truly count on them when they said, "if you need anything?"

I am a married woman. I have a baby. I am a flute teacher. I am an aspiring doula. I have a busy life.

But I still need friends.