Thursday, October 9, 2008

Making Adult Friends

I think I’m becoming a hermit. Yup, I think so…Let me tell you that during the years when my kids were much younger, I had stopped working and had trouble making some good friends, but I did find 4 good, compatible friends with whom I could share some time and fun dinners (or drinks) out. But, as we all know, time moves on and so did we… Ever since I moved to Plymouth (a large, very pretty town with plenty of open space) I have found it harder to make good friends. When I first moved here I had 2 or 3 girlfriends in my neighborhood to “play” with until they, too, moved away. All the new neighbors that had replaced them are not all that compatible with me—they are either younger or much older and all have much different lives.

I do know that one of the advantages of having kids is that you make friends with their friends’ parents—I see this all the time with other people, but, unfortunately, my son doesn’t attract lots of friends. And the kids’ parents in his special needs class are just not compatible with me, or so it seems. So, strike I.

Then there is the great, big problem of my not really working and not having the advantage of going into an office everyday—at least for now. If I do work, it’s freelance work and I do it from home. So, strike II.

But I will confess (even if I sound like a complete loser) that a couple of weeks ago I was working on a story in this one, picture perfect small town near me (but with a not so picture perfect price tag (steep) on homes there) and I had to interview a few other mothers and noticed that some of these women would shop together, lunch together or just happened to run into someone that they knew from their (smaller) town. I was so jealous. I wanted to say to these women (who also seemed like me—minus the special needs kids) Hey, let’s hang out? We’ll do lunch? Where do you live? I’ll move next door!! Does this mean that I’m a loser or am I a stalker???

Anyway, I got a bit desperate and have signed up for this Girlfriends Café (which is in all 50 states) http://www.girlfriendscafe.com/ it's a social network for women, so please tell me if I’m losing it and that I may need an intervention—but I’m bored!! So, this could be strike III, I’ll have to let you know!

Perhaps I need to move? How do you make new friends? Do you feel like you’ve moved to the right town, State or planet for that matter?

2 comments:

Hopkins Family said...

I have just recentley been following your blog and that I would comment on how to make good friends. I have an 8 year old non-verbal autistic son. He goes to a special day class at his school and I have become really good friends with 5 other mom's of children just like mine. We do coffee in the morning, lunch in the afternoon's, dinner with the hubby's on weekends and even vacation together. At first we all seemed very different from each other but over the year's we have all realized we have alot in common despite our age difference. I can honestly say they are my dearest and bestest friend's. And to think that all of these friendship's were started over a cup of coffee.

Holly said...

Hi Hopkins Family,

I am so glad that you did comment; you are so lucky to have found a great and supportive group of friends. I think I will find (or start) a support group myself and give it a new try. Thanks again.

Holly