Back Story:
First, the easy (and short) part. Jeanette - a friend I made while I was working at Accenture - was due with her first baby, Benjamin Charles Donahue, on Friday the 13th of January. I wrote this journal entry on January 21, when she was a week past her due date. I'm happy to report that I did get to meet him this past Thursday...so tiny, so cute!
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| Benjamin Charles Donahue - January 25, 2012 |
Now, the longer part. Debbie is one of my friends from college and we've gotten to be even better friends over the years. College friends are irreplaceable. College friends were easy to make. In college, my full time job was having fun! (I'd worked hard enough in high school that college wasn't too difficult, so I was making up for lost time!) Now, my full time job is, well, a job. And when I get home at 7 or 7:30, I'm pretty content with eating dinner, watching some tv and going to bed. It takes effort - persistent effort - to build quality, lasting friendships.
Chicago is a town where, after college, most people move here with their college friends or come back home and re-join their high school friends. I didn't meet that criteria - and most of the friends I've met throughout my 10 years here are friends I've made for a season - - depending on what job I have, what groups I'm a part of, what church I go to. People change jobs, people move, people have lots of other things going on that take up their time. Combine that with the fact that after a long day of work, I can be pretty lazy and be content just staying at home...it doesn't make a good recipe for building those types of relationships that were so easy to make in college.
All friendships are different. And we do go through different seasons in life. And some friends are just for a season. And even the longest-lasting friendships have their peaks and valleys - sometimes you talk every day and sometimes you go for months without talking. I'm thankful for every one of you that God has ever brought into my life - whether it's been for a short season or a long season. Friendships take effort. Relationships take effort. And I'll be honest: sometimes I'm just not willing to put out that much effort. Hmmm...I guess I'll continue to ponder on that for a while...it'll be a good topic of conversation for when I do find a cheap, last minute ticket to fly to Tulsa and see Debbie in February to celebrate our birthdays!
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| Debbie's wedding - May 2004 |
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| Our traditional "couch picture" when college friends gathered in Tulsa (Feb 2006) to celebrate birth of Debbie's baby boy, Everett! |
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| Our traditional couch picture when everyone gathered in Chicago (Sept 2011) |
In the meantime, I plan to add Rachel Bertsche's book, "MWF seeking BFF: My yearlong search for a new best friend" to my list of books to read. Maybe it'll inspire me to put myself out there more! Of course, her fall back night at home is with her husband....my fallback is a night at home with my cats ;)
Here's an excerpt from Rachel Bertsche's book that I think sums up the friend-finding experience in Chicago quite nicely:
Aside from my coworkers, I’ve made exactly one new friend since I moved to Chicago. Matt and I met Lindsey and her boyfriend at a wedding. I see her every month or so, when we gather for dinner with the bride and a few ex-Northwesterners we both know. They’re fun, but even after two years we haven’treached that call-on-a-Sunday-morning level.
That’s the bestfriendship test, I think. The “What are we doing today?” phone call. If you have that, you have someone with whom it is implied you will spend the day or at least anhour. That’s the level of BFF I’m in the market for. At this point, I have girls in Chicago who I could email to set up a dinner date. But when Matt decides at the last minute to take a Friday-night trip to the casino, I use the time to catch up on Grey’s Anatomy. When he has to work on a weekend, there’s no one, save for my mom (who followed me, er, moved, here a few months ago), whom I feel comfortable enough to call and say, “What are you up to?”
Getting to that level is tricky. It’s essentially dating. At what point after meeting a new friend is it acceptable to call “just to say hi”? When is it not overly aggressive to text “Pedicure in a half hour?” The first time I saw a coworker outside the office, we’d been texting on a Saturday about a work-related issue. When Lynn wrote, “If you’re not doing anything, come over for Guinness and oysterfest!” I went into a tizzy. I wasn’t doing anything! I’d love to come over for Guinness and oysterfest! But could I just say that? No one wants to be the pathetic girl sitting by the phone, waiting for an invitation. I wrote back a few minutes later. “Have to get lunch and run some errands . . . How long will you be there?” It wasn’t entirely untrue—I did have lunch plans. With my 60- year-old aunt, my cousin, and my brother’s girlfriend, Jaime. Easily cancelable, but made me look less eager. There were no errands.
This was big-time. It could be the transition from “work- friend”—Lynn sits in the cubicle next to me at the office where we are both web producers—to “friend.” I wanted to play it exactly right. At lunch, Jaime laughed as I dealt with my nerves by asking a zillion questions. Did the outfit I’d thrown together for lunch look weekend-casual-but-cool enough? Was Lynn just being nice, or did she really want me to come over? “It’s not like you’re trying to hook up with her,” Jaime said. “You’ll be fine.”
And I was fine. My T-shirt and yoga pants were perhaps a little more weekend-pajama than weekend-cool, but I walked the street fair with Lynn and her college friends, passing on oysters and Guinness in favor of a Bucket O’ Fries. (Cool girls eat fries, right?) These could be my friends, I thought. I could infiltrate the clique! At one point, Lynn’s friend Karen put her arm around me. I was awkward but tried to go with it. It was a great day.
Other than Lynn, I haven’t seen any of them since.
Around that same time, Lynn was the friend-to-be I invited to join me for my first wedding dress fitting. Callie and my mom had flown in from New York for the shopping, but I was on my own for this appointment. My aunt was supposed to come, but a last-minute doctor’s appointment forced her to cancel. Even though I knew it was a big step for our fledgling friendship, I was desperate.
“Are you doing anything Saturday?” I asked Lynn at work one day. “I have to go try on my wedding dress and would love your opinion. Do you want to come?” Bridal-related activities are usually reserved for VIPs, so I knew it was a monumental request.
“Just me?” she asked. The look on her face reminded me of the male lead in a romantic comedy when the girl says “I love you” too soon. It was a startling combination of fear and confusion and whoa-slow-down-there-lady. “Um, I’m not sure. I might have plans.”
I tried to backpedal. “What? Oh no, never mind actually. I was just thinking, but actually I, well, I’ll let you know. I probably won’t need you.” It was a poor exit strategy but Lynn took it.
It’s possible that I read more into my coworker’s reaction than was actually there, but I’d already psyched myself out. I didn’t mention it again and a few days later I went to my fitting. Alone. But not before having a minor breakdown on the phone with my mom, devastated that I had no companion to tell me how blushing bride–like I looked.
All of this makes me realize one thing: I do not miss dating. Matt and I met freshman year of college. He went from friend- with-benefits to boyfriend to husband. My experience with all this courting and shoduld-I-call-the-next-day is limited, and the thought of diving back in—even if only platonically—is seriously daunting.
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