Having lived the life of a professional and a single mom, time for establishing girlfriend friendships has been at a minimum for a number of years. Now, having moved, I find myself somewhat rusty at the dance one partakes in to establish and form strong and comfortable bonds with the new people one encounters and the friendship opportunities that present themselves.
Yesterday, I had such a laugh at myself! My wonderful sister-in-law volunteers with a woman that she thought I should meet. She arranged a meet for lunch with this targeted woman, one of her girl friends and the two of us. She informed me ahead that we had tons of things in common: fairly new to our community, both into boating, etc. What a great idea! Let’s get together for lunch!
I carefully groomed myself, taking extra care with my hair (badly in need of a cut and streaks) and choosing something casual to put on. I even chewed a couple of pieces of whitening gum to ensure my “pearlies” looked presentable, and changed my purse to match my boots. The anticipation of the meet was building as the hour hand approached noon. It dawned on me that I was feeling something resembling blind date anxiety. You know that anxiousness that builds before the person actually shows up?
Of course, the woman coming to meet the three of us arrived a little later (We were early; of course we were!). When she walked in, we got right down to finding out as much about each other, as possible. This probably wasn’t great manners, as the other two women at the table fell into their own conversations. Connections were made and it confirmed my sister-in-law’s gut feelings that we had a great deal in common.
Things relaxed somewhat over lunch, as we all started to share stories with one another, until the bill came. This is when I took it upon myself to write my name and phone number on a piece of paper, in case she wanted to get together in the future for a walk, or whatever! (It didn’t go unnoticed, by me, that she didn’t slip me back her phone number in return.)
When I returned home, having enjoyed “lunch with the girls”, I had to giggle at myself. Here is this almost sixty year old woman, learning how to do the girlfriend dance all over again. It appears that I may have a lot of work and effort ahead of me before establishing some of the close and fun girlfriend relationships previously enjoyed in life.
My husband just shakes his head and says, “Why is it that women make everything so complicated”?
If you have any comments or funny stories over this making new girlfriends phenomenon, please don’t hesitate to leave them. I’d love to hear from you! We’ve all been fortunate in life to make enduring girlfriend friendships that are relaxing, fun, personal and supportive. That’s what true friendship is all about, right?