The Friend I Won't Have

I won't name her. We worked at the same company years ago. Once in a while we'd happen to be at the break room tables for lunch. I know she meant well and was actually very sweet. But she was crazy, truly crazy. The way she talked about the really gross personal things about her kids and her husband, it was just too much information all the time.

I just can't sit across from her again if I have the choice ... So I'm going to have to say goodbye and good luck.

Real Friends

"Let's be real friends." Sarah, a coworker and FB friend, said this to me a while back. We fell in together at our company's Christmas happy hour as we often do at such events. We were saying goodbye and probably discussing the possibility of getting together again. It was a perfect statement--how without overdoing it, simply saying that actual friends do more, make more of an effort.

So I emailed her yesterday, basically asking her out to dinner so we could be "real friends." I found myself getting a little nervous awaiting her reply.

I also went ahead and emailed a few other casual friends/coworkers and former coworkers in the same spirit. One woman got back to me that night and we quickly made dinner plans. Another hedged a little when I broached the subject of grabbing lunch. I don't think it was the idea she rejected. It had more to do with the practicalities of actually making it happen. The lunch idea was left hanging out there and no date was made. I was a little surprised actually. I expected the opposite. I don't know whether to bring it up again or let it lie.

Sarah got back to me and apparently remembered the "let's be real friends." And we just might make a plan and try it.

Misery Loves Facebook

It's old news that comparing what one has to what others have is a short road to unhappiness. The new news is how Facebook, according to one study, "aggravates this tendency."

Sure, I definitely see how this happens. Had a day ruined because I realized that an ex was "in a relationship?" Check. Had mean thoughts about an old schoolmate whose life still seemed annoyingly perfect? Ok I've been there too.

It's normal to feel this way. But I don't like locking eyes with the green-eyed monster more than I have to. I want to feel like my life has what it needs. And so I most often stop myself from idly flipping through a FB friend's pictures just because they're there and I can kill a couple minutes on them. I have to give myself a better reason--that I'm genuinely happy or interested in this person's (dog/car/baby/wedding/vacation to Tahiti/etc.)

So I why do I keep the others around? How real are my connections? I'd like to know the answers.

The Bus to Jersey

If you asked me to sit down and design a wonderful life, it would be close to what I have now. I truly enjoy creative and engaging work, rewarding relationships, and where I live. I'm feeling a void lately though. You could diagnose it as the in-the- 30s-and-still-single malaise. Ok, I'll allow it. But it's not the whole story. Simply, I miss people. It's getting harder and harder to stay connected. In my own cycle of work, grad school, and other things, I feel like people get squeezed into my life rather than being the main event. I want more.

On a regular old Wednesday in the middle of the day I emailed Gianna, my old college buddy. We were part of a group of girls that lived together all four years. In that way, we were more than friends--we were family. The last time we saw each other was a little more than three years ago at her baby shower. Since then, we have exchanged, maybe, a few emails and texts. It's horrible because it became so normal and easy not to talk. She emailed me right back and invited me over for that Friday night--a miracle given her life is so packed with child, husband, family, and medical school.

Our reunion was not filled with fireworks or tearful confessions. Amid all the catching up, sometimes awkward, we just knew each other, knew how to be together--how to laugh at the same old things. I got treated to a home-cooked Italian dinner (Thanks to Gianna's mom). I got to dance around with my new three-year-old little friend, Nica. It was comfortable. It was brief. It was a better normal.

Here I am

It's 3 a.m. and I can't sleep. I'm not exactly troubled but I'm not completely at peace either. Eventually all thoughts lead to the same place: what am I doing with my life? 3 a.m. discontent is the worst. There's no one to talk to about anything. And I am a person that needs people. So of course, I turn on my laptop and get on Facebook. Face after face on page after page and I just feel even farther away from everyone I know. I feel disconnected. I feel empty. And I start to think about how it's been so long since I've talked to so many friends. And then I think about how I barely know the people I know anymore. This is Facebook's fault of course--the fact that I am in virtual touch with people from all corners of my childhood, my adolescence, my adulthood and the fact that we know each other by face, by name only now. And even with the friends I actually see in the flesh, too often virtual contact substitutes real interaction.

In my 3 a.m. haze, I make a decision to personally meet with all of my 320* friends and faces in 2011. This is going to be either the best idea ever or the worst idea ever.

Cue the mood music:

*number subject to change