This is where I think CO and I live...the Island of Misfit people.
Before we get started here, let me warn you, this might be a rambling post full of self pity. Read on if you must, but don't say I didn't warn ya!
So CO and I...Island of Misfit People. It's like the Toy one, except it is just CO and I. All alone.
See, CO and I are, uhm, how should I say...friend challenged, in that we have none. Oh, I have some...and he has some, but WE don't have any. No couples to hang out with.
There are several reasons for this. First, I think, is the whole job differential CO and I have. CO feels as if he has very little in common with my work friends, and in fact, some have treated him rather shabbily over the years. One of my friend's spouses even told CO that he "looked down" on him. Yeah, that's going to create a warm and lasting friendship in a hurry! We have the same problem with his work colleagues...I just don't have a lot in common with them or their spouses.
Second, many of our friends are in a different place in their lives. Our children are older, and most of our friends have smaller kids. Obviously, they want to spend time with their kids, and they don't want to get a sitter all the time. We totally understand this, but as adults with older kids, we've done our time, and little ones, no matter how cute and wonderful, are disruptive and a lot of work. We've been there, done that, and don't really want to do it again...tt least not all the time.
There is also the distance problem. I am still in touch with my best friend from childhood, but she lives four states away, and my best friends from high school and college live four hours away. To top it off, they are all still on kid patrol. One of them is pregnant right now! Life happens, and people drift. I still love the three of them dearly, and I relish my time with them, but they know as well as I do, that it isn't the same. We all have our lives to live.
And of course they are my friends. Their spouses don't know CO well, and there is some built in awkwardness there.
We did have a couple we hung out with for years. We spent weekends and holidays with them...it was great! Except when it wasn't. This was CO's best friend and his wife. Uhm, let's call her Crazy Betty...because she wasn't so much ugly, but she was damn CRAZY! I will have to write a whole separate blog about Crazy Betty. Suffice it to say, we needed to get away from that poison, or get divorced. That's basically what it came down to. We opted for the former.
Another couple we know have a "Look at me! Look at all my cool stuff. Too bad you're not as cool as us!" thing going on that just annoys the shit out of us. I hate people like that. I don't care how cool you are. Just be real for five minutes.
You know back in the day, I worked with this girl named Katie. Katie was one of those people who had no edit function in her head. Whatever comment popped into her mind, came out her mouth. Things like, "Have you considered coloring your grey hair?" or "Have you gained some weight? Those pants look a little tight." Yeah. She did.
Anyway, Katie couldn't figure out why no one ever invited her to lunch. She complained to the boss that "everyone hated" her, and he made us either invite her, or go to lunch separately. We opted for the later...everyone ate alone for weeks after that.
My response to the "everyone hates me" thing has always been, "Look in mirror, Babe. 'Everyone' is seldom wrong."
So that is why I am having such a crisis here. We have no friends. And it can't be everyone else, so...it MUST be us! Seriously. Is it us?
What is wrong with us? Is Betty perfectly normal, and we are the crazy ones?
Okay, now THAT is crazy. You will have to wait until I tell you the story about Betty, but I think you will agree. Betty...C.R.A.Z.Y. But, even so, there must be something wrong with us. What is it? Can we fix it or are we doomed to spending our life alone on the Island of Misfit People."
I have been accused by someone I know and don't quite see eye to eye with of thinking I am better than everyone else. I'm not sure if that is her insecurity, or if it really is me. That may be the outward appearance, but let me tell you, in my head, that is so not true. I don't think I am better. I think I am different. Different is not better. It's...well, different. This distinction is lost on her, unfortunately.
And CO has his own problem. He has a very low tolerance for people's bullshit, and once put off, stays put off. This is an extremely difficult thing to overcome whan trying to find friends. Someone says or does one little thing CO doesn't like and he is done.
Okay, so how do we fix this? How do I seem less aloof and superior, and how do we get CO to be more tolerant? It seems like it should be a simple thing, but it is so NOT simple.
The whole question of moving has come up again, and I told CO, maybe we should just move, since we have no friends, and the family situation is a mess (another blog for another time).
His response: "Do you really think it would be any different some place else?"
Uhm, no?
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6 comments:
I kind of understand. In a lot of ways, I'm a loner - I like solitary pursuits (knitting, sewing, reading, embroidery...) and I'm not bugged by not having other people around. (In fact, some of the stuff I enjoy - like going out antiquing - it's sometimes frustrating having another person, if they're not 100% in accord with you, because they can be all like "My feet hurt! Let's go get a coffee! Do we have to go in this store? I think Fiestaware is ugly and overpriced, don't you?"
I don't deal well with the constant stream of talking that some people seem to need to keep up.
And yet, at the same time, I feel a certain conflict - all the media sources tell you you SHOULD have bosom friends. That people who don't have lots of close friends die younger or are sicker or turn out to be serial killers...it's kind of like the attitude about people who aren't in a relationship and aren't desperately sad over that fact - kind of a "does not compute!" error.
I don't know. I think some people are just less suited, constitutionally speaking, to be in huge groups of friends. My parents are the same way - they have FRIENDS, but they're not big socializers. They don't have people over for dinner or go out and do stuff with them all the time.
And I totally hear you on the person who cannot edit. I have someone like that in my life and it gets really really annoying at times. I just remind myself that he can't help it, that there's probably some little thing broken in his brain (or maybe a crayon got shoved up his nose when he was a kid) and that it doesn't mean anything.
I can totally sympathize with you on this one. For YEARS we had no couple friends other than family. It is hard enough to find one on one friends but when you are trying to get 4 people that all get along it's tricky.
My dear husband is very much like yours. He forms a swift opinion about people and I have to fight tooth and nail to get him to tolerate them or give them another chance. He is only SLIGHTLY better now that he is older and I have been begging him for 23 years! I can usually just ignore people that annoy me and have a good time with almost anyone but he is not that way. Even now that we have several couple friends he could easily drop them all but one couple.
It did get easier for us once our kids were older. The couples we hang out with the most are older than us since they don't have young kids either. And oddly enough most of our couple friends are women that my husband works with and their husbands.
All I can say is that I like you both just fine. I don't know CO well but he seems like a great guy. And believe me when I say that for a long time I had the same feelings. I thought DH was too nit-picky and I was worried that people thought I was a bi*ch. I wondered why we couldn't seem to click with any couples even though we had single friends or people that we liked one person out of the couple but not the other. I think sometimes it's just a matter of circumstance and timing.
First off, let me say that after Phil hung out with your CO in the town he visited last week he had nothing but nice things to say about him. He said your CO was fun and very nice. Phil said that after spending a few days with your CO he realized they are a lot alike and if they could tolerate each other there has to be others that can because Phil has VERY VERY low tolerance for people. I know we could all be friends and I am not saying that because we are family either.
How is your neighborhood situation for making friends? Phil and I will just go up to our neighbors and strike up conversations…offer them a beer and before you know it we have friends. Hey, if they don’t like to drink beer we just pretty much move on. (That is our tester). So far, we have lived in two neighborhoods and made some really fun friends. I can’t say we have maintained any really close working friend relationships though. A friend of ours worked with Phil for about 3 years and we are very close with her and her husband but that is really the only work relationship we maintained. BUT, they are some of our closest friends too. We value the friendships that you can just sit around and talk about anything from politics to religion and still walk away being friends.
It is really hard to make new friends…it is! After living here for 20 + years I can honestly say out of all our friends we are really only close with two couples. The rest could go by the wayside at any given moment. There is a lot of give and take in having friends. Just like a marriage. You do have to work at friendships too and also have forgiveness and hope that they will forgive you for your short comings because believe me I have stuck my foot in my mouth with our friends on many occasions. I just hope they know I am sincerely a good person and would not hurt their feelings intentionally. I feel like I am getting off on a tangent about us and that is not what you need.
Is there one couple that you could call? I double dog dare you to call someone up and ask them to go out to dinner with you and CO or to come over and play cards. Lots of times we just hang out at home and play cards with our friends because the kids are too young to stay home by themselves. I know you are going to say JULIE, I said there is no one.
Trust me; I have gone through the same feelings as you. There are many times I feel like I have no one here. That is where living close to family would be nice.
I just would like you to know that when I am around you I think you are fun and enjoyable to be with. It is just hard to find people cut from the same cloth. AND, one of my favorite sayings is, “People are overrated” so keep that in mind.
I can relate. In the early days of our marriage, the wife and I had a pretty decent-sized group of friends. A lot of that had to do with the fact that we did similar things -- drink, smoke, go bar hopping, to parties, etc. However, I admit that I have always been more anti-social than her. She always wanted to go out, I almost never did. And when I did, I would get drunk and stupid.
Nowadays, after children and her becoming devout in her faith, she picks up friends. Mostly from church. Though here it's been a bit more of a trial. Still, she finds friends. I do not. I have coworkers.
I don't hang out. I'm not big on doing many things out of the house and the things I do like to do usually involve my family. And then there's the spouse thing. Her friends tend to share her faith and that can, at times, make it difficult to get along with her friend's spouse.
We've been lucky here to meet a family that we enjoy spending time with and it's been pretty good. We'll see how it goes in the long run.
I think the problem is in standards. If you just want to hang out with people and don't care overly much about compatability, then you will have a corral. If you desire friends who are near and dear, then I think you'll find it to be far more like what you experience. And me, for that matter.
Thank you all for the comments! They made the Island seem a little less lonely. It is a comfort to know other people have similar struggles, and it isn't just us.
And the two of you who know us in life, it's good to know you don't find us snobby and intolerant. I truly don't want to come off that way, and I bothers me to think people see me that way. I wish we lived closer, because I would so enjoy more time with you.
Julie, most of our neighbors don't, uhm, well there is no P.C. way to say this, so I'll just blurt it out...they don't speak English. Since we don't speak spanish, this is a barrier to becoming life-long friends.
Cullen, I loved your point about standards. I got to thinking about some of the people we know who seem to have lots of freinds. Most of those friends are the corral you speak of...just people, no closeness. I guess what i was referring to are the true, close friends...the "near and dear" friends, and yeah, as you said, THAT is much harder to find.
MM -- I so get this. It's so hard to find "couples" friends. For many years, MB and I had a couple that was our best couple friend. The woman was actually my best friend and her husband and mine got along really well. MB considered him a very close friend. But then she went, well, nutso -- it's a long story that I think I've covered in some part on thee olde bloge. And that friendship is over, for all 4 of us. Which is weird. I mean, it's like MB and the husband have to dump the friendship because of what happened to their wives' friendship. By default, their friendship is over. It sucks. I feel terrible that he's lost that friend and I have TRIED to work it out with my former friend, but it hasn't worked so far.
Also, for us, there's a kind of isolation that comes from being a childless couple. We're just not in the groove with other couples, not on the same page or in the same phase of life. Through no fault of our own. I can often sense people feeling awkward around us, like they don't know what to do or how to talk to the childless people. We instantly do NOT have that in common.
MB and I were just talking about this the other day. Where is Match.com for friends?! I need a rigorous screening process.
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