As Welcome to Ladyville readers may remember, I recently relocated to a new city. That one change inspired me to make other changes in my life, and one thing I’ve really been wanting to revamp is my social life. I need new friends! Don’t get me wrong; I have friends! Kind of a lot of them, for someone as asocial as myself. There’s never a time that I can’t call up one of a handful of people and make them talk me off a ledge (hopefully not literally), listen to a funny story, or get coffee with me. I’m incredibly lucky. But still, stagnation is something I’m trying to avoid these days, and my friends all have lives, anyway (translation: Cat is in vet school and I can’t make her hang out with me every night). I’m looking to branch out and meet more people, but the problem is this: I have no idea how to make friends. Like, at all. I haven’t really made a close friend since college. I work with almost entirely 50 year old men, and while I’m sure they’d love to grab a brewski sometime, I should probably focus more on people my own age. But how? I’m not in school, either. Help me out, ladies (and gents): how do you make friends?
Speaking of gents, that reminds me of another problem. I have lots of close male friendships I value just as much as my lady friendships, but they are mostly people I’ve known since childhood (or at least high school/college). How does a lady go about making new male friends? Do guys even WANT to be friends with girls they don’t want to sleep with? Am I to believe the gospel of When Harry Met Sally? And how do I talk to someone without seeming like I’m hitting on them? I really loathe shoehorning in a mention of my boyfriend. You know, “Oh, my boyfriend loves that band, too!” It’s always so awkward and obvious, but on one certain occasion when I didn’t drop a casual “I have a boyfriend” because I didn’t even realize a dude was flirting with me, I ended up crying in my car on my lunch break because I’d had to turn someone down and I’d never done that before and it just made me feel so terrible. I would really like to avoid that.
I will accept any and all friends (who aren’t crazy), but here are the specific friends I’m looking for:
-A friend who likes to wake up before 7 a.m. to go out for a very early breakfast. I like to wake up between 5 and 6 a.m., even on my days off, which means I get hungry really early and literally don’t know a single person who wants to go to breakfast with me that early. You guys, by the time brunch rolls around I’ve been starving for hours!
-A friend who likes to drink a bottle of wine and watch Gilmore Girls, because Lauren lives in NYC and I can’t travel there as often as I’d like to do this (twice weekly).
-A friend who likes to sit at a coffeeshop for several hours.
-A friend who likes to go out to a bar, drink several 7 & 7s, then come home and play board games because this is my idea of “going out.”
-A friend who likes to go to boring museums.
-A friend who likes to watch boring documentaries.
-A friend who is down with the idea of “craft night” because there isn’t a single night of my life that I don’t just want to have craft night.
-A friend who wants to talk about Drake for, like, a few hours.
If you know of a way I can meet these people (or if you are these people!!!) get at me. I am a fun lady, I promise! Well, I am a fun lady sometimes. If you are into things like watching documentaries. Okay, so maybe I’m not that fun! Whatever. Otherwise, ladies, what are your tips for making friends? Or do you have these same problems? Let me know in the comments, or e-mail me at welcometoladyville@gmail.com.