MWF Seeking BFF (14 page)

Speaking of keeping in touch, I’m beginning to worry that my long-distance friendships are taking a hit. Given my new
schedule, it’s harder and harder to pencil in phone time. And the more time that passes between calls, the longer my friends and I need to catch up. So when someone like Sara appears on my caller ID, I usually screen it and plan to call back when I have an hour. Which is almost never. Suddenly the person I miss most is the person whose calls I ignore repeatedly. And even though my reasons are sincere—Sara deserves a chunk of undivided attention—it doesn’t change the fact that I’m talking to my friends less and less.

Sara’s worse at phone communication than I am, but just last week we finally connected. She started to tell me about a guy she just broke up with, to which I said “What guy? I haven’t even heard of him. It was serious?”

“He’s been around a little bit. I mean, the people in my everyday life knew about him.” Ouch. She didn’t mean it as a jab, but it felt like one.

An unintended consequence of this search is that I’m suddenly even more aware of how much I need my old friends. Going on girl-dates, even the good ones, takes energy. With old friends, it’s easier. Less exhausting. So late that night, after feeling like a bonehead because of the Sara call, I email Brooke, my New York City roommate and another lifer. “Can we talk soon? I miss you. I’m learning that interaction is key to friendships and we haven’t interacted!” Yes, I’m spewing friendship jargon, but good friends are rare so they shouldn’t go unappreciated. Plus, research shows that those who’ve told a good friend how much they value her friendship in the past month are 48 percent more likely to report being “extremely satisfied with the friendships in their lives.” So I redouble the staying-in-touch-with-old-friends effort. If I lose my old friends while trying to make new ones I could very easily end up with none at all.

* * *

FRIEND-DATE 15.
Sometimes, you ignore the signs. When you’re trying to keep an open mind, a red flag suddenly seems like just one more piece of evidence that you’re too judgmental. That you don’t give people a chance.

The first email was fine. Quite nice, actually. Three weeks ago, Gina read my essay and wrote, “It was just such a relief to find I’m not the only woman out there, a little west of Chicago, who needs a BFF.” She lives in the suburbs with her fiancé and works from home, so the girls’ night invitations, she said, have been dwindling. “If you are still looking,” she wrote, “please consider me!”

To some (to me, even) the wording may have come off as overzealous—I’m not actually accepting applications—but it was certainly in the spirit of openness and friendship. I’m the one who posted the want ad, so who am I to fault someone for treating it as such?

I wrote back thanking her for the kind note and checking when she might be able to meet. “Do you come into the city much? If you have any plans to make the drive anyway, we should plan around your schedule, otherwise we’ll figure something out.” Considering she responded to a want ad that very clearly sought out Chicago-based friends, this didn’t seem such a stretch.

Here’s what I got in return: “I’m going to be totally honest with you: I’m a country mouse, not a city mouse. Though I have been to the city many times, I don’t go frequently, and the only time I tried to go down there alone, my train hit someone and was delayed for hours. I want to warn you that I am not very public transportation savvy.” This does not sound promising.

She wrote that she lives in Morris, Illinois. A Chicago suburb, fine, but hardly “a little west.” It’s about sixty miles away. When I asked a coworker, she said it takes about an hour, maybe an hour and twenty minutes, to get there.

In that same email, Gina wrote, “I’m not sure what your thoughts are on meeting in public, but you’re welcome to come to my place if you’d like.” Um, my thoughts on meeting someone who found me over the Internet in public are
very positive.
I’m sure she was just trying to be friendly, but I wanted to write, “I’d actually rather not come to your house sixty miles away from my husband and family so you can chop me up into pieces in your basement, but thanks for the offer. I’ve seen that episode of
SVU.
”

Instead, I suggested we meet somewhere in the middle. In daylight. Surrounded by lots and lots of people. We settled on the Orland Square Mall in Orland Park, a forty-minute drive from my house.

A few days later I got another email: “Can I ask you for some advice? Can we just pretend that we’re best friends already and that you can’t wait to give me advice?”

You’ve been the one showing blatant signs of desperation before, I remind myself, don’t get put off by her eager-beaverness. Stop. Judging.

She asked me what she should do about waning friendships with coworkers. Something about how she didn’t go to college, can’t sympathize with her school-loan-ridden friends and instead flocked to coworkers twice her age who she thinks might have been using her as an excuse to go out to bars and cheat on their husbands. And then there was something, unrelated maybe, about the other ladies in the office ignoring her.

“So, do you think that they are stereotyping me as a young party-girl type like I stereotype people my age as such?”

Whoa there, lady. I don’t even know you. I can hardly even follow what you’re talking about.

So much of making friends is about tuning in to social cues. “Coming on too strong, oblivious to the other person’s response, is the quickest way to push someone away,” John Cacioppo and William Patrick write in their book
Loneliness.
Gina is doing exactly what Cacioppo warned me not to. But I shall not be pushed! Sure, she was self-disclosing like a mad woman way too soon, but it’s such a complicated dance, this friend-making.

She was probably nervous. And lonely. And excited to meet someone new.

I put off responding for three days. What do I know about her reputation? Eventually I wrote back that while I’m no expert—I’m advertising for friends on the Internet, don’t forget—it seems to me that life-stage is more important than age when it comes to BFFs and that “people do grow apart naturally, that’s part of life, but the hope is that we can find new people to connect with.” Apparently I’m a therapist.

Then I said something about the older generation being less open to work-friends than the 20- and 30-somethings. I have no idea if this answered her question. I hardly know what the question really was.

There were a few more back and forth emails. On top of the general intensity of her friendship advances, I was starting to rethink the geography thing. Is a friend an hour away any better than one a plane ride away? I’m not so sure. We wouldn’t be able to grab a last-minute lunch. We would probably only ever meet at Orland Square, or in Morris, since she’s scared of coming into the city alone.

While proximity isn’t necessary for maintaining friendships, research shows it’s a key factor in making new ones and a primary
indicator of which of those will stick. I make a mental note to befriend someone in my apartment building. We could borrow a cup of flour from each other, grab cupcakes down the street, lie out on the communal deck …

But back to the matter at hand. I’m going in with an open mind. At least an ajar one. I’ve heard stories of friendships unlikelier than this one, and potential friends on whom I’d pinned low expectations have surprised me before. So tonight, Thursday, I wrote her an email: “Hiya! Are we still on for Saturday?”

And I’ve just received this:

Oh. My. God. I just got dumped! I can’t believe this. She’s breaking up with me before we’ve even met. I know that I had
the same issues with the distance, and a part of me is relieved, but still, yikes. I figured that we’d work it out—or not—in time. And while yes, the ad said I was seeking a BFF, I don’t
actually
think we will become best friends forever on first meeting. It’s as if she’s saying “I don’t think we’re going to get married, so we might as well not go on the first date.”

“This is good,” Matt reminds me. “Now you don’t have to schlep out to Orland Park. We can get breakfast together.”

Did I do something wrong? I know the last email was from her to me, but it didn’t call for a response, did it? Is she mad at me for not writing back? Why doesn’t she like me??

“You’re really worked up considering you weren’t anxious to meet her in the first place,” Matt says when he sees that my hands are shaking.

“The last time someone dumped me it was you! Five years ago! It stings.”

I write Gina a polite and formal email in response. I tell her I understand where she’s coming from. That I hope I didn’t do anything to offend her. That distance is hard for friendships. I use my business sign-off. “Best, Rachel.” I know we’ve never met—this doesn’t even qualify as a real friendship breakup, the truly heart-wrenching kind—but a part of me feels like we should be splitting up the good china.

In a response I will never live to understand, she writes, “Haha! You’re really funny!”

What?
That was the least funny email I have ever written. Girls are so confusing.

So far, when it comes to want-ad dating, I’m zero for three. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all.

FRIEND-DATE 15, TAKE TWO.
I have a girl crush! I swear if I were in elementary school, I’d be writing our names on my binder: Rachel + Jillian = BFF 4-ever. Or maybe I’d buy us those necklaces. You know, the ones that are each half of a heart pendant, two pieces that fit perfectly together. Like us.

Let me start at the beginning. The good thing about Gina giving me the heave-ho was that I’d been trying to figure out a date to meet Jillian, a friend of a friend who wrote me after she read my article. Our mutual friend posted the piece as her Facebook status, Jillian saw it and sent me a message. “I also live in Chicago, have a shortage of female friends that do not require a plane to get to, and am an avid reader. I read
Entertainment Weekly
cover to cover every week.” So when Gina kicked me to the curb, I emailed Jillian to see if she could swing dinner that week.

Going into our date, here’s what I knew: Jillian lives in Andersonville, a Chicago neighborhood twenty minutes north of mine, is an assistant principal in Gary, Indiana, and has twins.
(True, when this all started, I thought all mommies fit in a social mold that didn’t work for me yet, but I’m learning. Maturing.) She’s from Connecticut, went to college in Manhattan, and used to teach in the Bronx. Our mutual friend is one I first bonded with over book talk, and she told me her friendship with Jillian blossomed the same way, so that was promising.

The night of our dinner plans, I had some time after work so I stopped at home to change clothes before walking to the neighborhood sushi spot that has become my other girl-date go-to. I put on black leggings and a long navy blue waffle shirt with small black polka dots.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Matt asked me as he scanned my outfit. Never a good sign.

“Why, should I not?”

“Well, it’s a girl-date, I don’t know what one wears to first girl-dates,” he said. “If you want to wear your shirt that looks like a pajama top, you definitely should.”

Understood. I changed into a bright blue sweater that could not be confused with something I’d wear to bed.

When I approached Sai Cafe, a girl on her cellphone gave me a wave. I did the “is it you?” point, she nodded, and I stood on the sidewalk sizing up my date while I waited for her to finish the call. She wore a long skirt and a loose blouse, a sort of hippie-chic-meets-theater-major outfit. I spotted a tiny nose ring, a subtle shimmer next to her full cheeks, which were rosy from the chill. (Yes, there is still a chill in mid-April. This is Chicago.)

“Sorry,” she said as she hung up. “That was my brother. He was telling me he might go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.”

That she said it with a hint of jealousy tells me she’s a Harry fan like me. Point Jillian. “Sounds like heaven. I’m dying to
go,” I tell her. “I’ve been talking about taking a trip there with my two best friends when we all have kids, but now I’m thinking it might be more fun to go before that and just drink ourselves silly with Butterbeer.”

“Yeah, Paul and I are the same way.” Paul is her husband, I guess. “We’re total
Harry Potter
nerds. I can’t wait to start reading it with the boys. When I was pregnant, I told everyone we were going to name them Fred and George,” she said, referencing the series’ lovable Weasley twins.