MWF Seeking BFF (20 page)

“So what happened with your father?”

“Well, he died almost four years ago, but he lived with it for seven years.” I emphasize the second half—the good news.

“That’s encouraging. My dad was diagnosed about three years ago and they said that might be all the time he had.”

It’s pretty heavy conversation for a margarita-and-nachos birthday dinner, but it’s one of the first true heart-to-hearts I’ve had with any of my new friends. That we’ve both been unlucky enough to deal with this will link us forever, I’m
sure. It’s the same survivor bond I shared with Alison after her father died a few months ago, even though Kim’s father is still alive. Social identity support and all. I recently read a
Psychology Today
article about breast cancer survivors similarly connecting. “Though the women no longer have breast cancer and have continued with family and careers, their social identity as survivors often remains so powerful that their primary bonds of friendship are with other survivors, the only people who can understand what they’ve been through and grasp their perspective on life.” This is how I felt with Alison after her father died, and now with Kim. I tell her that if she ever wants to talk, I’m around, and offer my mother’s services as a walking multiple myeloma encyclopedia. She’s become an expert on just about every medication and treatment option out there.

The next day I reiterate as much in an email. Three days later, Kim writes me back. “It is pretty remarkable that we share similar experiences with something so rare. I’m really still wrapping my mind around that. I feel as if we were destined to meet, it’s so crazy how this has all come about! I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’m planning for my dad to visit in a few weeks. He’s not been up to Chicago to visit and it would be a great getaway for him. If he continues to feel up for the trip, I would love for you to meet him, if you’re in town.”

Aside from being a touching email—finding Kim was destiny!—it’s a huge step in my friend-dating career. Meeting the parents is one of the most significant dating milestones on record. It’s usually a ten-to-fifteen-dates-in move, and we’ve only been out twice.

In college especially, the “which friends should I invite to dinner with my visiting parents” question was a big one. They would offer a dorm-food reprieve and treat the chosen few to
dinner at a nice restaurant. Plus, they’d get a sampling of the most important people in my life. That Kim wants me to meet her father is flattering. Clearly we’re on the same page.

I read Matt the email and he immediately adopts his announcer voice. “And Kim’s pulling ahead! Watch out Jillian …”

Warm weather, one might think, should lend itself to making friends. After eight months of hibernating, Chicagoans are out in full force. A walk along the lake might find me clearing the path for a unicycler, dodging cops on Segways, playing Frogger with countless runners and shying away from no less than a dozen dogs. (I’m determined to get over my thorny relationship with canines, as they are perhaps the best wingmen. The pet-owners in my life have promised that a single trip to the dog park could produce at least a few BFF prospects.) The streets are teeming with ladies just waiting for me to make my move, and they’ll be so drunk on sunlight they may not even get creeped out. Yet it’s only the end of May and I can see the upcoming summer season will pose some problems.

In our house, summer is synonymous with travel. Too much time away is going to cramp my friend-making style, but I don’t have much choice in the matter. Over the next few months we’re scheduled for two out-of-town weddings, a family trip to Vegas, a long weekend in Cape Cod, and, to cap it all off, our one-year-postponed honeymoon. Croatia here we come.

First up is a friendship throwback of the highest order. My ten-year high school reunion.

Matt’s opted out of this trip, and no amount of guilting
could get him to change his mind. It’s my own fault, really, because I initially told him I didn’t care if he came. And I really didn’t. I wasn’t even playing that “I’ll say I don’t care but really I do so this is a test to make sure you love me enough” game. Until I found out my friends’ husbands and fiancés would be in attendance. Then I cared, and asked Matt to come, but he made some good arguments—“I’m traveling the next two weekends”—and some questionable ones—“I’m a lawyer, Rachel, I need to be available.” In the end I’m at O’Hare solo, getting ready to board a flight to LaGuardia, where Callie and Nate will be waiting.

“Hey, Rachel. Made any friends lately?” I’m surprised to see Ben, a former classmate of mine who I haven’t spoken to since, oh, sophomore year, standing beside me at the gate. He’s about thirty pounds lighter than I remember, but otherwise looks exactly the same. Eighteen to 28 must not be prime getting-fat-and-bald years.

“Oh! Ben! Uh, hi. Yeah, um, I’ve made some friends.”

“I read your blog.”

“Clearly. Thanks.” This is without question the longest conversation we’ve ever had. “How’s your biking?”

Facebook has basically made high school reunions obsolete. Ben and I, who are online friends but have never actually seen each other in the three years we’ve overlapped in the Midwest, know the big-picture themes of each other’s lives because they pop up in our newsfeeds. He’s always posting stuff about cycling that I don’t totally understand—I think he’s a racer?—and I only add status updates when I link to my blog.

Two hours later, Ben and I walk the halls of LaGuardia together. His parents’ car is right behind Callie and Nate’s, and Cal gets out to greet him.

“Ben! Happy reunion!” She gives him a hug. Callie loves
seeing people she was never really friends with and acting as if they’ve always been lifelong BFFs.

“I just learned more about him than I ever knew in high school,” I tell her once we’re on the road.

“Ben and I were actually kind of friends because of Spanish class,” she says. This is what I mean. They were never friends.

“Well, I’m definitely in reunion mode now,” I say.

When we get back to Callie’s, all three of us get comfortable in front of the nationally televised Spelling Bee. This is our favorite night of the year. That it’s taking place the night before our reunion, and thus Callie and I get to watch awkward adolescents go for the gold together while having a slumber party, is some sort of cosmic gift. Aside from the very controversial decision to give a girl “gnocchi” in the second-to-last round—any pasta-loving kid could nail that word—it’s a rather boring bee.

Once Nate goes to sleep, Callie and I stay up past our bedtimes looking at the Facebook pages of random former classmates.

“What’s that girl’s name who always had a broken leg?” I ask her.

“Elizabeth! How can you not remember that?”

“I just pray that Evan will be there. Do you think he still talks with a fake British accent? Let’s check his page.”

This is why lifelong friends are so hard to supplement. The shared history is what makes our sleepover so entertaining. Whose Facebook page can I gawk at with a newbie?

Facebook-stalking could be the theme of the weekend. Since everyone has seen everyone else’s profiles, there are no big surprises. Nerdy John’s become something of a pimp? Yeah, I saw his latest photo updates. Socialite Samantha’s hosting a fund-raiser? Got the Facebook invitation. The real shocker
is not how much people have changed but how much they haven’t. On a tour of the new gym (my high school upgraded athletic facilities immediately after I graduated. There is now an actual yoga room, complete with a Buddha statue.) I follow our faculty guide down the steps and we pass the crowd that would have been deemed “the druggies” if my life were a John Hughes movie. They’re sitting on the rocks drinking beers as I’m taking instructions from a teacher. The same frustrations and insecurities and jealousies I felt ten years ago are bubbling up. Apparently I’ve traveled back in time.

After a few hours at my old high school, and another few at a bar with my former classmates, it’s clear that while I may want to relive my high school friendships, I don’t want to relive high school.

“I can’t believe no one has changed,” my friend Emily says as we watch two very drunk classmates embrace.

“Seriously. It’s kind of creepy and amazing at the same time. All the cliques are still the same,” I say. “I mean, it says a lot about the relationships that they’re still intact, but isn’t it weird that so many people still hang out exclusively with high school friends?”

“Yeah, there’s something to be said for growth,” she says.

When I board my flight back to Chicago the next day, I’m full from a weekend with my dearest friends. It’s a deep sense of satisfaction, like the pure contentment of eating a home-cooked meal. But now I’m ready to venture out into new cuisine. Now it’s time for growth.

FRIEND-DATES 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
Brynn, Jackie, Dana, Mia, Morgan.

Nice, nice, bitchy, nice, nice.

Or more specifically: Nice, cool and kind of sarcastic, unfriendly,
fun, hilarious. All five emailed me from my essay. Brynn and Jackie are fellow East Coasters (Brynn is from Boston, Jackie is from Westchester County, where I grew up) who recently relocated to Chicago with their men. The same is true of Dana, who moved from Manhattan within the year. I originally thought we’d be a great match. Her email was cute and witty, with references to the New York restaurants she missed and the Chicago haunts she’s adopted. “I’ve always made friends through work or school, but it’s much harder this time, especially with no children or dogs. I feel too old to friend some of the hipsters in my neighborhood, but too young to friend the fogeys at my office.”

Upon meeting, though, it’s clear it’s not just that she misses her friends, she misses New York. And it’s not just that she misses New York, she really doesn’t like Chicago. She’s got that New York edge only an outsider would notice, which tells me one thing: I’m not a New Yorker anymore. While our conversation reminds me that I have some Big Apple nostalgia—“I
loved
the Shake Shack!”—I don’t wish I lived there. Dana does.

“I’m just kind of a mean person,” she says, not at all jokingly. “My boss in New York used to tell me that he loved that I was mean, and I was like ‘Great, I’m about to move to the friendliest place in the world.’ ”

I used to say this kind of thing all the time. “Yeah, I’m kind of a bitch, I’m a New Yorker! That’s what makes me lovable.” The last time I remember making such a comment was to my coworker Joan. “I was nervous that my New York sarcasm was rubbing everyone the wrong way,” I told her once, before realizing that the constant references to my previous Manhattan life weren’t interesting to anyone but myself. In fact, they were kind of obnoxious. Dana has that similar “New York is the
center of the world attitude” which I don’t begrudge her, but I do know she won’t be all that happy in Chicago until she shakes it.

Mia lives around the corner from me. She’s smart, likes travel and exercise, seems like a great activity partner, and gets huge points for living in the neighborhood. The perfect pedicure friend. Morgan’s from L.A. and has bright red hair that’s short and teased in a way that reminds me of a 1980s Molly Ringwald. I love it. In telling me about some of her mommy issues, she mentions she was an actress when she was young.

“Like, an actress actress? Would I have seen you in anything?”

“Have you heard of the show
Sisters
?” Um, clearly. I only watched it every single Saturday night of my preteen I’m-too-young-to-go-out-on-a-Saturday-night life. “I was on it for seven years.”

I’m having my own superfan moment here. She also had bit parts on
Roseanne
and, later in her career,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
When I mention something of my love for Alyson Hannigan, she calls her “Aly.” It’s all I can do to not grab her phone to see what other celebrities are in her contact list.

It’s in these moments that I love my search even more than I love the people I’ve met. When you force yourself to go out with fifty-two new potential best friends, you’re going to get all sorts of characters sitting across the dinner table. A child actress, a pastor’s daughter, a mom of twins, a southern Yalie, an aspiring Olympian. I’m starting to feel like the most connected girl in Chicago, and with my hand in so many different circles of the city it can be hard to keep them all straight. When I run errands now, I’m constantly on the lookout for familiar faces, and nothing makes me feel more local than bumping into someone I know. If at the end of the year I emerge with
no BFF, I’ll certainly have plenty of acquaintances. I could network you all over town. Need a wedding dress? I’ve got just the girl! Want to pursue Jewish studies? I’ll hook you up.

In
The Tipping Point
, author Malcolm Gladwell talks about what he calls Connectors, “people with a special gift for bringing the world together … They are the kinds of people who know everyone.” I remember the first time I read that chapter, in 2003, and thought about the people I knew who so obviously fit the bill. Reading it again I see that I’m getting there. “Connectors are people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches.… Acquaintances, in short, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.” Every time I read that sentence I’m filled with inexplicable images of Underdog, as if knowing a lot of people makes you some sort of social (and cuddly) superhero. I’ve gone from feeling socially isolated to socially powerful in six short months.