MWF Seeking BFF (24 page)

“But if someone had introduced herself to me? I would have been so excited,” she told me, eight years later.

Most women I’ve met are similar. We all think we’re living in a world of grouches, so we’re too self-conscious to be the overtly friendly one. A 2009 survey found that 75 percent of adults say Americans are becoming ruder and less civilized. I was part of that three-quarters of the population when I moved to Chicago. I thought overtures of friendship would be received with suspicion rather than appreciation, so I hung back for fear of being the weirdo. Now I think I was wrong. It’s not that people are less civilized, it’s just that we
think
they are,
and so we act accordingly. We don’t reach out unsolicited for fear of being rejected. We don’t talk to new people because we assume they don’t want to be bothered. But as I continue to pursue friendships, I’m constantly surprised at how receptive people are.

Toward the end of the evening, as if just to prove my point, I hear the ping of a text message. It’s from Jillian.

“Hi! I went book-hunting at the thrift store and they had two copies of the British edition of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Clearly, I got them both, and one is for you. Hope you are enjoying Cape Cod!”

I smile, adrenaline coursing strong at this evidence of real friendship. It’s not the gift, really. It’s that Jillian thought of me. I could hardly be the only person she knows who reads
Harry Potter.

Shasta Nelson told me the biggest problem with making friends is that there’s no easy way to talk about it. “We can’t hammer the importance of these relationships when there’s not even a vocabulary in place,” she said. “There are no platonic words for courting or flirting or hitting on a potential friend.”

Right now that would be helpful. I’d have a language to explain the honeymoon phase of this friendship, full of thoughtful gestures and innocent excitement at a simple text message. I’m all giddy, as if the captain of the football team just asked me to the homecoming dance.

FRIEND-DATE 27.
When I first started my blog back in March, I figured it would be a solitary endeavor. A means of chronicling my search for a BFF, but certainly not a way of finding her.

I’d learned from coworkers that the way to make your mark
in the cybercommunity is to comment on other people’s blogs with links back to your own. As blogger etiquette goes, people whose sites you comment on will do the same for you. It’s the unwritten rule of reciprocation. So I started leaving notes at the end of interesting blogs, and, sure enough, the authors started commenting on my posts in return. Which often lead to email exchanges, and even the occasional “If only we lived closer!”

I’d read about blogger Meetups and Tweetups, blog carnivals (when a group of bloggers write on the same topic), and becoming IRL (webspeak for “in real life”) friends. Hiding behind a computer screen seemed an illogical friend-making method, but the more blogs I read the clearer it became that the online community was fiercely loyal. When I posted about this surprise discovery one day, other bloggers virtually nodded in agreement in my comment section. One wrote, “Sometimes I feel like my bloggy friends understand me better than my real ones.”

Maybe blogging is the modern-day version of pen pals. We can read each other’s daily posts—entries that range from a mundane to-do list to a biting “here’s who I hate today” rant to a Dear Diary entry of innermost secrets—and suddenly understand a perfect stranger’s thought process. You know each other in isolation, separate from any context that might lend itself to prejudgment. But it’s a slippery slope. Enlisting the blogosphere as a way of connecting is great, but, as I’ve been warned, using it as a replacement for face time can be dangerous. So when a fellow blogger—one whose work I admire—commented that she was local, I asked her out. In real life.

As I wait outside Piece, a pizza place in Wicker Park, I search the street for someone with kinky curls that dominate her face. That’s Maggie’s defining feature according to the tiny profile
picture on her blog. All I know about her is what she’s written online. She has three kids. She looks like she’s in her early thirties. She likes to draw and make sarcastic notes in the margins. I especially enjoyed a recent sketch of some El commuters who were playing their music too loud. A personal pet peeve.

When she arrives, Maggie’s hair is in braids. My vision of a curly comrade is shattered.

After half an hour, so too are my dreams of our IRL relationship.

We don’t laugh together. Not once in ninety minutes. Our commonalities start and end with blogging, which can only sustain a conversation for so long. And while it’s something we both do, it doesn’t say much about who we both are.

From what I’ve read of her, Maggie is really funny. In person, I’m not seeing it. She would likely say the same about me. I saw a greeting card the other day that said “I’m much more interesting on my blog.” It might have been created for this very date. Our enjoyment of each other’s online personas isn’t translating to the real world.

Maybe these communities are online for a reason.

Toward the end of the meal I excuse myself to the restroom, where I text Matt an SOS. Unfortunately we haven’t set up a rescue plan, and feigning some “Hello? What? There’s an emergency? I’ll be there right away!” is so sitcom it would never work.

I have no idea how to fill the long silences. Maggie already told me about her kids and her ex-husband and her job. I told her about Matt and our move to Chicago. And then, nothing. She doesn’t have time to watch TV or read, she tells me, which rules out my go-to conversation filler. In the movie version of our date, here is where the birds start chirping.

“Care for some dessert?” Our waitress is shoving the menu toward us.

Please say no. Please say no.
I give Maggie my best “it’s your call” expression.

“I think we’re all set,” she says. “Just the check, please.”

We walk together toward the train and my car. As we part ways, I’m reminded of that
Friends
episode where Chandler says “We should do it again sometime!” at the end of every date, even the awful ones. As Maggie and I stand on the corner, trying to gracefully part ways, I hear the Mr. Bing reflex going off in my head.

“Well, we should definitely get together again,” I tell her.

“Totally,” she says.

What? Why? It’s that uncontrollable urge to leave on pleasant terms and avoid an even slightly uncomfortable encounter.

“I don’t think this worked out so well but have a great life” just doesn’t have the same ring.

“Um, I’m here with GirlFriendCircles?” It’s not really a question, but my voice hikes up an octave as I tell the hostess at Frasca, the pizza-and-wine-bar locale of my very first ConnectingCircle, why I’m here.

She stares at me blankly.

“Is there a reservation?” I ask.

“I don’t see one.”

“Okay, I’ll just go check if anyone’s seated yet.” In my hand is the official “Table Tent,” a place card to identify myself if I’m the first one here. A quick walk-through tells me that I am, but when the hostess asks if I want to be seated I politely refuse.

The Table Tent has a drawing of two female stick figures who seem to be holding hands, or maybe dancing, in a swirl of bright orange, green, and pink polka dots. Next to the image, in bold letters and similar colors, is an announcement: “We’re meeting new girl friends tonight.”

I’ll broadcast my search online, I’ll hand out my business card to strangers, I’ll even pay $29.95 for a six-month membership to a friend-matching website. But I will not sit alone in a crowded restaurant wearing a sign that might as well say “I have no friends.”

At the beginning of this year I wondered if there was anything I wouldn’t do in service of my quest. This is it. The line has been drawn.

I wait by the door until I see Jane, whose red hair and glasses I recognize from the photos of the other RSVPs. We exchange a timid hello and show ourselves to a corner table. We never put up the Table Tent.

My group is made up of Jane, Melissa, Rose, Logan, and me. Jane and Melissa don’t talk much. Rose tells us she signed up for the service because a book she’s reading encouraged her to try activities outside her comfort zone. I pull my second Chandler Bing in a single week and take it upon myself to fill every silence with a lame joke.

“Sure I’ll have a second glass of wine, maybe we can make this GirlFriendCircle
really
interesting!” Ugh. What is wrong with me?

The other ladies laugh. Whether out of nerves or pity I can’t tell.

Logan is a 4′11″ spitfire. She shares her life story—her move from California to Chicago, her recent transition to self-employment—without taking a breath. She’s dating a guy long distance at the moment (“though Skype helps!”), and is
planning the solo trip to Paris and India she’s always dreamed of. “I thought of it long before the whole
Eat, Pray, Love
thing,” she insists.

I’ve set a goal to ask out at least one potential BFF from each mixer I attend or group I join. Logan should expect to hear from me soon.

After all this blind connecting, I’m excited to spend a night with people I already know. My kitchen is stocked with pizza dough, a vat of tomato sauce, and eight girls in search of new BFFs. In a mere twenty-four hours I’ve gone from connectee to connector. Brynn, Lacey, and Ellen are laughing like old friends in the living room; Mia and Amanda are discovering their common California roots; Jackie, Kari, and I are sporting aprons and rolling out pizza dough, and Margot’s surveying our progress, red wine in hand.

It’s the evening after my GirlFriendCircles adventure, and I’m playing host at my first ever dinner party. I invited mostly the new friends who I don’t see as often as I’d like and who reached out to me after reading my online essay. They all admitted to feeling similarly disconnected, with a shortage of local friends for whatever reason, so we can use one another’s company. I added Margot to the list because while we have lunch decently often, I think she’d get along with this crowd. And Kari, my coworker, was recruited as a buffer. She has a knack for friendly chatter, so having her on deck to help guide conversation eases my nerves. After all, the rest of us have openly admitted to having trouble making new friends. There might be a reason for that.

Tonight’s gathering is a make-your-own-pizza-and-cupcakes
affair. At yesterday’s ConnectingCircle, we had “sharing questions”—What’s your favorite book? Where would you like to vacation and why?—to keep conversation going should there be a lull. At this shindig, I ward off collective boredom and anxiety by putting my guests to work.

On my kitchen counter are three pizza stations: Margherita; Pepperoni and Shallot; and White Pizza with Sun-dried Tomato and Scallion. Aside from the ice-breakerness of cooking together, the make-your-own aspect takes some pressure off me and my cooking skills.

I said I was interested, I never said I was good.

“I read it’s better to roll out the dough by hand than with a rolling pin,” Jackie says.

“Go for it.” I give her the rectangular baking sheet that will double as a pizza pan for tonight. She’s wearing one of my four cooking aprons—remnants of two kitchen-themed bridal showers—and seems to have an idea of what she’s doing.

Kari and I choose the rolling-pin route, and soon we’re all gathered around my couch, talking weddings and job offers in between bites.

“Where’s Matt tonight?” Mia asks me.

“At my mom’s. I sent him there to watch LeBron.” I’d warned Matt about the ladies’ night a while ago, offering our bedroom as a private refuge, but he wanted to steer clear. My mother loves hosting her son-in-law, so she’s made him a dinner of pasta—his carby favorite I try to keep out of our kitchen—and relinquished her couch and flat-screen. The entirety of America, minus some nine pizza-loving ladies, is tuned in to an ESPN circus, watching LeBron James announce that he will be leaving Cleveland to take his talents to South Beach. A quick refresh of my
USA Today
app tells me the news,
I share it with my guests who nod in semi-interest, and we get back to girl talk.