Making Friends
The last few weeks were rather stressful, mostly because I was first getting ready to travel to visit family in the Midwest, and then doing that in a kind of limbo where I wasn't really on vacation, and still had to do all my work and meet all my deadlines (self-imposed, but again, I'm trying to make partner this year), while also making time for family and being without regular childcare. I also had a lot of responsibility for pulling off our high school reunion while I was there, and the travel itself was stressful, with six bags, a toddler, a car seat, a stroller, and a dog. At the end of it all, I got back to my desk and our nanny and resolved not to do another family trip again for a few years, if I can help it. But it was good to see family and a few familiar faces at the reunion, even though most of my high school friends had moved away and didn't come back.
That brings me to the subject line. I was thinking about what I missed about high school, and realized that it was the friendships that I had at that time. I had a few friends from choir in college, but never made a solid group of friends in graduate school or in my life in California afterward. To be fair, there was some dating along the way, and I eventually met my wife, and that was all socializing in a way, but I realized that I still miss having close friends and have really missed having them for a long time, because I didn't know where to find them and how to make them as an adult. So I decided to seek out friends more actively, the way I used to try to find people I'd like to date.
It turns out that Bumble has a "BFF" mode that seems like a perfect start. It's a pretty civilized crowd, and there are lots of other people who are in relationships and just looking for friends. With my wife's blessing, I've struck up a number of conversations with matches, and although some of them go further that others, and people (including me at times) do seem a little less committed to the process than when they're looking for dates, it's a little lower pressure and more accepting than than a dating mindset. I haven't met anyone from it in person yet, but it's nice to be able to be social from my phone in between other commitments.
I'm also trying to do more to actively reach out to old friends who would probably be just as happy to chat with me as the Bumble folks, and even though it feels like I'm sticking my neck out a little and taking a risk of rejection to do that with people I haven't talked to in ages, it has seemed like most people are receptive to hearing from me and catching up a little bit. Mostly long distance as I noted above, but still nice to feel a little more connected again. Next is finding people who want to actually get together in the real world... :)