Making legitimate friends as an adult is hard. Really. Hard. There’s a lot to say on the subject and to do it justice, well, you’re betting off listening this great episode of the Forever35 podcast. Instead I’ll tell you about the first two years of trying to make friends in our new city. Year one: I tried hard. Year two: I still tried hard but got lucky. Ultimately, my thesis on the topic boils down to this–you have to get lucky. It’s not science, people, but there it is. Do less, get lucky, make friends.
In the first few month in our new house, I wanted to make friends in the neighborhood and I wanted it bad. We weren’t getting a lot of inbound action, so I did what every crazy research-driven person would do. I stalked people. I mean, in a matter of speaking I used data to increase my odds. I knew there were several other houses for sale around us, so I stalked the listings, saw the moving trucks, and waited to see what the wind would blow in. Is that….a water table? A haphazard telltale toddler toy strewn across the lawn? Oh yeah, baby, I see it now—the ubiquitous red and yellow kid car. Bingo. I summoned a little courage, slung my toddler on my hip, and knocked on the door. After all, I’d be thrilled if somebody had done the same for me, right? I would have, but this family? Not so much. It didn’t go well. I got the perhaps bad luck of the dad answering the door, tried for a time to move the conversation along, but the signs of rejection were there—he didn’t get what I wanted, wasn’t into our visit, hurried us off the porch. Ok then.
And it wasn’t just unfriendly dad. A handful of other door knocks, a couple promises of play dates, some unanswered emails. Okaaay then. At a very minimum, didn’t having kids in the same age group and houses within stones throws of each other (a good arm, yes, but still do-able) automatically mean we should be, if not friends, then friend-ly? Maybe not. Weird. (for the record, still weird to me, but a discussion for another day).
But then, in the way many lasting relationship are formed, a random encounter changed my luck. Spring brought a Montessori school toddler get-together, and an awesome couple—they were kind, they were cool, their kid didn’t beat up our kid (a factor, not a deal breaker) and in our very first discussion, one of them threw it out there—you seem normal, you’re drinking wine, we could probably be friends. Ah yes, yes we could. And now we are. Really truly, you’d pick up my kid from school if I needed it, you gave me your extra ticket to Taylor Swift, our kids ran around outside naked together on multiple occasions across the summer, friends. And somehow, being connected to them roots me to this community in a way I wasn’t a year ago. When I was stalking moving trucks. That one house, that great family, somehow that’s enough.
I’ll still probably always think you should be friendly with your neighbors, just because. And I’ll still probably always cast sidelong glances at unfriendly neighbor dad’s house when C scoots by it on her evening scooter ride. But, I feel more confident, have more hope that the friend pool is not as shallow as I might have feared. There are friends yet to be made. There will always be people out there who get you, want to be kind to you, and are in the place and have the space to welcome you into their lives. It might just be a numbers game, at the end of the day. You don’t need to try harder, do more, but just cast your net wide enough that the right one lands under it. And still knock on new neighbors’ doors just to say hi. It’s the right thing to do.
Well said. Making new friends is so, so hard! I believe in luck, too.