I got a forward today that addressed the theme of friendship.  You know how forwards go, sappy stories of personal growth intended to help you grow, anonymous author, and the plea that you pass this on and see how many you get back in return (because that’s how many friends you have.)  Anyway, I did read it, and it was actually kind of sweet.  It got me thinking about my current friendships and how my take on friendship has evolved over the years.

As a kid, my friends were my neighbors.  It was the kids you lived closest to and could “play with” on a regular basis.  I remember calling to see if my friend could play, I don’t remember when that stopped.  But somewhere along the line, friendships changed. 

In middle school, friendships revolved around gossip, dances, boyfriends, best friends, sleepover parties and going to the mall or the movies.  This is also where we learned the “real” classification system in play:  are you a prep, jock, slut or band geek?  Yeah I’m sure my terms are a little out of date but what can ya do?

In high school, friendships revolved around friday night football games, basketball games, dances, committees (prom, student council), courts (prom, snowball, turnabout, homecoming), boyfriends/girlfriends, sports and other interests.  For me it was band and sports.  I was friends with people who were in the sports I played, and in the bands I was in (marching, jazz and symphonic).  Yes, I was a band geek.  But I gotta say we had soooo much fun.  Anyway, that’s how I made friends.

Then there’s college.  If you’re lucky, you maintain the friendships you had in high school while you’re in college.  For me, that’s been the case for the most part.  Some have drifted, others are still pretty close.  My best friend from high school was my maid of honor in my wedding.  But back to college.   This was a difficult transition for me.  There was no more classifications, so it was hard to know what people were like or who I could possibly have something in common with.  There was no more, “prep, jock, band geek, nerd, artsy….” kind of system.  I’d gotten used to acting a certain way around certain people in high school.  Sure that doesn’t promote authenticity, but it does promote survival, which was all I cared about.  Anyway, finding friends was difficult for me in college.  I made friends with the girls that lived on my floor freshman year, and stayed friends with them for the most part through junior year.  After that I was on my own.  I lived by myself my senior year and I talk to only one of those girls anymore and it’s random when it does happen.

Since then I’ve been in Wichita.  I’ve had to develop my own sense of “being” here, because 1 month after I moved here, John left for Iraq.  So here, it seems, my friends have either come from church or from where I was working at the time.  Since I’ve changed jobs a few times, so have my friends.  Now that I’m in school full-time, that’s where most of my friendships lie.  I’m a little nervous about what will be left when I’m done with school.

There’s a new element added to friendship when you move:  long-distance friends, and needing to find new friends where you live.  You don’t want the long-distance friendships to change, although they naturally will just because of the distance.  So it’s trying to maintain the feeling of that emotional closeness in the abscense of physical closeness.  It can be difficult.

Then there’s the trying to make new friends in a new community.  John and I have been here for 3 1/2 years, and this is something we still struggle with to this day.  I’ll be honest, this subject doesn’t bother him as much as it does me.  There must be something about a woman’s need to connect with another woman, because he could care less about this kind of thing.  But anyway, I just haven’t found the kind of friendships here that I have from back home.  Maybe it’s my expectations about what I want in a friend.  I’ll be honest, one of my most FAVORITE shows is FRIENDS, (I have all 10 seasons).  I used to dream that I would find that kind of a group.  In high school I had that, we had a pretty tight group (that probably consisted of 20+ people there by the end, but tight none-the-less) and I miss that a lot.  I miss the Friday-night parties, jam sessions (a lot of my friends were musical) or barbeques.  I miss the calling a friend up and going shopping at a moment’s notice.  I miss the unexpected drop-in to see what’s up (I guess that was more of a college thing).  Or calling on Friday and being like “Hey what are we doing tonight?”

 Here’s my experience of the adult way of doing friendships so far (in Wichita):  email, email, email.  Even though we all live in the same town, we email.  We might run into each other at church once in a while or a baby shower, but we communicate by email.  There’s no spontaneity either.  It’s making plans 2-3 weeks in advance to accomodate everyone’s schedules, there’s no random Friday night get-togethers, or girly phone calls.  There’s no random “grabbin’ a bite to eat” or “stoppin off at the mall for a while”.  They’re pretty self-serving also…not a whole lot of emotional support for one another going on.

Is it wrong to miss this kind of activity?  John and I have spent a lot of weekends just hanging out at home together (not that I don’t LOVE spending time with him, because I do), but sometimes I just want some girls to hang out with.  If I could, I would fly all my girls from back home down here for a week just to have some good quality girl time.  I may be 25 but I miss that.  Friendship has always been very important to me, and I gotta say the Wichita way just hasn’t been cuttin’ it!!  Do I need to change my expectations ?  What do you do when you’ve tried to create the atmosphere you know you love and need and it just doesn’t work??  John and I have a great place to host…we’ve got a great backyard complete with a brand new deck and a firepit that’s bricked right into the ground.  We’ve got a great setting and thought we’d be hosting all kinds of parties over here.  We’ve had….count ‘em….2.  Help!!