Dating Again

I thought once I was married I'd be done dating. Not so. I find making friends is like dating all over again. Of course I mean this in the most non-lesbionic way possible. In my sheltered experience, friend dating includes no hand holding, kissing, etc. However, similarities in almost every other regard cannot be overlooked. In friendship dating there are playdates instead of dates. Kids and moms get together to try out compatibility. Rare are the instances where there is instant clickage between the kids and the moms. Half the time my kids play amongst themselves and acknowledge the other children only long enough to steal their sand toys. After a playdate or two I usually know whether I want to continue hanging out.

After almost a year of living here I made one good friend. She's moving next week. I'm one of those whose comfortable once I have one or two good friends. Now she's leaving so I must venture out again into the world of friend dating. Pickings appear slim or I'm too picky. There's a single mom in my ward that has made it clear she wants to be a friend. We've done a couple of playdates and I'm frankly tired of hearing about her dirty dog ex-husband. It's fine the first couple of times you talk about the situation, but it's a real downer hearing about the cheating, divorce, and custody issues over and over. To make things worse her boy seems bent on destroying my house and clubbing my children with a plastic baseball bat upstairs whilst his mom tells me her woes downstairs. I know. I know. I'm a child of divorce. I should be more compassionate. I just want to hang with someone I have more in common with. It's not very Christlike and I'll appear as I am, selfish.

Speaking of being Christlike, the missionaries have encouraged Jeff and I to get to know our neighbors. I've never encountered such an awkward set of neighbors. It must be because I'm from Utah. I'm used to knowing every neighbor in a 2 mile radius and attending church with most of them. Church was always the common ground. We have nothing in common with any of the neighbors and they have nothing in common with each other. Not one seems interested in befriending or returning our invitations. To the left of our house lives a childless pastor and his wife and their two yapping dogs. To the right of the house is a crochety, Italian, stay-at-home dad with older elementary school kids. Across the street lives what appears to be the sternest, meanest looking man I ever met. He recently loaned Jeff a ladder and a gun when pigeons started nesting in the roof. He made no facial expressions as he instructed Jeff on pigeon annihilation. We invited him and his family over for dinner and their response was that they had too many of their son's baseball games in the summer and to try again in the Fall. What? Too busy to eat? I think we got the brush off. We've had some of the other neighbors over and they are nice enough but then we never see anybody. Whoever invented the automatic garage door was a recluse. Up goes the door, in goes the car, down goes the door and that's it, you never see your neighbor again. I'm going to keep trying but I just wish there was one neighbor with age compatible kids.

So in my attempts to find a few good friends, I'm hosting a girls' night on Wednesday night which is also a goodbye party for my friend Bria. I'm trying to invite women from other wards in the stake since our ward is slim on young families. Hopefully the evening will provide the social milieu wherein I can meet a friend who gets me, is funny, nice, and whose kids will enjoy the company of my feisty brood. It's lonely without a good girlfriend. Why isn't it easier and why do the good friends always move?