Making New Friends: I’m Through Being Cool

I’m not actively trying to be weird here, so stop me if I am, but I happened to notice you were human, and that’s really cool because I am human too and I think maybe we could be friends?

Are you in line? Oh, me too! I’ve actually been in a lot of lines—how do you feel abou them? Want to stand in line together sometime and talk about the worst line you’ve been in?

Where did you find the kale? Produce section? Are you going to wilt it or bake it or…I can teach you how to make really dynamite kale chips if you, you know, are into healthy treats high in protein…

Which of these is the least creepy way to pick up females to turn into friends? Asking for a…okay, so I’m working on that. Making friends as a grownup is really hard.

Moving to a new city alone in your (late) 30’s is kind of bonkers. The things I like to do now are not cool. The places I go now are the gas station and home, and honestly with gas prices being what they are we should call it the Grump station and it is NOT a good friend pick up spot. There are a few places I go where potential human friends also go: the gym, Whole Foods, and a cafe that has a cool font and puts “jammy egg” on half the menu, but how long do I have to pretend to be opening my locker before I talk to someone? At the cafe I will wait in that tedious shapeless line and no one comes up to compliment my shoes. The fact that my shoes are sensible and not cool might be a factor but it is 9:45 am so there isn’t room to budge on shoes.

When I go grocery shopping I try to time my reach to knock into someone else’s so we can have a meetcute over $15 granola but granola is actually really easy to make at home and no one, so far, has been reaching for the tempeh, no matter how long I linger by the “Soy and Tofu” section.

Grown women making friends with other grown women cold turkey should not be so hard. Do I need to stand by the skin care section and say “Me Too” as they reach for the anti-wrinkle branded serum? Don’t try to one-up my Me Too with yours, my sympathy smile lines are the ones I’m trying to smooth away with this peptide retinol cream.

A friend invited me to a small party and it was a great opportunity to meet new friends, because friends have friends and by that math I should have more friends but it seems like most of my friends don’t really hang out with their friends because they all only go out for gas and tempeh like me. When I got to the party, I immediately—immediately—to the food table. STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW. I’ve never been steered wrong by a bag of Ruffles.

At the food table were two other women, who I knew in my rational mind were younger than me by at least 5 years but who I could convincely pretend I thought were my age. And they accepted me! In the beginning, anyway.

I listened to small talk, and laughed at the witty one-liners. I offered insights, sarcasm, and gave my best “mmmmm yeah”’s, I agreed and nodded, I agreed and shook my head. I am good at this! I can fold into a group of new people by an obscenely large bag of questionably-potato grease shingles and fit right in!

Then came the high school talk. I have no idea where it came from, but it came, and the warning signs began to flash for me. No girls in my high school class were snorting coke while sneaking into 21 and up shows for Brand New, because Brand New wasn’t brand new yet, they were brand-not-even-a-band-yet. When I was in high school I interned for free at Vagrant Records because I loved the albums “Through Being Cool” by Saves the Day and “Something to Write Home About” by the Get Up Kids. I remember going to a Get Up Kids and Reggie and the Full Effect show in high school, right after I turned 18, with people I barely knew (I started a new high school senior year) and getting my period and bleeding through my pants and having to buy a t shirt to tie around my waist so no one would see. True story, and even more humiliating because there were bathroom attendants you had to tip for a tampon and I didn’t know that etiquette yet. I probably did not need to share that story. Essentially, I was not the cool girl doing coke in the bathroom, I was the overwhelmed by my teenage body girl crying in a bathroom stall wildly ripping off toilet paper while “I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel” blasted around me.

By the end of my time at the party, I had successfully gotten both the Ruffles girls phone numbers. It was clear to all that I had been a square in high school, even though high school was twenty years ago and we had all taken paths since that led up to the same party-sized bag of chips. Isn’t that enough, at the end of the day? I think friendships can be built off of whether you are an immediate beer person or immediate snack person, or the confident schmoozer who doesn’t gravitate to either until they’ve chatted with the whole room first. Can’t we just keep our shared interests simple? Does anyone really need to know that my gateway band to hardcore was Blink 182 and not an actual hardcore or indie band? Can’t we get past All the Small Things?