Friends

~ Clarissa

In the years I’ve lived in this town (since 2009), I’ve made 5 friends. Is that too few? Is it an abnormally low number at my age? I don’t mean acquaintances. I have many of those. I mean actual friends. People who’ve seen me cry. People who call me to drive them to the doctor’s for a bad diagnosis. Real friends. People who call to ask how my mom’s second round of immunotherapy that she started yesterday went or to share that they had a fight with the husband or a falling out with a sister.

Out of those five, two moved out of state. One more told me yesterday she’s also moving out of state. And I don’t mean across the river to Missouri kind of out of state. I mean, New Jersey, Florida, and Baltimore.

One more friend became politically radicalized and doesn’t want to be friends anymore.

So what I’m saying is that you, people, are my friends. Nobody knows me as well as you do aside from my husband, sister and one remaining friend.

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Published by Clarissa

24 thoughts on “Friends”

  1. Your experience echoes mine. I’ve lost those kinds of friends through many years to: 1. Suicide after terminal cancer diagnosis: “to spare those closest to me of having to watch me die”; 2. Being driven off by, unbeknownst to me at the time, narcissistic new wife; 3. Grief, or ? after death of 5th wife (Jack Morman, sequential); just stopped responding and lived 5 hours away; 4. Conviction for sexually abusing his grandaughter (his now former wife remains that kind of friend).

    Perhaps my utter lack of social skills in not perceiving #2 or #4 sooner may make my experience atypical. Enjoyment of this blog may be a filter.

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    1. I’m so sorry, I really am. My only remaining friend received a stage 4 metastatic cancer diagnosis last month. She’s the healthiest-living woman I have ever met. This is incomprehensible.

      My 5 friends are extremely different ethnically, racially, educationally, economically, linguistically, and in family status. And age wise. The only thing they all have in common is that all 5 are extremely politicized. Two are far-right and three are far-left. It’s funny how that ended up being my selection criterion. I didn’t meet them at political rallies or anything like that. One is from work, one from church, one I met at the park, another at the library, and one more is a friend of an acquaintance. All ended up being crazy into politics. None of them are into reading a whole lot.

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  2. This might be an American thing. A lot of foreigners who have moved to the U.S. have told me, “Americans are very nice, very generous, but it’s very hard to form intimate relationships here.” I’ve heard this from people from Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.

    It also might be a man / woman thing. The only truly intimate friends I (a man) have are women. American men don’t do intimacy with each other. You’re a special case. As you’ve pointed out, you are a very weird person and you probably have a hard time finding intellectual equals.

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    1. I’m not looking for academic types, actually. The friend who’s moving to Maryland doesn’t have her high school diploma and is an undocumented immigrant from Africa. I’m actually at my happiest among working class people.

      The friend who moved to Florida was an administrative assistant. The one who moved to NJ was a stay-at-home mother.

      Am I really weird? I wouldn’t say I’m all that weird. 😆😆😆

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  3. I consider you an often annoying friend, like some of my other annoying friends, who consider me also an annoying friend.

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  5. I am curious about how friendships are maintained after 40. Do you invite your friends over often? How often do you see them in person and in what format? Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to be a friend.

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    1. I have a fancy friend and we go to restaurants together. We go at least once a week. She really expanded my culinary horizons. She’s also the friend from church, so we do church stuff together.

      The friend from Africa doesn’t want to come over because she thinks that my husband is taciturn with her because he’s racist. I explained to her many times that he doesn’t want to talk to people of any race but she doesn’t believe me. So I go up her place.

      The friend who moved to NJ we’d go to playgrounds together with the kids.

      Another friend had a very jealous husband and was practically under house arrest so I always went to hers.

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      1. Thank you for the detailed response! I hope you develop new rewarding friendships to compensate for the lost ones.

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  6. No insight into how normal people do “friends”. Truly.

    I have family. And contact with husband, kids, siblings, parents… that’s like 90% of the social contact I need. After that, there’s a very narrow band between “enough” and “too much” and most of the time it’s entirely spent (plus some) in necessary casual contacts with people I work with on one project or another. I have to push that limit so my kids can have friends.

    There are a small few people with whom I talk/correspond a couple times a year, with whom I feel very close. Fellow hermit crabs I have known for decades. That seems to be the only way I can maintain long-term ties with people who aren’t immediate family.

    Sometimes I can build a good rapport with other homeschool moms for a while. But even when they are super nice, we have tons in common, and I like them… hanging out is often exhausting.

    -ethyl

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    1. –would add that a lot of the ‘exhausting’ is simply that I am the only working-class homeschool mom I know, so there’s a constant impostor syndrome thing going on. Too many things I have to remember not to talk about. It’s not that I’m pretending to be affluent. Just trying not to scare people away by mentioning what’s going on in my life right now, you know? “My Dad got arrested and I’m worried about how his court date will go” doesn’t fly, when you’re trying to make sure that your children have other well-socialized children to play with.

      I really miss chatting with my working-class back-fence neighbor from our old house. She was a hot mess, but very nice and not easily weirded out 😉

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  7. I’ve moved away from friends and one has remained very close. Another went radical during Covid and ended our friendship it’s hard to make new friends as an adult.

    A.

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  8. Do you feel sort of “exposed” in the sense that strangers know everything about what you think about any topic under the sun? You’ve been blogging for so long that I doubt there’s any topic left untouched. Do you feel that people have an insight into you but it’s a one-way street since they obviously do not (and cannot) reciprocate? Other than long time commentators, of course, and even then it isn’t isn’t a balanced relationship. I know more about what you think of X than what you know about my views on X.

    And that too when you’re not completely anonymous. For example, it may be my paranoia but if I had a blog like this and then made a friend in real life, part of me would wonder if they read up on me and then constructed their personality to align with my interests, in order to get closer to me.

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    1. My friends actively avoid reading the blog. Usually, they try but then quit pretty fast. I guess, the real thing is enormously better. 😁😁

      The only friends who read are the ones from whom I’ve been separated by distance.

      As for exposure, I feel like I haven’t been able to reveal more than 5% just yet. 😁😁

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      1. And while we’re at it, let me affirm that I have no plans to stop arguing with you, launching zingers, misunderstanding you on purpose (and sometimes by accident) to make a point, and generally being a pain in the ass. But it’s all coming from a place of affection. I admire you a lot even when I’m being obnoxious about it.

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  9. The people here in Korea are nice, although shy. It’s not the easiest place to make friends but I’ve made a couple of friends. Both significantly older.

    One of them is an emeritus professor who was asked to give up his office the day he retired (efficiency!) and to share an office with me instead. He had been a big name in his field, president of various organizations during his career (some of his roles requiring him to report directly to the president) yet he is remarkably humble. We got along immediately from the moment we were introduced.

    The other is a wall street multimillionaire who reached out to me after a men’s group meeting at a church I sometimes attend (I’m not christian, but I sometimes attend this church after a friend/coworker of mine invited me). The church assigned me to one of the men’s groups that meets a couple of times a month. Now I have a three-hour coffee with him every Saturday. We both joke that we should have more exciting Saturday plans, but here we are.

    Neither of these men has much in common with me in terms of class, achievement, or background. Both are high achievers in their respective professions, yet for some reason they value my opinions a great deal. There’s a lot of discussion and debate, and also a lot of tenderness and affection. I truly didn’t think I would be able to make such close friends at this stage of life but I was very wrong.

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