Do You Want to Be My Friend or Not?

Do you have those people at your school, work or church that you connect really well with, taking the steps of building a friendship that goes outside of that environment?

You chat in the halls. Your kids have been in the same class since kindergarten. You hang out at all the school events. And there’s always talk of getting together to “hang out”.

You like them – they like you.. sounds like a romance in bloom.

So you extend an offer for dinner or a cook out or drinks out on a Saturday but the schedule doesn’t work this weekend. Okay, that’s cool – some other time! Oh! Absolutely!

So you try again a few weeks later. And, again.. schedule’s don’t align. No worries – we understand.. everyone is so busy these days. Another time? Third times the charm!!

And again.. you ask. And again.. schedule’s don’t work out. But this time, you’re not quite as enthusiastic about trying to line something up because it’s starting to feel oddly familiar… like chasing after Mr. Popular in high school and being met with pretty much the same reaction.

I cannot tell you how many times this scenario has happened to us. Mind you – we are not stalkers, we don’t smell and according to our real friends, we’re a pretty fun family to hang around with. So either all of our friends are bald faced liars or the problem lies somewhere else. I’m not stalking you for a play date.. you’re the one who originally suggested we get together. So what gives?

Is it because you found out we don’t belong to the Country Club or live in the set number of acceptable neighborhoods? If you’re looking for help climbing the social elite ladder, then you’re right in begging off – we ain’t for you.

I have found that in the area that we live in there are 4 ways the town can be divided… the elders, the never-left-never-will (who will soon become part of the 1st group), college students and transplants.  Even though I grew up 30 minutes from here, we belong in the last group. As do the vast majority of our true friends.

I’ve heard that the NLNW group sees no need to break outside of their circle and man you can tell. You walk up to this group of moms at school and you would think you had just walked into some secret society. The conversation either stops or immediately shifts. You try to engage in pleasantries until you’re exhausted with trying to get more than 2 words out of any of them. You wait for the appropriate moment where you can gracefully exit and then run like hell away from them. The best word that can be used to describe them?

Snobs.

Hate using the word, but that’s what it really boils down to.

The weirdest thing to me (and other transplants) is that we are the exact opposite. We welcome new people into our circle with open arms. If it’s a party or in my case our annual pig roast, we make sure that we introduce them to the people we think they’ll get along with the most. True Southern hospitality at it’s finest. Except the majority of the transplants aren’t Southern. Hospitable, yes. Southern, no.

It used to baffle and bother me, but not anymore. I just quit trying. Now if the offer is thrown out there, we just smile, nod and reply “that would be great!!” knowing full well that the idea will fall flat on the ground as quickly as the words are spoken. With a couple of them, it’s a running joke between the Rooster and I at just how comical it is.

And that’s really sad in my opinion. I love getting to know new people. I’m not saying that we’re going to be BFFs but part of the beauty of life is finding new friends and hopefully growing those relationships. We’ve done that with a few but definitely not many.

I’m really interested in this… Which category do you fall into? Do you welcome the opportunity to meet and get to know new people or are you perfectly content with staying in your tightly woven circle?