The Real Secret

Would you believe me if I told you that I still haven't talked to my neighbor since this happened?

Sure, she's sent her kids over with cookies once or twice. But, not a phone call or a visit since her daughter essentially ripped a hole in my little girl's heart and tried to fill it with baked goods. The cookies may have helped Savannah get over it, but not me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not holding a grudge - which was proven by my eating of many homemade cookies - I just have no tolerance for Mean Girls.

You think that once you're out of school, the days of two-faced gossipy girls are over. But, then you realize you're wrong. They're just beginning. Because the mean girls don't disappear after graduation. They just go on to get a job in your office or move in next door to you, and spread their meanness in a whole new arena.

I was at the coffee shop the other night trying to write and when I got up to refill my iced tea I noticed that my neighbor's best friend, Kelly, was standing at the iced tea dispenser with another friend. She caught sight of me at the same moment I caught sight of her and rather than smiling or waving or my favorite, pretending to not see me at all, Kelly immediately turned her back to me to face her friend and started talking.

And her friend looked over her shoulder directly at me and nodded "Ah". As in, "Ah, that's her". Her what? The Her that overreacted? The Her that's too sensitive? The Her that we Googled and she's talking about us on The InTeRnEt? (Oops!)

Oh, I felt so warm and fuzzy inside. Just like I was back in gym class and Leticia was pointing out how I had hairier legs than the boys! And Double D's! Oh, the good times I had then. Instead of Lena Lotsey, let's call her Lotsa Lena! Oh, how we all laughed.

I've written before about losing friendships and adjusting friendships as I get older. The thing that surprised me most when I started blogging is how many women felt just like me - like they had acquaintances without having any close friends. The older I get and the deeper into marriage and family and suburbia I am, the more convinced I am that just one close friend can be the key to happiness.

It took me three lonely years of boring play dates and awkward coffee meet ups and talking to my plants (BFF= Best Fern Forever!) before I found someone I clicked with. Someone who could finish my sentences and who cried when I cried and laughed when I laughed and bitched when I bitched.

Someone who, like me, would sometimes forget to feed her kids lunch until 2:00. Someone who would answer the phone "Is this really my life?" when I would call. Someone who had impassioned opinions on  politics and Paris Hilton and religion and skinny jeans in the same conversation. Someone who sometimes wanted to carry her kids around in her pocket they were so adorable, and other times wanted to get them their own apartment.

Someone who, when I called her from the coffee shop parking lot the other night and said "My neighbor's best friend just blatantly snubbed me", would say "Well, that's because she's an asshat and has that weird mole. Want to take the kids to the park?".

Sometimes just one close friend stands between you and insanity.

So, how do you do it? How do you make new close friends as an adult? Where do you find your allies?

--

Ha! Don't you love how I'm all "I'll talk about this post tomorrow!" And then it's all five days later and I'm so not even talking about it? I am writing about it though and I promise this week we shall share ideas of what to do with these bored children all summer that doesn't include eleventeen hours of TV. Maybe just tenteen.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Why the hell can't women just get along? I thought that once I was an adult, this type of stuff would be ancient history.

I've found it difficult to make friends as an adult. Only recently have I found people in which I have things in common. I met them on the internet, which is something I never thought I'd do.

[Jay]

This is why guys just punch each other; it's so much easier.

[Amy H]

I'm not qualified to answer this based on my lack of friends and my severe social retardation.

I sound like such a loser. I actually HAD friends once, they just all went another way (cough*METH*cough) and I went my own way. And I haven't tried since.

Okay, I DO have local people who are or were my friends who ask me to do things, but I'm always so damn busy (excuse).

That was really rude of that chick...but at least we dont' need to wonder where people's kids get it from.

[Mom2Elvis]

Lena, I don't remember which post you talked about Starbuck's iced skinny lattes with orange and "a half pump of chocolate" but OMG, I'm addicted. Have to have at least one a day, thanks to you. Only a good friend would pass along such a tasty, habit forming drink suggestion!

[Lena]

Welcome to the dark side, my friend.

[Katie]

Oh, I know exactly how you feel. I was so relieved when I graduated college because I thought I would be getting away from all of the snobby, pretentious girls. Boy was I wrong. They're everywhere!

[mandy]

Lena, I look at you and wonder if you are making it all up sometimes. How can this gorgeous gal, who is so, totally cool have ever been on this side. I was always socially retarded. I never had close friends in school, but had a lot as a young adult. Now, my life has changed so dramatically, I am back to no close friends. I wish I had one or two. I have a few from wayyy back, but we are just at different places. You know??

[becky]

i don't know. it's incredibly hard for me. and as my friends move away, it gets even harder to find someone to fill that hole. all i know is i have many acquaintances, but few close friends.

[Tracy]

Oh, I hear you girlfriend! I am constantly bemoaning the fact that I have no close friends and I desperately want them. I had friends once, and then they all moved to Texas. So now I guess no one wants to be my friend because they think that if they are, they will have to move to Texas, too (I'm in No. Ca.).

Anyway, I don't know how to make those kind of close friends. I have acquaintences of course, but I find myself getting really maudlin sometimes and wondering who would be there to help me if something horrible happened, like my husband died. Would anyone be there for me? Would the come over in the middle of the night and be with me? And that, my internet friends, is just S.A.D.

[theotherbear]

My husband recently asked me "Why are you friends with her?", referring to a girlfriend who is selfish and not there for me when she should be. I had to reply "Because I don't have many other friends, I have to keep the lousy ones I have got". I would have thought it'd be easier to make friends once you have kids (I don't have any yet), but it sounds like it's not any better on that side!

[Mom101]

Good for you and your zero tolerance for mean girls policy. If more people did (ahem, cough cough Simple Life producers) the world would be a happier place. At least for the non-mean girls. That's us.

[Lisa]

Thank you so much for this post. I was beginning to think I was a leper or something was wrong with me because I don't really have female close friends. If something to me during the course of the day and I pick up the phone to tell someone, its most likely my FI, my mom or one of my 2 sisters. Sometimes if my FI and my mom, and sisters are busy I have looked through my cellphone and been like hey where are my friends??

[Lisa]

Thank you so much for this post. I was beginning to think I was a leper or something was wrong with me because I don't really have female close friends. If something to me during the course of the day and I pick up the phone to tell someone, its most likely my FI, my mom or one of my 2 sisters. Sometimes if my FI and my mom, and sisters are busy I have looked through my cellphone and been like hey where are my friends??

[Dani]

Well once I wasn't picky I was friends or social with everyone. I had a few friends one one side of the lunch room and a few in the back too. But once I gre up I became picky. I have a best friend of over 10 years, she is my rock. she is the one who reminds me why I married "him" when I hate him for 48 hours -after all she was there when I married him and my Mother was rolling her eyes, and tells me what a good mother I am when I am feeling guilty about not being the Mother of the year, she is the one who will come over at 7am or 11:30 pm to SAVE me from my lifes insanity or help me because one of my kids are sick; and I her. But she is it, my sole friend. Oh I have met others ha a few months of fun here and there and I realy like my hair dresser and I even help her with her kids every once in a while but, I only have one true friend, that I don't feel guilty about calling her just to tell her about Daniels new rash..and she actually cares! When I was young I wanted to be friends with everyone, now quality counts more than quantity. And although I am not anti social I just never met anyone else who measures up to her. I guess it doesn't really matter anymore either my life is so full already I just don't have room for half ass friends, only the really good ones.

[LoriB]

And again, majority rules. I don't have any close friends. In fact, I don't really have any close acquaintances. My friends are all of you people that I meet on the internet. I was really hoping that this post would give us all some insight to how others make friends, but I guess I was wrong. Oh well, I guess you guys are still going to be my only friends. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy these discussions. At least, I can be honest with all of you. And if we do meet on the street, you won't be snickering at me behind my back because, hey, you won't know that its me.

[Jessica]

Mom's are a thousand times worse too. Not only do we feel we have to one up each other but we have to one up our kids. It's so sad. I have a mom friend and basically the first 20 minutes of any conversation is comparing our kids. She's a great gal but she must just be jealous due to my daughter being totally smart, beautiful, talented and well adjusted. *snicker*

[Jessica]

I know exactly where you are coming from. I was always one of the girls who was picked on in HS by the pack of girls who thought I was too pretty to be their friend, so instead, they spread ugly rumors about me around the school and I soon became the sluttiest virgin to ever walk those teenage filled halls. I learned at a tender age just how mean girls can really be.
Into my adult hood and now into my thirties, I still encounter this quite often. I have one "lovely" co-worker who has stabbed me in the back so many times that I cannot believe I'm still alive. I don't think girls ever grow out of the meanness. Can you picture a bunch of 80 year old ladies doing this? I bet it happens in the Retirement Homes.
My husband gets mad at me sometimes when I won't attend get-togethers at a particular friend of his' house. I know it's wasted time to even attempt and explain to him "oh, honey, I don't want to go because your friend's wife snubs me and actually leaves the room should I enter it. Oh, and honey, I've caught her with the other ladies at the gatherings, looking my way and then talking. I've dealt with this my entire life and choose not to subject myself unnecessarily to this kind of treatment if I don't have to."
The ironic thing for me is that it appears that the Mean Girls have everyone around them (with the exception of their Mean Girl target)thinking they are the sweetest girls ever.

[Michelle]

Snobs are, unfortunately, EVERYWHERE. It seems I encounter them daily! I dread the 1st time my daughter has to deal with that crap and I don't know how I will handle it. The way you described how you felt and what you did sounds a lot like how I think I will react. As for the coffeeshop incident, no surpise there! Some people never grow out of that kind of behavior, how unfortunate!

[Roxanne]

You'd think as we get older the mean girl attitude would be gone but sadly it isn't. Instead we have mean moms! Ugh!

I'll say it, I'm a social dork. I have no idea how to talk to women which really confuses me as I used to have tons of friends back in the day. So what happened? I ask myself this every day.

I have one mom friend and she just moved last weekend. She was the only person who "got" me and my stupid humor. Now I'm stuck w/ the moms in the hood who love to spread rumors about me, my dh and especially my child. I've become a recluse again *sigh*.

[Janet a.k.a Wonder Mom]

My very best bud (since 4th grade) is moving to Texas this summer. I am devastated. I'll never have a friend like that again. She was the 'one' and I am losing her...

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

[Frema]

I'm a little confused. In your earlier post about Mean Girls, you said you knew it wasn't the mother's fault that Lindsay never showed up. So is she the one you're really still mad at? Or is it the daughter?

It sounds like the women in the coffee shop were jerks, but I also think they may have snubbed you because they thought you were being unnecessarily cold to your neighbor. If somebody had hung up on me, I would be afraid to call again, too.

I love your blogs and your writing, so I'm not trying to be harsh. Just offering another viewpoint.

[Traci B]

You know, I am seeing this more and more. It IS NOT a girl thing however. My sons have experienced this same treatment and I wonder at the changes in neighborhood children. Back in the day- we ALL played together. The more the merrier in my little neighborhood. Whats with the kooky cliques these days? I personally find the mothers of these brats just as cruel and unusual. I live amongst snobs of all variety... big, small, fat, skinny- they are all too good to talk to me! Oh well, we can always blog about 'em!:-)

[lauri]

after my divorce I lost many women I thought were my friends, but turned out to be just friends with me because my ex had money. at the time it shocked me, but now I realize that many people are so superficial and don't want to spend the time to be true friends. they would rather be "friends" with many people and name drop than "I will be there for you" type friends. now I have a 3rd child with a man that is 10 yrs younger and I don't know if it is my age of 41 or what, but playdates, meeting new friends that have little kids, etc. seem to be nonexistent. I always met new people at preschool, gymboree etc.,with my older kids, but not anymore. I have 2 close friends from my old "pto" days at my older kids' schools. I would love to have a "best" friend or even a close "neighbor friend"

[Mia]

You know, it just seems like whenever you meet new people they automatically peg you for their stupid 'home parties' because you are new blood. When we moved up here to NH, I was invited to no less than 7 of them the first year. I hate those things.
I don't have any close friends either - I'm too cynical these days; most people I meet are complete asshats.
And... 2:00? The other day I realized around 3:45 that we hadn't eaten lunch; I just decided to make dinner a little earlier.

[Amnesia]

This is a topic near and dear to my heart - I have written about it several times. I have always been how you described yourself in school - didn't make friends that easily and always felt a bit awkward. As an adult I thought that would change, however it really didn't. It is hard without family and work to do things with other people, but with 4 kids, a husband and a full time job I seem to lack the energy needed for me to find friends. I suppose that if we went to church or the boys were into some play groups or mothers-day-out program I would have the opportunity, but I just never meet anyone. It is lonely, but I love my life. It just seems hard to meet new people as an adult and harder to find those that I can tolerate. They need a good sense of humor, like making fun of people with me (except me, of course) like animals and kids, and alcohol of course... shouldn't be too hard right? Think I should take out an add on Craigslist?