Sunday, November 27, 2011

Whenever I call you friend...

I had the pleasure of watching my football team (lose, alas) in the company of a friend of mine and his girlfriend.  Even though he and I have been workplace sports friends for nearly three years, this was the first time he and I have been together in a purely social setting.  It was nice, but it was also a reminder of two problems for me.

Problem number one is that I don't have a lot of friends here locally.  I'm not sure the reasons, but even though I have lived where I live for nearly fifteen years now, I have had a lot of trouble making friends here.  Granted I think some of that is that for ten of those years, I was more invested in my marriage than any personal relationships and my friends back home could fill any gaps I may have had with a simple phone call.  But even after the wife left, I found it hard to develop relationships and to move them from their original location (work) and into my personal life.  But that may come from the other problem.

In growing up in my FOO with The Big Secret®, we weren't allowed friends over.  Can't have people knowing your business and all of that.  So I didn't have a lot of opportunities to learn the finer points of social interaction and I couldn't reciprocate in kind to my friends going up.  I went over my friend Felix's house for weeks when I was in grade school.  His family even fed me.  Felix came to mine once (just the outside) and I got chewed out for it.  So I generally don't know how I made friends and find them a sort of lucky miracle.

At any rate, while I am still a hermit, my socialization skills and my socializing has improved and while I certainly need my alone time, I am having the company of others more and enjoying it.



A song from the soundtrack of a movie I wrote:

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