Hey, you.
Want to be friends?
This is a silly thing to say. But it is an eternal mystery to me how grown-up women go about making friends. It’s not as easy as it was when I was ten. I can’t just start a Peter Andre club and ask you to join. I have a lot of people that I like, a lot, and speak to when I see them. But how do you leap from that to sharing your deepest secrets over cheese toasties? I don’t know. I still don’t. I am shy and pretend not to be, which doesn’t help. When I meet someone I like, I want to go up to them and say I JUST LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU. LET’S BE FRIENDS. PS I LIKE YOUR JEANS.
Well, how else do you do it? Should I carry a note saying ‘Will you be my friend tick y/n’?
I was at an evening of workshops for women last night. I needed it: the communion of discussion, the solidarity of sitting with good women, the exercise of learning, the stillness of thought. I drank it up like it was the super deluxe Coca-Cola of my dreams, if you want to get metaphorical about it. I was filled with elevated ideas. I left feeling like there were so many interesting, funny, kind people I wanted to know better.
And so to you, you marvellous people who come to this blog. I have been feeling very grateful for you, lately. I love getting notifications when you comment. I love writing it, and I love that you read it. Thank you – it means so much to me that you’re here.
What do you think about cheese toasties? Want to be friends?
make a long story short 
dear VP of the Peter Andre Club,
we should definitely be friends. We can start by bonding over not knowing how to make grown-up best friends. I think a shared lack of knowledge is a good place to start a friendship…well, that and being related by marriage and all that jazz. 😉
Oh, and if you *do* resort to notes with tick boxes, I’d be happy to tick yes. Just sayin’.
LikeLike
Oh, I don’t need to send you a note, you are already on the list 🙂
I am seriously considering notes in general, though. Maybe with smily face stickers.
LikeLike
I also genuinely have NO idea how grown ups go about making friends. I am shy and half pretend not to be, I tend to smile slightly maniacally from across the room. Let me tell you, it really helps the friend making process. *cough*
LikeLike
Haaa. I have done that too, so many times. Sometimes smiling weirdly is better than making mega-awkward conversation – and sometimes it’s not 🙂
LikeLike
I do, I do, I do!
Also I find it hard, finding the right friends. Those kind that build you up instead of tear you down. Who will always lend an ear. And eat ice cream and chocolate in big quantities with you when needed.
LikeLike
Yes, I totally agree! Those are the best kind of friends. And ice cream and chocolate are the best friendship activities there are 🙂
LikeLike
Cheese tastes? Definitely! Just had one on my own on Eurostar. Flabby microwave thing. Would be much nicer in company.
LikeLike
Oh no – microwave cheese toasties sound vile! Loved your motor-taxi story today. What a way to see Paris 🙂 Hope your presentation went well.
LikeLike
I know exactly what you mean, I was so proud of myself the other week when I swapped numbers with a woman at the baby weighing clinic!
Also I’m totally up for cheese toasties, but you live too far away thesedays! 😦
LikeLike
I know, I wish I didn’t! 😦 Good job on swapping numbers – it can be unbelievably awkward. And we thought that awkwardness stopped once we left high school…
LikeLike
I have been thinking this for a while… Not about the Peter Andre club but about making new friends ( other than the 7 I have made at NCT of course!). And since on maternity leave I have discovered cheese toasties that you put in the toaster? Am I seriously behind on this or are you still talking about the ones in the university toastie maker- you know the one that everyone turned up with?
LikeLike
Oh, just the university-style ones in a toastie-maker – we got one about six months ago and we’re obsessed with them. What is this marvellous thing about cheese toasties in the toaster?!
Thank goodness for NCT, eh? It has just made the world of difference 🙂
LikeLike
Well I met you the other day and thought you were lovely and not at all awkward, even with a wriggly little man about your person. I also like cheese toasties 🙂
Making friends as an adult is difficult. I hit a low point when Amy was about 3 and we moved to a new town right at the start of the summer holidays, all the groups had closed and I was facing a long 6 weeks without company for either of us. This drove me one cringe worthy day to get chatting to a lady and little one on the street and suggest we meet another day within the length of a street! oh the shame, of course I never saw her again.
It’s even worse at the school gates and meeting people where your only common ground is the kids, while a mothering life saver is a bit soul destroying,
LikeLike
Oh, I so identify with this! So much of my adult interaction came from an office job, and now I’m at home it’s hard to replace it with other things.
I also didn’t think you were awkward in the slightest 🙂
LikeLike