Wendy Martin's Art Blog

and, of course, the serving of daily doodles.

daily doodle for May 6, 2010

daily doodle for May 7, 2010

I have been thinking about friends lately. Not specific people but having friends in general.

I have always had a very hard time making friends. I am a bit shy and socially awkward in new situations and among large groups of people. (Even groups of people where I already know everyone.) Looking people in the eye has been exceedingly uncomfortable for me for as long as I can remember. When in social situations, I actually have to remind myself to do it. I suspect I may have a mild form of Aspergers Syndrome, since no matter how hard I try, it seems to me as if my understanding of things doesn’t jive with my fellow human beings much of the time. As I have gotten older, I have developed work-arounds for many of the most awkward situations, but the flee response is one I have to constantly battle against no matter who I am with.

Before the internet and after college, I found it nearly impossible to go out and meet people and make friends. There were a few minor exceptions, and I can still count several of those people as friendly. However, in nearly every case, it is an occasional email or a annual holiday card that marks the continued interactions.

When my daughter was a toddler and pre-schooler, she was an amazingly friendly little social butterfly. As her mom, I made friends with people much easier during that period. Or it seemed like it to me at the time. Many of those friendships fizzled as she entered kindergarten. I am sure the other events going on in my life caused that, but that is neither here nor there.

When I got married and moved to Missouri, I left all my friends and a good deal of my extended family behind. I have a few cousins and an aunt and uncle in the Midwest. By extension of being married, I also made the acquaintance of a few of my husband’s friends who, in time, become my friends. The friendships I hope to develop with his siblings never materialized.

Maybe I should share my definition of “friend.” To me, a friend is someone who you interact with outside of the situation where you first met. Say you meet someone through a job situation. They are a co-worker. If say you go out after work and grab dinner, they can be claimed an acquaintance. But if you call each other on the phone often and make plans to see each other over the weekend or visit each others’ homes, then you are friends. Same idea if you meet someone at a club or social situation. For me, I have to see those people outside of the place where we met, doing something unconnected to the original event for me to label them ‘friend.’

I joined lots of clubs and society groups when I first moved out here. I wanted friends. People I had common ground with. I joined a quilting group, several art related orgs and a writers group. I gave people my phone number, I invited them places to do things. Occasionally, someone would accept. But none of those acquaintances blossomed into friends. After several years, I dropped out of most of the groups I had joined.

Meanwhile, I spent more and more time on the internet. And made real friends. People I know I can call in the wee hours of the morning if I need to and they will be there for me. This is good. Ninety-nine percent of them live in another state. Most are outside of a day’s drive. This is bad. The distance hasn’t made the friendships any less strong than next door neighbor variety could be, but I find myself lonely on a day-to-day basis.

To add insult to injury (in the daily human interaction department) I work in a home office. As an artist and a writer much of my creative work is something that has to be done solo. Aside from my husband and daughter, I can go days without speaking to another human being outside the guy at the post office, the bank teller or the check out clerk at the store. I feel as if my ability to have an intelligent conversation atrophies during these periods.

And it makes me wonder. Should I try harder to meet people who live down the block? Why is my bff a six hour drive away? Is it my fault I feel isolated from the world? Or is my perception that I have too little in common with my immediate neighbors really true?

I tend to think too much.