Monthly Archives: August 2010

Last night I had dinner with the same ladies who attended my pizza party last month. This time we rolled sushi. When this quest is all over not only am I going to have friends out the wazoo, I’m going to have mad kitchen skills.

Towards the end of the evening, I was listening in on a conversation between a woman who’s waiting on a potential job offer and another who works in human resources. HR friend was helping job-search friend decode some questions of health benefits and out-of-pocket costs. My contribution to the conversation? “Wow, it’s so useful to have a friend in HR!”

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a colleague a few months ago.

“I need a friend who’s a techie,” she said. “I don’t understand my computer. If I could meet a good friend who could also fix my PC I’d be golden.”

It’s kind of a brilliant concept. What if we could staff our friends like we do our office? We’d need one great social coordinator, one lady who’s good with finances and can be the split-the-biller, a fashionista to assess outfits and find us the perfect pair of jeans, and maybe a therapist to analyze our dreams (actually, that might get annoying).

Personally, I find it exceedingly helpful to have friends who know marketing and sales. I can weave some creative words together now and then, but when it comes to the business side of writing I’m on a learning curve. Friends who can weigh in on the selling part of wordiness are welcome.

Also, please, a pal who can fix the service light on my car (it was just serviced!)

And an appliance technician friend (the door on my washing machine is broken).

In return, I can offer my services in: Book recommendations, Survivor and Friends trivia and general pop-culture know-how (sounds worthless until you’re sitting in the hot seat and need a Gleektastic phone-a-friend), and Web 101.

Fair trade?

Bottom line, friends are great. Friends who double as a service provider? Jackpot.

If you could find a friend who did double duty, what would you need?

{Housekeeping notes: There are some new buttons at the bottom of individual posts so you can Facebook, Twitter, or “like” them if you, er, like them. I’ve also added that cute little “Follow Me on Twitter” button on the side. So use it, if you want.}

I’ve been wondering a lot lately about competition in friendship. I’ve been quite lucky in my adult life that this hasn’t really been an issue. Almost all my closest friends and I have very different career aspirations, and there is certainly no “I want to be the first to get married/have kids” craziness. If anything it’s the opposite—at least with the kids thing. No one is in any rush.

I do have one old friend who is in the same business as I am. We used to work together, though now we’re separated by a few state lines. Ours is a very specific and very important relationship. We are each other’s cheerleaders.

Brooke and I worked together for two years(ish). In that time we sat across from each other and often ate lunch together at the makeshift table we created out of a file cabinet and some desk chairs. We became each other’s voice of reason. When I needed a brilliant edit before sending something to the boss, I trusted her eyes only. When she was looking for a clever headline, or advice on the wording of a work email, she came to me. Even when we worked only a few feet away and shared a title, there was never anything but encouragement.

Three years later, we live miles apart but still act as each other’s career advisors. At least, she is mine. I send her any big projects I’m working on because I trust her as a reader and respect her smarts. When she writes “groooaaan” next to a painful cliché, I say “thanks!” I’d rather her point out a lame bit of writing than my editor, after all. And at the core of all her notes—good and bad—is an unflappable belief in me. If another person, including my editor, called a sentence lame I’d be insulted (I know this, because it has happened). But if Brooke said it I’d know she meant “you can do better” not “you suck.” Perhaps that’s why it works.

I realize this friendship is rare. I hear one nightmare after another about friends betraying each other over professional ambitions. There are plenty—too many!—stories of BFFs working in similar fields who avoid talking about the job for fear it might get awkward.

It’s not only a career thing of course. This clip from a recent Oprah Show features two cousins who say they can only stay close friends when they’re both overweight. During the times that one or the other has slimmed down, the competition and jealousy surrounding skinniness has driven them apart.

As women, we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others and want what they have—clothes, jobs, hair, all that good stuff. But where does that fit into friendship? Can BFFs who maintain a competitive relationship last? And is there such a thing as friendly competition?

I should start wearing this nametag at all times. When you’re a semi-professional friender, you’re constantly sporting the sticky little bastards. I spent six hours this weekend battling the stubborn adhesives, which were constantly coming unstuck in the August heat.

I’ve been wanting to do some volunteer work since moving to Chicago. Other than a day spent knocking on doors for Mr. President a few years back, I haven’t yet fulfilled that goal. Plenty of people have suggested volunteering as a prime activity for meeting pals, but I’ve had trouble finding something that works with my schedule. So many worthwhile organizations require an ongoing commitment, and my calendar these days just doesn’t have much room. Enter One Brick.

I found out about this organization from a reader (thanks Laura!) and fellow Chicagoan. It was perfect for me for two reasons: 1) It’s no commitment volunteering, meaning you sign up and show up for events that you’re interested in and work for your schedule, and 2) The organization encourages “a social atmosphere around volunteering” and invites volunteers to gather at a local restaurant after each event. You do good, you make friends—a win-win. (And if it’s a BFF bust at least you’ve, you know, changed the world and all that.)

The event I worked was at Chicago’s City Farm. It was a lot of weeding, but it felt great to be outside, get dirty, and meet an interesting variety of people. I also got to pick beets—I’m basically a farmer!

One Brick is headquartered in San Francisco and has chapters in DC, Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Paul, New York, Orlando, and Seattle. I don’t do much organization promotion in these parts of the blogosphere, but from my first venture into the One Brick community it seems like something worth sharing, whether you are local-BFF deficient or not.

(My other nametag affair was at a Friday mingler, where a group of strangers came together for an evening of drinks and icebreakers. If you’re a Chicago local, check them out. If you’re not, and are interested in meeting new people, I highly recommend seeking out similar mixers in your city or town. I had no idea how many existed in the Windy City until I started looking. Now I find out about a new one every day. I have to believe the same kind of get-to-know you games are happening in a village near you.)

Have you had a good social experience with a volunteer organization? Feel free to share your cause below.

It’s brilliant because it’s true. How many times have you spoken these words? “We probably wouldn’t be friends if we met today but…”

It’s a phrase oft uttered when one friend introduces a new pal to an old one. A diplomatic way of saying “Don’t judge me based on the company I keep, we lived next door and shared a blankie when we were 5. Her crazy ways/lack of personality/nasty humor are no reflection on me.” You know, without actually having to come out and say it, because you’d never speak ill of your lifelong buddy, right?

Maybe that’s why making friends as an adult is so much harder. Suddenly we’re in full control of who’s awarded our precious time. We’re not thrown into a relationship because our mothers are best friends or we grew up on the same block or we were randomly assigned a shared dorm room. Hectic schedules keep us from making plans with ladies who don’t fit our perceived BFF mold, because that would seem unproductive. A waste.

But here’s the catch. The most satisfying friendships are often with people who are totally different from us. The very souls we could never see ourselves clicking with. They’re the ladies we couldn’t get rid of because our mothers were best friends or we lived on the same block or in the same dorm room. Since we couldn’t shake them, we learned to love them. What other choice did we have?

I read recently that adults decide within 10 minutes of meeting someone what kind of relationship they want with that person. Once our grown-up minds are made up, we have a hard time changing them. Maybe if we did a bit more forcing, the people we meet who seem crazy or stand-offish or juvenile would in fact become the BFFs we’re (I’m?) looking for.

Or maybe meeting each other today would be a disaster.

Thoughts? Do you have an old friend you don’t think you’d mesh with if you met today? Or is that a cop-out line? Is adult friending hard because we simply don’t give people a chance to grow on us?