I’ve come to believe that friending has seasons.
Summer, my friends, is not one of them.
You’d think the warm weather would do wonders for a BFF search—fair weather friends and all that—but from what I can tell, all that sunny sunshine does is drive people away. Inspires them to take vacations and attend faraway weddings.
Seems to me that friending is like school. Breaks for summer and Christmas are necessary. It’s not that it’s hard to meet people during the summer— I’ve struck up friendly conversations with more people than ever since the beginning of June—it’s just that people travel so much, or so it seems, that consistency is out of the question.
One great new friend leaves today for a trip to Thailand. She’s had weddings the past two weeks, and the week she before that traveled back home to see family. Which means I haven’t seen her in a month, if not more.
Another friend has weekend weddings, a bachelorette party, and plans to visit her family.
Another spends the summer playing on soccer and kickball teams, taking advantage of the weather but leaving no time for other pals.
Notice a pattern?
To be clear, I am most certainly part of the problem. I have six weddings to attend between July and November, and only one of them is in Chicago. And I also have two–two!– vacations planned. (This is what happens when you realize you can work from anywhere, anytime. You start going anywhere, anytime.)
Summer is exciting for all its promise of fun getaways and quieter days, but its tough for making plans with potential BFFs. Today I heard myself on the phone with my Thailand-bound friend, saying something like “And then, in September, life will calm down and we’ll get together.” Three months from now? Yikes. That’s no good.
To everything there is a season…And summer is not that time.
Some might argue that I’ve got it totally wrong. That winter weather is the kind that makes us horrible and grumpy and isolated. But I don’t think so. Only a day or so into the official season and I can already tell my potential BFFships are being put on hold.
Am I crazy? Or do you agree that friend-making has a calendar of its own? (The academic calendar, perhaps?)
MWF Seeking BFF 
Summer is a terrible time for new and even existing friends! It feels like I have to set things up like a month in advance to plan around everyone’s weddings, parties, trips, etc.
Busy schedules are so destructive to budding friendships. When I say to someone, “We should totally hang out”… I genuinely WANT to hang out! Then the week comes and it’s filled to the brim with work, going to the gym, running errands, crossing things off my to-do list and then trying to squeeze a few minutes of reality tv in at night. When the weekend comes, I’m exhausted and just want to completely veg out. This does not bode well for building new friendships. What works for me is to be spontaneous. If someone emails me and says, “want to grab a drink tonight?” I have to physically PUSH myself to say yes, but when I do I am ALWAYS glad I did. I also send out last minute invites a lot. They don’t always work but sometimes impromptu, last minute plans are the way to go.
I’m in the middle of some budding new friendships right now, and yes – summer scheduling is totally lame! I’ve got stuff on my own agenda (moving to a new apartment, going to my home state to see family) which is an unusual amount of activity for me. And my friends seem to be insanely busy too! One is going out of state to see family, the other is having a baby in 3 weeks. I thought it was just this Bermuda triangle of bad timing for me, as I find myself saying, “Yeah we can get together in August, right?” Glad to find out I’m not the only one facing this predicament.
The problem is almost every season is busy…with holidays or end of school events, or football, spring break…the secret is finding friends who move to the same rythem..
This is soooo true! At first, I thought winter was the kiss of death for friendships, especially if you live in a cold region. With the demands of summer obligations (I had a baby shower, bridal shower, and bachelorette celebration all on the same day!), I feel too exhausted to make the effort to hang out with existing friends let alone potential ones.
You’re right. Every year I say I won’t schedule much in for summer besides one holiday, but the season fills up by itself.