Making Friends

When I moved out here to Minnesota, one of the questions I pondered was: How long will it take for me to make friends? I had these grand plans to make "a friend a day" which quickly turned into "a friend a week" which eventually turned into "at least one friend."  Well, that's a little bit of an exaggeration. I actually found the people here very friendly but it's hard to go beyond the small talk and make a deeper connection.

This weekend I was feeling particularly lonely since the 5-day visit from my friend from Colorado was over and I realized that I had no weekend plans. However, it ended up being the most social weekend since I've been out here and I met three people who I had long conversations with -- three new friends.

1) Paula

The picture in this post is of Paula sitting on a park swing observing the wildlife, taken before I met her. I was geocaching in this park (by the way, I didn't find the geocache, but I did find a deer in exactly the spot of the geocache). Anyway, as I saw Paula (whose name I didn't know yet) sitting there, I thought, as I've thought on several other occasions, "Maybe I should go talk to her." Usually, I just smile and say 'hi,' and go on my merry way, but this time when I said, 'hi,' Paula invited me to sit down and chat.

Before long, Paula and I were chatting as though we'd been old friends. We found we had a common interest in psychology and relationships. I lost track of the time, but we must have talked for over two hours, and at the end of our conversation, we exchanged numbers and became Facebook friends.

2) Jim

Jim is someone I met swing dancing Friday night. I'd actually met him the first time I went dancing here in Minnesota. He's an excellent dancer and we had a lot of fun. He invited me to go out to Excelsior on Saturday night to listen to some live music. As it turned out, we roamed around the quaint city by foot, ending up watching the sunset and boats on Lake Minnetonka, sipping on margaritas and hearing rock'n'roll in the background. It was a beautiful summer night, and again, we found we had common interest in psychology and coaching.

3) Scott + a bunch of other people

Saturday morning I went out to St. Paul to play tennis at a Recreational Tennis meetup event. The people were so friendly, and once we were finished playing, I chatted enough with Scott to realize we had a similar work history and that we both started our careers with IBM internships.

Scott told me that some other people were going to be playing tennis on Sunday and asked me if I wanted to join for that and then go on to his house for Happy Hour with his wife and other friends. I was so impressed that he would invite someone he just met to his home! Even though it was a bit of a drive, I showed up at the appointed time of 1:00, played tennis, and then after a quick Cub Foods run, headed to Scott's house.

There was plenty of wine and Happy Hour fixings (including cute little drink umbrellas). Even though I don't think Scott intended all of us to stay so late, we ended up feasting on home-made lasagna and key lime pie. DELICIOUS!

Through Scott, I met about 5 other people who I'm making other plans with. I may have even found my roommate for my cruise!

I'm not sure why I had such success this weekend with my friend-making challenges when I wasn't having much luck before. Maybe I was trying a little hard to "put myself out there." Or maybe I was just lucky in meeting people who I seemed to click with.

In all cases -- Paula, Jim, Scott (as well as Scott's wife and friends), were just so inviting and generous in opening their hearts. They made me feel welcomed to do the same. Though it will take more than one conversation to become deep friends, I at least have made some connections that I feel could grow into lasting friendships.

In any case, I think my lonely days are over, and I'm feeling re-energized about my stay here!