The Queen of Melodrama Strikes Again!

Gah!

**Warning: This is an alcohol-fueled post. Bear with me. This may make NO sense, since I’ve just had a really, really, really strong Rye & Coke, and the whiskey… it is not conducive to writing.**

I hate this. I need friends. Real friends that I can talk to about real stuff. But I suck at meeting people. I am not outgoing at all. After the formal niceties are said and done, I really don’t know what to say. My initial conversation with you will look something like this:

Hi.

How are you?

I’m good. And you?

Fine.

*cricket* *cricket* *cricket*

My mind is all “I don’t know what to say next. Think, Dummy, think! What to say? What to say? Did I already say ‘how are you?’. Dammit, I did already say that. Hmmm, crap. Hi, say HI! No, no, no. I already said that, too. Oh crap. Now an uncomfortable amount of time has passed and I really don’t know what to say now. Great.”

And then you say “Um. Ok. See you later.”

I hate being so awkward.

I’ve tried going places to meet people. We went to church for almost 2 years and I was involved in a few different things… nursery, bible study, etc. Everyone was nice. We were even invited to a few random non-church related things. But we never developed any actual friendships. I never felt like I fit in… all the close families and put together-ness… it was so foreign to me. We left our church over a year ago (a lot of people left… long story) and we haven’t found a new one. And no one from our old church has tried to contact us.

I also spent a year in a mom’s group named after something you use to clean your kitchen floor. (Rhymes with ‘FLOPS’.) Let me tell you about my FLOPS group. Disorganized. Badly. One morning, the childcare people were running late. There was one high school aged girl for 22 toddlers. Me and another mom stayed with her in the toddler room, because we just couldn’t leave that poor girl alone with all those kids. Other moms, leaders included, kept coming and dropping off children, but no one offered to stay to help. Finally, 45 minutes later, the rest of the childcare staff arrived. When the other mom and I walked into the FLOPS meeting, we were greeted with raised eyebrows and “oh, how nice of you to finally join us” stares. Not a single person said “thank you”.

Also, at the end of one of our Superficial Discussion Groups, we were doing prayer requests. My request was “I’m in a small group for victims of abuse, and I need prayer for courage to speak up in my group.” What was the response I received from the ‘mentor’? “Oh. Ummm, I’ll just write down ‘courage to speak up in small group’.” Gasp! Heaven forbid we say the ‘A’ word.

During another Superficial Discussion Group, a different ‘mentor’ was going on and on about how odd her neighbors were. And then she said “and I’m pretty sure there is abuse going on in that home, but I don’t want to be a nosy neighbor and get involved.” Great plan. Because ignoring the problem totally makes it all go away. Had I been in the place (mentally) where I am now, I would have lambasted her. But back then, I was a complete and total wuss who just sat there biting her tongue.

The last straw was when I accidentally happened upon one of the FLOPS summer playgroups. (They hold them at a park within walking distance to my house, so I take the kids there quite often.) I walked into the toddler area and there was a group of the leaders and several other FLOPS moms sitting at a picnic table. I smiled and said “hey”. The only one who acknowledged me was one mom who had been in my SDG. No one else even nodded in my direction. (And just to make things clear, it’s not that my FLOPS group was so damn big that I was lost in the crowd. It consisted of 20-25 people.) So I went to sit at the kids picnic table, because it was pretty clear that I wasn’t invited to sit at the FLOPS table. (Now I know how the kids in high school felt who were shunned from the popular table.) I felt so awkward, sitting over there all by myself. That’s when I decided there was no way in hell I was going to pay money to be in that damn FLOPS group this fall.

But now I’m back to being isolated. Or at least it feels like that. I have one ‘mom’ friend and she’s usually busy with her own stuff. She homeschools and has a daycare and is trying to get her business going and so she’s got a pretty full schedule. Everyone else I know is busy in a different season of life (single, married without children, has grown children) and/or has work and other responsibilities that need done. So I don’t feel like I can just pick up the phone and say “I’m really bored, talk to me.” Or “I am so extremely lonely right now, will you come over for coffee?” Because I feel like I’m imposing. Being too much. Too needy. Sucking the life out of them.

I have my husband. I love him dearly. I can talk to him about anything. But he works a lot. And he has his own things he likes to do. He just isn’t capable of fulfilling all of my needs for companionship. It took me years to figure that out. But I still need people. Where in the world do I go to find friends?

I have this deep longing for real, authentic relationships. People I can talk to about anything, and I know it won’t be repeated. People that I know will be honest with me and tell me when I’m wrong. People who won’t be fake and put on a mask and pretend they are perfect. People who will talk about their own trials and struggles and dysfunctional families. People who aren’t afraid to hurt my feelings for the sake of helping me. People that I can be myself around and not be judged. People who are willing to be real. (I do have a very small handful of people like that in my life, but they all fall into the aforementioned ‘busy’ category.)

My husband’s parents, along with his sister and her husband, have ‘house church’. It’s a group of people they meet with one evening a week. They talk about life… openly and honestly. Some weeks, they laugh. Some weeks, they cry. Some weeks, they fight. But every week, they’re together. Every time I hear about ‘house church’, it stirs up that longing inside me all over again. I desperately, DESPERATELY want people like that in my life.

Where do you find these people? Because I need some.