What About Your Friends?
The closer I get to my wife, and the more acclimated I become to living in Middle River, MD., the more I realize that I really miss my friends from back home. All of these wonderful happenings are occurring in my life, and my crew from Seat Pleasant, MD and other parts throughout the eastern seaboard can only share them in weekend visits, text messages and fleeting phone calls.
My assumption in getting married is that the whole "forsaking all others" part of the vows would be serious, but not to the point that I would miss the company of other guys my age. Its hard being the boy and girl genius on the block; everyone is older than us, and everybody we know close to our age is not married and do not like like the prospect of rolling as a third wheel.
Thank God for frat brothers, but even then I’m caught between undergraduates who need to be wild to justify their age, 30-somethings just pulling back on their wilding, and 60-somethings who just enjoy watching the first two groups waste the energy unnecessarily. I’ve been pretty lucky in meeting cool guys on the job and in the neighborhood, but nothing has materialized.
In church, there are plenty of cool gentlemen to associate with, but you can’t call those brothers up and ask, "let’s get some brews and some ribs and catch that Ravens game." First, the game is during the service. Second, grabbing a few brews usually isn’t a good line to open up with when speaking to parishioners. Although some folks just might be down with that kind of proposal.
Maybe this summer will bring about some solid friendships in my new hometown, but between vacations, summer school, and still enjoying the honeymoon, Jesus still might wind up being my closest homeboy in the area.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Hey, there’s a whole lot of nos in your post. Why can’t you call a brotha after services to grab a cup of coffee that may lead to another time to catch the Ravens?
This post resonates with me because my swubby and I are Yoomers, young baby boomers, who face the same issues- making new friends. Who knew it would be so tough, but what with families, work and such it’s hard to find time to do it. So, I’m taking the advice I gave to my daughter, Miss Thang, 17 years ago- Honey, just go up, say hello and ask her name. That’s how you make friends. It still works.
New hometown= new places to explore and get to know friends you haven’t met yet. I’m not sure if this was a pep talk for you or me.
Thanks for the reminder I’m only a smile and open heart away from making a connection.