# Filling in the gaps...



## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

I usually have something I'm doing in the way of psychological self-improvement.

Finally, after a great long while where I've always had some hurdle to overcome or some obvious restrictive emotion I needed to get a handle on, I'm drawing a blank on what to work on.

I'd like to say it would be to pay attention to my work and studies, but I'm already doing that. (In a move away from co-dependency.) Here I get paid / rewarded for being part of a project team and doing for others (i.e. whomever has the research money.) I can't pretend I won't be insanely satisfied with myself when I finish my comparative literature degree. 

Maybe making friends? I'd like to have a best friend or a coffee friend or dinner friend in the area. Everyone seems so busy with work and kids. I do have friends but they live at least an hour away. Sometimes I Skype. Has anyone worked deliberately on finding/making friends and been successful in forming a friendship at middle age?

I started dating this guy and have no idea how it will progress. I guess I'm feeling that even if it does turn into a long term relationship that's fulfilling, I still want to have a woman friend, I would still miss (and do miss) having that in my life. Not really sure how to go about this? I have guy friends, and it's not the same. I enjoy their company but it's different than how I would imagine a friendship would be with a woman. I guess in the back of my mind, with a guy, I'm always thinking, well, there's the physical attraction. With a same-sex friend, it would be about having fun and knowing it was solely on account of personality and so forth, vs. a combination of that and physical attraction.

Maybe put an ad in CL for someone to go to movies and snowboard/ski with? It just seems so weird. Or should I just ask around to people I know...hey...my social life is lacking a friend, do you know anyone I'd be compatible with?


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## familyfirst09 (Dec 6, 2012)

I have the same problem, I'm in the midst of a separation/divorce and my female friends are quite busy with their own lifes, kids and families. Have you tried "meetup.com"? Its a website where you can join new groups and activities and meet people that have the same interests as you. Everyone is there for the same reason - to make new friends. So far, I've joined a yoga group and a hiking group. Making new female friends mid life is hard.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

familyfirst09 said:


> I have the same problem, I'm in the midst of a separation/divorce and my female friends are quite busy with their own lifes, kids and families. Have you tried "meetup.com"? Its a website where you can join new groups and activities and meet people that have the same interests as you. Everyone is there for the same reason - to make new friends. So far, I've joined a yoga group and a hiking group. Making new female friends mid life is hard.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I would imagine it's even more difficult in the midst of separation/divorce. 

I'm well past that. My school is going great, my work is going great, I have a social life that I enjoy, I have a new man that I'm really interested in (we'll see how that goes). I do activities with my kids and am signed up to chaperone skiing/boarding...I take private fencing lessons (for some reason do not want to do this in a group like I did with dancing but 1-1 to actually just focus on learning the sport and not on any of the social aspects!) I don't have any problem with going to the movies on my own or anything like that. I just want a female friend to have coffee with, have over for dinner - like cook together - even run errands with like grocery shopping or doing projects together like painting or whatever, meet up for a drink downtown... I have guy friends I do this stuff with. It's not the same. When I was younger I used to sit around a lot with female company in my adopted family and we'd have tea and paint nails, one time we watched Thorn Birds of Thika (this was before DVD and recording...you had to 'tune in'.) Being with females is different, and I don't want to bond over the whole mom thing either. My daughter's friendships shift. 

I could probably have a friendship with one of the older women in my Quaker Meeting, but it seems like that would be too much like wanting a mom-replacement. I don't want that, I mean, I would want that, but it's not the same. That's different, and right now I want to be establishing myself in maturity, not regressing, so a relationship like that could just be wrong for me right now.


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## familyfirst09 (Dec 6, 2012)

Wow, that sounds great! Can't wait to be where you are!! And within all these activities/school that you, you haven't been able to connect with one or more ladies in particular that you have bonded with?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

No, I get along with many ladies and I have a woman friend who lives kind of far away and with health issues, who I do see on a somewhat regular basis, plus a few other women I know in person but who aren't available for day to day (they live far away and are employed full time...)

I'm thinking I will just become a guy in so far as having guy friends and doing guy things with them, and when it's time to be a woman I will do it on my own or get a guy friend to go along with it. I mean, I can meet a guy for coffee at his place or have him over and sit with him while I do my nails...there's no rule against it...or go shopping or to the movies with a guy...

Maybe I just need to be gender neutral. I'm trying it out, a guy friend I have and dance with, is going to put up my blinds for me (I have roller shades and detest them, bought replacement blinds a while ago...) and paint my walls that are horrid colors. So I will try out having a guy friend in my space. I've been good just always meeting my guy friends in public space. But I hate the limitations of that. I would like to hang out with friends at home like I used to back in the day when I had friends. Come to think of it, a lot of these friends were guys. 

Well, what the h*ll. I've already broken rules by having a romantic relationship with my new client/boss. Might as well not stop there. I think maybe I need to strengthen my guy friendships before this relationship gets any stronger, if that's what it's going to do, or I'll be in the position of having iffy/constrained guy friends rather than guy friends with established social rights/modes.

Maybe that's what this is all about. 

I do have a long history of having guys for friends, i.e. close relationships with men who I am not involved with. Inside my head I am a guy. To the point when a project team member said something about me being the only woman present (he'd made a comment about women, or something, and I was thinking about an aspect of the project, and missed it...) he reiterated my status and I looked around and said, wow, you're right. That's about how much I think about it, and to my credit, I was sitting right next to my client/date, wearing a skirt, with heels...and a shirt he's taken off me before. lol. But was not in any way cognizant at that moment of being the only woman in the room. 

Maybe my frustration is having developed guy friendships to this point, wanting to develop them a bit further, into personal space. For instance, I've been avoiding going over to one guy's place because he says it's a pit. But honestly, I don't care. It would be fun to go over there and watch a movie and have a beer and do my nails and talk about what he's doing to renovate the space. Also he likes to make bread and stuff. It's stupid to know people so well but not in their living space, and vice versa. I'm kind of sick of it.

Also I think I would like to share my guy friends with anyone I marry. I mean, dinner parties and stuff. I hate having separate rules based on gender.

Plus, if you go out with a guy friend, you have a dance partner already. lol.
Or other men assume you're partnered up and don't bug you. Or you can if you want check out other guys from a standpoint of relative safety...drink in a bar in attractive clothing, etc. There are a lot of perks to having guy friends, and I don't buy that my guy friends just want to get in my pants, I know that's not the case.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

So far, so good. Got my guy friends all on notice and starting on duty. 
Had a nice night out Saturday. Coffee tomorrow. (These are guys who know I'm dating, no shifty stuff going on, I am not attracted to them physically, but spiritually and in ways that don't involve what would be considered to be romantic dating.) Honestly, I hang out with and correspond with my mentor and his office mate at the college where my work study is, and also with guys I know from dance, the thing that differentiates my 'date' is that I'm crazy about him, I do get that heart-skipping thing going on. I kind of feel a little peeved about it, to be honest. It's a kind of feeling that's a bit out of the locus of control. I suppose that's how it's supposed to be.

I did spend last Friday with a woman friend at her restaurant...but mentor's office mate was there with his wife, so we chatted just a bit and I got introduced.


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## sayjellybeans (Jun 25, 2012)

Homemaker_Numero_Uno said:


> I did spend last Friday with a woman friend at her restaurant...but mentor's office mate was there with his wife, so we chatted just a bit and I got introduced.


That's how it all starts. 

Speaking of how you're a guy in your mind-
One of my closest gf's has many male sensibilities. I see her often, but she's wonderfully low-maintenance, and her perspective is so refreshing to hear sometimes.
Do you live in a small town? You seem to have a lot going for you, you might just need a bigger friendship pool.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

sayjellybeans said:


> That's how it all starts.
> 
> Speaking of how you're a guy in your mind-
> One of my closest gf's has many male sensibilities. I see her often, but she's wonderfully low-maintenance, and her perspective is so refreshing to hear sometimes.
> Do you live in a small town? You seem to have a lot going for you, you might just need a bigger friendship pool.


How what starts? I'm not at all sexually attracted to the guy, just friendly enough to know where he's coming from because we're doing highly demanding work in a close environment...and he is doing his own research and I'm doing my own. So it pays to feel someone out prior to the situation of having to share a 2-person office with him, and it's good that the wife has met me, in case she visits his office some day and I'm in there, she knows what I'm about and why I'm there. 

I do live in a small town and I have two kids who are school aged and one who is 22 and lives away. I'm okay with my friendship pool, most people I know in town have kids, and they have kids every weekend and every night which is not my situation. Plus I have very different work from most people I know. I telecommute (for the most part, this office mate is a situation where I'm working with data that has to be at the hospital...) so I live away from where my action might be, so to speak, after hours. It is what it is. I'm okay with my guy friends...and I'm meeting a woman friend I've known for a long time, for lunch this week. 

My guy friends really do look out for me, and I like that they call things what they are...I can always count on them for the truth of any given situation. One of my guy friends I could easily marry, IF he didn't have issues with his house and his health and whatnot...I'm not into changing people so he is what he is, a guy friend and there is an emotional attraction in a certain respect but in no way is it physical except for some good Alaskan bear hugs...or romantic. I have high standards and also have a pretty good handle on people, so generally speaking it takes a lot to attract me into a relationship in the first place, and then there has to be a certain spiritual substance to keep me in it, as well as workable logistics. Thus, single. Not loving it, not unloving it, it just is what it is.

It's crossed my mind I might meet someone at the hospital, but if not there are a lot of friendly people regardless and it's good to be in the research environment either way.


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## sayjellybeans (Jun 25, 2012)

Oh my, sorry. My "that's where it all starts" comment was a positive comment I made about making friends-- an introduction. Sorry about the confusion!


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

sayjellybeans said:


> Oh my, sorry. My "that's where it all starts" comment was a positive comment I made about making friends-- an introduction. Sorry about the confusion!


You're so cute!
I wouldn't pursue a friendship with this guy but it's cool that we have a little bit in common. When I'm out and about I like having conversations with people. I went to a milonga last Saturday night and talked with the father of the husband of a friend/acquaintance of mine who opened an arts studio (we were at the reception, which included the milonga.) Talked with another guy I know. There is nothing to it, just mostly job/career stuff that is networking...the issue is that wives get bent out of shape even though they've left their man to go talk to someone else. I suppose the general assumption is that I'm trying to hit on them or something...and not knowing the history of the marriage or relationship, when I see that kind of reaction from the wife I file it away and use it to, in future, only start conversations through the wife, to put her in control. FWIW, my acqaintance/friend doesn't mind at all if I talk or dance with her husband. I'm very fond of him and met them at the same time. He loves my friend and I love her too (everyone loves her, lol, she's very sweet and brilliant and cute/pretty) and wears her heart on the outside...anyway, her husband is sooooo nice, and it's good to know him along with her, they are a matched set.


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## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

My best friend I met on line  So happy she eventually moved to this area - not for me, for a job...

Others I met at work and another is the mother of a friend of my daughters. I'm not super close to her nor do I have a ton in common with her - more of convenience... LOL


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

EnjoliWoman said:


> My best friend I met on line  So happy she eventually moved to this area - not for me, for a job...
> 
> Others I met at work and another is the mother of a friend of my daughters. I'm not super close to her nor do I have a ton in common with her - more of convenience... LOL


How do you meet best friends on line of the same gender without having to deal with the obvious questions of dating vs. not dating? Was it through meetup or some kind of friend finder? Sounds interesting.


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## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

We both listen to a syndicated morning radio show that played in cities all around the US. They had a 'chat room' on their website where you could comment on the topic of the day - it was actually a message board and there was a section for the topic of the day and other sections for simply social interaction. 

We had similar takes on things - found the same things funny, etc. Started with the occasional PM (Did he really just say that?!?!) and went on until we exchanged emails, then phone numbers and finally when she took a vacation with her daughter (hubby to join in a week) she invited me and my daughter to come. 

We did, had a blast - stayed up so late talking. Our girls got along well and for several years it because a tradition. I flew to her state with daughter twice, she flew down when I closed on my house and when her job gave her a choice of New Orleans or here, she chose here. Funny how it all worked out.


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