facebook stalking and soul-sister rambling

This is my completely random post for the day.

So do you ever have those times where you are just cruising along, facebooking/blog-stalking acquaintances and friends of friends (you know you do it!), and you find someone and think, "we should totally be friends!"?

Today one of my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriends (got that?) came up on my facebook feed as "Someone You May Know." I was bored so I clicked over to her page, and I realized that we would so be friends in real life if we actually knew each other!

I guess considering the circumstances of our acquaintance I shouldn't be too surprised that we have common interests and passions. Apparently our common ex-boyfriend had a type. But it still shocks me because as wrong as Exboyfriend and I were for each other I would never have guessed that he'd have dated another someone like me (guess that's why she and I are both EXes, though, right?).

Anyway, I don't know why but that was interesting to me today and I wanted to process it out loud. Of course I'm not going to friend her and say, "hey, I know we've only met a handful of times, but we both dated Exboyfriend, and we have a lot of mutual friends, and anyway, I was just stalking you on facebook and I think we should be friends!" But I kind of want to.

I don't know why but this concept of potential kindred spirits and missed opportunities is really fascinating to me. I have a great friend who I went to high school with but never really knew at all in high school. We had mutual friends but didn't really move in the same circles for some reason. Well then 6 1/2 years (and a few babies between the two of us) later I moved into her neighborhood, and we became dear friends. I think about how many more years of friendship we could have had if we would have actually met in high school.

Maybe I only see it this way because I've never really lived anywhere long enough to have roots or make life-long friends...

I guess it just makes me think, how many other potential-friends and kindred spirits are out there? And how do I find them?

Tweet

Just to bring you all down with me...

I've got a bad case of the nostalgias tonight. Just a warning. I'm in a downright whiny mood.

I miss my best friend. Not only does she live nearly 600 miles away, but we just aren't connected anymore. I mean how connected can you be when you don't share any daily comings and goings, really? Maybe some people can make it work. Just like some people can make long-distance relationships work. I never could. I've never been good at long-distance relationships of any kind. I find that without the memories that are made during daily interactions there is not much there on which to build a friendship, and without the knowledge of the daily occurrences of someone's life, there is just not much to talk about. In a life like my own, where the only things that ever change are the small day-to-day things, there is just nothing to say if you don't share in at least some of those day-to-day things. There's just nothing to talk about. So what's new? Nothing. Still just staying at home with my kids. Still married to my teacher-student hubby. Still living in the same place. Still doing the same things. Nothing new with my kids, nothing new with my family, nothing new with me. If you aren't around to know that I take Squeak to preschool on Tuesdays and go with him to a different preschool on Thursdays, how can you ask about how it's going? If you aren't around to know what book I just finished reading, how can you ask how I enjoyed it?

We used to be so close, she and I. Friends since 5th grade.

the dating game

Making friends as an adult is just the grown-up, married version of dating. It's not "a lot like dating." It IS dating.

You meet someone. You see that person (at church, at the park, at a playdate, whatever the case may be), and you *want* to sit next to her, but it makes you nervous. What if you say something stupid? What if you can't think of anything to say at all (well, in my case, this is not a hypothetical. I can never think of anything to say to someone I don't know well)? What if she doesn't like you and thinks you're lame and wishes you would never have talked to her in the first place? What if she has a BFF and isn't looking for any more friends, thankyouverymuch.?

"mommy guilt?"

I was reading something the other day that got me thinking and… Well you know what, there’s no point in explaining how my thought process works. It really is a mystery, even to me! Somehow though I came to this conclusion: I can’t be vocal about my parenting philosophies with most people I know/meet. Since becoming a parent I have struggled with this. When someone says something that I don’t agree with, do I speak up to let them know I don’t agree, or do I remain silent to keep the peace? Mostly I’ve chosen to remain silent. This shouldn’t be very hard for me, since I do generally keep pretty quiet about my opinions anyway. It’s not that I don’t have very strong opinions, or that I’m not highly passionate about my opinions. It’s just that I don’t much care for contention, and since I live in [enter strictly conservative area here] and am quite strictly liberal, voicing my opinions almost certainly and consistently brings contention. With some people, I feel comfortable voicing my beliefs, because I know that while they do not agree with me, they do respect me, and we can have a healthy discussion. However, most people I come in contact with here lack a certain amount of respect for anyone who does not worship the Republican party…

I don’t mean to turn this into a political thing, so let me get back on track.