Let's get this friendship started!

My new best friend isn’t calling me. To be strictly accurate, she has never called me.

Clay and I were walking in the neighborhood one morning this summer when an SUV pulled up beside us and the window came down.

“That’s what I should be doing!” chirped a blonde woman about my age. “All summer I’ve watched you walk by and I keep telling myself that I should be out here, too!”

We chatted pleasantly about exercising and the never-ending battle to lose weight. She asked where we live and said she knows our neighbor.

I liked her. Having her stop to chat and satisfy her curiosity about the new gal in the neighborhood made my day. That was just the sort of fun and friendly person I would like to spend time with. That woman could be my friend.

But, do I know her name? Does she know mine? Do I know where she lives? No! Seriously, can you believe it? All that sunny chatting and no names were exchanged. I could kick myself clear downtown and back.

But she knows where I live, so the onus is on her. Clearly, she has not yet realized there is a hole in her social life with my name on it. Clearly, she hasn't considered that I might have her penciled in for a series of wildly fun craft fairs, wine tastings and holiday programs.

Let's get this friendship started! We have places to go and things to do!

Maybe I'll take a chair to the place where we met and hope she drives by again. If she doesn't show signs of slowing down, I'll throw myself in front of her SUV. We'd have to exchange contact info, then, right?

“Hello, Beatrice? This is Krista. Remember, the gal you ran over last month? Well, I got my cast off today and wondered whether you'd like to go to the Holiday Fair with me on Saturday?"

Openings available for busy friends with low expectations

I’ve always been sort of a crummy friend.

Because I’m pretty content with my own company, I don’t call to chat about nothing in particular, I don’t want to schedule play dates every weekend and I don’t drop in just because I’m in the neighborhood. For the most part, it’s fine with me if we conduct much of our socializing via e-mail. We can have loads of fun road-tripping to a concert, geocaching in the woods and taking a Tai Chi class together, but let’s not overdo the togetherness, OK?

The old friends I can count on two fingers know all this about me, and they’ve wisely collected a lot of other friends to fill in the blanks and satisfy their socializing needs.

About a year ago, I moved away from the longtime friends I can count on two fingers and now live in a town roughly 100 times larger than my old home.

Surprisingly enough, I must have managed to sneak into town without notice. The people looking for a crummy friend like me apparently don’t even know I’m here, yet. Obviously, they’re as crummy at friend-making as they are at friend-keeping – a quality I understand completely.

How do I go about finding these women who won’t want to do a bunch of stuff and won’t be phoning me all the time?

How can I get them to surface, these gals who will be content having lunch every 6 months and spending an occasional afternoon visiting antique shops or seeing a chick flick? How can I show them that I, too, might feel smothered if we see each other two days in a row?

OPENINGS AVAILABLE: busy new friends with low expectations.