The Downside of Hermitville

 

I work with people all day, and when I come home, I don’t feel like seeing or speaking to anyone until I go back to work in the morning. It’s not very warm and fuzzy, but it’s true. It has recently come to my attention that, because of this tendency toward hermitville, I have successfully eliminated nearly all opportunities for face-to-face encounters with human beings outside of work.

 

While this satisfies my hermit tendencies perfectly, it was decidedly inconvenient when I needed to talk over a big and possibly life-changing decision recently.

 

As I made and weighed lists and struggled with the pros and cons of the decision, I longed to kick it all around with a real person, someone who knew me well and was somewhat obligated to listen to me yammer on and on.

 

I am between BFFs and between men at the moment. (Note: It is best if these two states are not experienced simultaneously.) Therefore, there is no one in my life to perform the task of Sounding Board. Don’t feel sorry for me. I prefer this most of the time and created the situation myself. And, to be fair, I do have my parents and my children, but they all go into “Play it safe and don’t forget to keep your gas tank topped off” mode, as they should. I really wanted someone to weigh all the facts, know my heart and still possibly say, “Oh, just go for it. You only live once. What’s the worst that could happen?”

 

So, where was I going to find that someone on short notice?  You don't exactly drag in a Facebook acquaintance for a deep heart-to-heart about your future any more than you'd ask them to come take a look at a questionable mole on your back.

 

Speaking of impossible-to-see moles, I made an appointment to have my doctor look at a mole on my back that had me worried. He said it was just a patch of dry skin. Really?? I was paying roughly $185 for a patch of dry skin that a BFF or male companion could have diagnosed for free?

 

I was really tempted to get my money’s worth out of that visit: “So, Doc. I have a big decision I’d like to run by you….” He was somewhat obligated to listen to me, after all.

 

No, I didn’t drag him into it, but if I insist on maintaining this otherwise agreeable hermit status, I might just sneak in a BFF-ish chat next time I go in for a check-up. It’s nice to know there is someone somewhat obligated to listen to me yammer on and on, after all.

 

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.