March 10, 2024 Friendship

Friendship. There is nothing so satisfying as a true friend. For me, making friends, and keeping them, is an art I have yet to perfect.

Making friends when I was in elementary school was not easy, but I did have three that mattered. One moved away before junior high, another slowly faded from my life until she disappeared entirely in adulthood, and my dearest friend from age 9, Laura’s sister Helen, is still most beloved by me, and I am loved in return. How many non-rural people can say that their oldest friendship has lasted 60 years? I make that distinction because so many older people here have stayed close from school until death.

Having friends in high school was a good experience, except that all the friends I made were guys I met through my two high school boyfriends. There was one girl who was an exception, and a good friend. But we drifted apart the more I became rapturously entangled with my boyfriends’ lives. I lost them both because the first moved away from me, and I moved away from the second.

I have one friend from my university days. We hadn't been in touch for a long time, but she reached out to me. That's the Holy Grail of friendship.

Establishing friendships while married repeated the pattern set in high school: the “friends” I had came from the people with whom my Ex was close. Of all these couples, none of the women liked me, but their husbands usually did. The wife of one even went so far as to say outright that the only reason we ever met was because of the closeness of the men. When I disappeared from sight due to my breakdowns, divorce, and lingering mental illness, not a call did I receive from any of these people, man or woman.

Making friends on my own as a married adult, i.e. without depending on the contacts of the Ex, proved impossible. There was one exception, though.  I struck up a friendship with R after we met in ballet class in the 90s. But she dumped me in 2012, while I was in the hospital getting my C4 fused to C5, using a cadaver bone and a titanium plate.

I was on my own when I met an amazing woman in 2004 while at a high-end psyche hospital. Our meeting was electrifying, and every moment we spent together had the excitement of youth. We met only once after I returned home and she to NYC. In early 2006, she said we could not be friends anymore.

I tried various ways to make friends after moving out here by myself. I joined the DAR only to find out that just one woman out of the 35 active members agreed with the facts of the Constitution, expounded upon in 4-minute mini-classes that I presented while I was the Constitutional Chairperson. This was during Trump’s treasonous stay in office and, given the times, I thought my efforts were important. After about 4 of these, I was told that I was being “too political” (about a political document!) and I was to merely recite events and their dates. Later, I was accused of having lost 3 items used in their tiny annual library exhibit on the Constitution, while in fact I had given them in a black plastic bag to another chairperson on a related subject. She actually threw them away, mistaking them for garbage, but no one believed me, and thereafter dirty looks came my way more than once from the presiding officer. Soon after, I quit.

I met with the Quakers weekly for a few months. In case you are unfamiliar with the Quakers, their “service,” if you will, consisted of sitting silently, waiting for a connection with God. No Christ involved, just God. I liked that. While I made no lasting connections there, I did meet an elderly woman who actually started to glow during the time of quiet contemplation, and that glow remained until she would depart.  It seemed odd to me that her daughter seemed to hate her. But my Quaker  experiment didn’t work out. I made the mistake of saying how good this was for my psychological well-being, and got dismissive, almost derisive, comments from this one woman, and for me, that was that.

I bought season tickets to the local theatre. I could never strike up a conversation with anyone. The women ignored my efforts, and any time I made the merest sound in the direction of a man, the “little woman” would rush up to stake her claim.

During the time that I drank at the Farm, I would occasionally go the only urban-like bar in town. Loved the bartender; I had just devoured Hawking’s book, and we would have discussions about theoretical physics and multi-universes. Those were the most satisfying discussions I had for years.

I became good friends with the married couple who owned a very good wine store in town, but they later moved away. I joined Match.com a couple of times, and the one close, local male friend I made though that experience followed suit a few years later. That was actually a good thing, as he became sexually obsessed with me and really wanted me to be his dominatrix.

The more than fortuitous meeting of C down the street is the only bright spot, and she remains my only close friend here. We do have fun! Every week we play cards – King’s Corners. One time, I made a spectacularly bone-headed play, and we laughed about it so long and so hard that it was practically an orgasm for the brain. I hadn’t laughed like that in many years…

I have true affection for my “occasional son,” G, and the feeling is mutual. We seem to be friends, as well as related by choice.

On the whole, though, it’s obvious that I have no talent when it comes to friendship. I wonder if it is too late to nurture the little that I may have…