So, I've decided it's time to go make friends. How pathetic am I? I'm 26 years old and have to go out and "make friends." How does one go about "making friends?" I suppose the easiest way would be to go back to church. However, I would hate for my only reason to go back to church to be because I'm bored and want girlfriends. That just seems wrong. LOL There's a NINO (nine in, nine out...it's a babywearing group) that meets every couple of weeks that I could attend a meetup of. I haven't been able to as of yet because I haven't had a car, and the group is fairly new, so it shouldn't be too cliquey yet.

I'm fairly nervous about making friends. I don't like to put myself out there. I'm very shy and I find it difficult to talk to people I don't know. You know, I wasn't always like this and I hate that I am now. I've always been fairly shy, but I always made an effort to not let it stop me from meeting people. I never had a lot of friends, but I always had friends. I think that having friends to hang out with is a very important part of life. The last time I decided to "make friends" (you know, I'm going to stop putting quotes around that because it's getting irritating) I just found a San Diego group of moms online, showed up at one of their meetups and joined right in...no problem. However, that's where I think everything went downhill. Now you get to find out what a loser I really am.

So, I met up with this group for a coffee night. Every Sunday we would meet for coffee and just hang out. Every Wednesday we would go out to dinner. This went on for a few months. Our kids also met together for playgroups every once in a while, but it was more of a mom's group...a chance to get out and get away from the kids a couple times a week. So anyways, one night we were going to meet up for drinks to celebrate the birthday of a gal in our group. There were probably about six of us that showed up. I knew that they were planning on going out clubbing afterwards. Up until about ten minutes before we actually met up, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to attend or not, so no one was really expecting me, so I wasn't surprised that I hadn't been invited to go clubbing with them. So anyways, we have a few drinks and some appetizers. One of the ladies says, "Well, I should really get going," to which the reply from the rest of them was, "Oh, you're not going clubbing with us? You have to go! It's going to be so much fun! We can stop by your house really quick and pick up some clothes. You just HAVE to go with us!" and they continued to beg her for about ten minutes while she hemmed and hawed about whether to go or not. She decided to go with them. About five minutes later, when I was done eating, I said, "Well, I should get going," and they said, "Okay, bye Katie!" and I got up and left. When I got home, I felt like such an idiot. Here, I had been spending all of this time with women who didn't even really like me. I had spent the last few months of my life, showing up at get togethers where they probably didn't even want me there. I was hoping I was wrong. I was hoping that I hadn't considered people my friends who were fake enough to not bother telling me that they didn't want me there, and fake enough to pretend that they enjoyed my company. I was sincerely hoping I wasn't that bad a judge of character. So, I emailed the person in the group that I felt closest to. I told her that after that night, I was getting the feeling that I wasn't wanted in the group and that up until that night I had felt like I had friends in the people that we met up with, but was now getting the feeling that I was that person that no one wanted to hang out with, but everyone was "too nice" to tell to go away. I asked her to please let me know if I was wrong and just reading too much into things, but not to email me back saying, "Oh no, that's not it at all! I'm so sorry you felt that way!" just to spare my feelings. I never heard back from her and never got a phone call again from anyone in that group.

So yeah, as of late, my friend making experience hasn't been very good and it has definitely stopped me from putting myself out there again. However, I miss having friends. I miss being able to go out to dinner with friends and for a little while, not have to worry about kids fighting, kids throwing food on the floor, kids breaking things, a husband needing my attention, a house to clean, etc. I miss having "Katie" time. I'm always so much happier when I can get out and focus on just enjoying myself for a bit, out of the role of wife and mom.