52 New Friends

There are old souls that inhabit the earth, beings of youth who exhibit such natural wisdom that one starts to wonder if they really even fit in this generation of selfies and YouTube makeup tutorials.   I met Sarah by working with a local non-profit.   She is the type of unyielding dependable that you never have to worry about anything being left undone.   She’s a little bit of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ with her long, blond hair and her natural heart-shaped face.   Her voice is soft.   Her eyes are warm.   She’s the type of person you instantly feel you have known for years. You’d think she was from the Midwest from that description but Sarah actually grew up near Buffalo, New York, surrounded by farms for as far as the eye could see.   She loved to ride horses.   In fact, for a while, she considered becoming a horse trainer but she never had a horse of her own.   She was raised by a single mom and horses are expensive.   ...

Dear Friends, I need to catch you up on all that has happened over the last month since my last posting.   You may have thought I have given up on the idea of making 52 new friends this year.   That could not be farther from the truth.   But here’s what I have learned:   As I get deeper and deeper into this process, I find people are reluctant to sit down with me.   I’ve got a backlog six or seven deep of women who liked the idea enough to agree to sit down with me, but, for one reason or another, have not made the time to do it.   Part of me has been in mourning over it because how sad is our society that people are so overtaxed that they don’t even have time to schedule in one hour to talk about themselves and meet a new friend.   Or maybe the idea of having someone write about them is too daunting?   Or maybe they just don’t want to be my friend and don’t know how to tell me?   Or maybe something else is holding them back?   ...

Strength comes in many different forms.   Amanda was a starry-eyed ASU freshman when a friend of hers asked her to go on a church trip to San Diego.   Even though Amanda had never been particularly religious, a trip to San Diego sounded pretty good to her.   It was on that trip that she met the man she would eventually marry.   He was Russian, here in Arizona on a work visa.   He was fourteen-years her elder and he was deliciously exotic.   Unfortunately, this isn’t a love story. Amanda’s Russian admitted he was really only interested in the church so he could meet girls.   Amanda is a brassy, no-nonsense New Yorker so I doubt she was ever naïve…but at the time, she was young and she didn’t really recognize the power the age difference would hold over her.   She dated her Russian on and off for four years and then when she was twenty-one and nearing her college graduation, she found out she was pregnant.   She had wanted to go...

When I first set out on this meeting-new-people adventure, one of my friends came to me and said, “I want you to sit down with Sandy…but she is about to go undergo surgery for breast cancer.   Can you wait a couple of months?” Of course, I could wait.   I wanted to know what it was like to be hit with the heavy weight of a cancer diagnosis.   I had heard that Sandy was doing much better now so when I sat down with her in a Starbucks on a chilly Sunday morning, my first question was ripped right out of an old Tim McGraw song:   “How does it hit you when you get that kind of news?” I was prepared for earth shattering trauma but Sandy just shrugged and said, “I’m seventy.   Things like that are to be expected.”   In a shockingly honest display of her own mortality, Sandy went on to explain that she realizes she is probably closer to the end of her life than the beginning.   And while the burning sensation in her arms is annoying and the hair ...

I did it.   I did the thing I said I was not going to do.   I don’t know if it was because Valentine’s Day was coming up.   Maybe I just ran into one too many happy couples…but the old, lonely hole opened up in my heart reminding me I’m a single.   And then I got the itch to want to shop the dating sites.   I tried to resist.   For hours, I begged the television to entertain me but the pull was just too great.   I’d done a very good job at deleting all of my information on the dating sites so I didn’t have access.   It took some work to put up a new profile with no photo, no description, just meant to look, but moments into the process I realized…I wasn’t missing much.   I was just about to log out when I noticed someone had sent me a message.   It was harmless enough, just a question about the screen name I chose.   I looked at his profile.   It said he was open to making new friends so I figured…why not?   Here...

My condo complex had our annual board meeting last weekend out by the pool.   I know it’s February but this is Phoenix, folks, so it was seventy degrees.   When I arrived, there was a small gathering of homeowners milling around the donuts and coffee.   Most of the people had brought lawn chairs.   I plopped mine next to a dark haired woman and said, “Mind if I sit next to you?”   And that’s how I met Sherrie.   In the short time before the meeting, I found out Sherrie was from Canada, she only lives here during the winter months, and she and her husband own a bunch of businesses in Canada.   Once the meeting got under way, I realized Sherrie knew a lot of people in my complex.   Apparently, she and her husband are well established in spending the winter months here.   We call those people snowbirds in Phoenix and as the meeting droned on, I thought:   I don’t know any snowbirds.   The purpose of this blog is to meet people w...

The interesting thing I’ve learned about meeting a person for the first time is that it usually only allows you to see them in the current moment.   Whether the observer is aware of it or not, the other person’s reality is colored by what is going on in their life, whether it’s happy or sad or chaotic or nostalgic.   If you listen closely the subconscious is drifting to whatever is at the forefront of their mind, and in a way the words passing through their lips are the reflection of their subconscious.   Typically, there is a common theme that presents itself but no one’s life is comprised of just one theme.   We are all made up of different parts, feelings, moods and stages of life.   Our lives are a jigsaw puzzle of opposites that give our reality depth instead of reading as one flat character on a page.   In the moment, we all typically wear just one mask to show the world, but sometimes, you find a rare person who will throw all the masks on at on...

Last fall, one of my car’s headlights burned out.   I know next to nothing about cars, but a burned out headlight seemed like a stupid thing to take to my mechanic to fix.   I change burned out light bulbs at my condo all the time.   So really… how hard can it be? I bought a new headlight at my local auto parts store and watched three YouTube videos on the topic.   I put on a dirty wife-beater tank and some old jeans, popped the hood of my car and proceeded to dismantle the headlight like it was the most natural thing in the world.   I did pretty well until I got to the pin that held the bulb in place.   Each of the YouTube videos I watched said dismantling the pin was the hardest part and none of them really seemed to capture exactly how to get it out.   I struggled with that pin for what seemed like ten minutes.   I was starting to get frustrated.   My thumb and my pointer fingers developing welts, and then a friendly voice behind me...

Most people don’t realize it but there are two types of people in this world:   city folk and country folk.   Because most of those reading this will be city folk, let me explain the difference. When someone is born into a country life, their life is simple.   Nothing important is ever rushed and often silence is the most beautiful voice.   They understand the importance of stopping to watch a sunset.   The people they trust are the ones they sat next to in grade school, kissed under the school bleachers and sang with in the church choir.   They trust those from the same root and they often wonder, “How can life get any better than this?”   It is an idealistic life.   They love and they die with a blessed innocence of violence.   And they see city folk as chaotic, unbalanced and misinformed on all the ways life should be. This story is about a country boy named Rodney, who found himself displaced.   Rodney spent his childhoo...

A group of American tourists in Bulgaria decided to plan a day trip.   There were three destinations on their agenda but as they were looking at the map, they realized these locations were slightly farther apart than they had, at first, realized.   This meant the trip might require more daylight hours than fell in a single day.   They heard there was a lodge on the top of a mountain at the final destination but it worked on first-come-first-serve accommodations, which meant they may or may not be able to stay the night.   Deciding that it was worth taking the chance, Erica and a few of her friends packed small overnight bags, preparedness for the possibility of what was to come. The day wore on and after two stops, the group finally parked below the huge mountain, home to their final destination.   They asked the parking lot attendant in broken Bulgarian if she knew if the lodge at the top of the mountain was full for the night.   She indicated that ...

First of all, I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for this endeavor.   Last Wednesday night, I asked my Facebook friends for referrals of people I might not already know.   I figured this was a safe way to meet new friends but frankly, I wasn’t sure how it would go.   Apparently, I struck a chord.   As of today, my blog has had almost 500 pageviews with numerous friends approaching me about potential friend referrals.   One of those was a gentleman named Kurt.   Kurt and I were part of a network marketing company almost ten years ago.   Every now and then I will see something from him pop up in my Facebook feed but he is one of those friends who would have probably disappeared into obscurity if it wasn’t for social media.   He said:   “I have a friend named Melissa who would love to make a new friend.”   So I messaged Melissa.   Neither of us was working on Friday afternoon so I suggested we grab some coffee. ...

Last fall I had a revelation.   Something wonderful happened to me…and I had no one to share it with. I am a forty-two year old, divorced, childless woman with a family that has done a very good job at alienating themselves from me.   If life were a big, patchwork quilt, I feel like my portion is a single, solitary patch that has been left on the floor and forgotten.   And in quiet moments, I am lonely.   I’m embarrassed to admit it but sometimes, I even feel sorry for myself.   Silence gives you plenty of time to pick apart all your flaws.   Over the past two years, I’ve done a lot of online dating but frankly, I think the over-forty-and-single category needs more therapy than they do dates.   I’ll even include myself in that observation.   And then, a few weeks ago, I went to a charity walk for suicide prevention.   I told myself I was there to support other people but as I stood in the crowd of nearly two thousand people w...