MSO Rin and Wicked M decided to share this Friday's entry since none of us know whose turn it is and we're using the holiday week to break the rules! We logged into IM and started a conversation based on something we've been talking about recently. Here's what got said in our fifteen minute conversation (we had to limit ourselves otherwise this entry would have been seven hours long).
Wicked M: I wonder what happened to me and my sense of fun??
MSO Rin: Well, I'll tell ya … maturity! We're all still us and we all still love some good clean (and sometimes down 'n' dirty) fun. I think it's not we who have changed, it's just our definition of what makes us happy that's expanded to include more calm pursuits. Unless you're referring to that late-twenty-something phenomenon of not feeling so much like trying like hell to make new friends. I know we've all griped about that. I wonder what that is all about?
Wicked M: Okay, so you're going to sound all smart on this chat and I'm going to sound like an idiot. Greeeeat. I think a huge part of me not being so much fun is having a job that requires me to be awake and alert at 8:00 a.m. You spend your whole day at work, then you come home, have dinner, have errands to run, laundry to do, etc. It is a never ending list of adult chores. And we thought we had it bad when we were kids! The whole making new friends thing? That is a tough one!
MSO Rin: Don't be silly … I don't sound smart, I just use lots of hyphenated words. J I wonder if it's all the free time one has as a student that keeps us constantly discovering new friends, or the instant bonding a major or a sorority or a club can provide. And that's possibly why all my friends now that aren't old friends are ones I've been lucky enough to make at work. Career friends, I guess you'd say. And I've been lucky in that I'm currently working where my passion is. When I wasn't working in theatre, I made a few friends, but all of them have fallen away now that I'm not working at those places. So I wonder if adult relationships are by nature temporary. It is harder to get stoked about going out to Pub Trivia or karaoke on a work night when you're loaded w/a full day like you just described—as opposed to a full day of sitting in lectures and gossiping at lunch while you try to catch a rerun of "Dawson's" in your room …
Wicked M: I think that a great majority of the reason it is tougher to make friends after college is because you're never quite sure when you first meet someone at work whether or not you'll have something in common with them. During school, you would meet someone in class so you had that in common or you would make friends with girls because they lived on the same floor of you in the dorm. Finding friends at work is tougher because people are there for work and they have their guards up all the time. Plus, I think that most of us don't want to break the professional barrier and end up looking like an idiot. Also, most of the time I just want to leave work at work. Being friends with people from work usually means that you just end of bitching about work all the time together. It probably also doesn't help that I work with a lot of men who are old enough to be my dad. They aren't exactly going to become my new margarita drinking buddies or my shopping pals!
MSO Rin: Are you kidding? I would totally go shopping and Margarita-drinking w/your dad. But you're right … lots of times, my friends and I do "fix" our work world when we get together. And since I'm losing my closest set next week to the East Coast, we'll see if my wonder is correct and they were just my friends for a certain time in my life. Which brings me to another wonder: I wonder what it is that makes distance so often hard for romantic relationships but not for some friendships? I know there are friends one makes for life, but usually you can't tell if a new buddy will end up being one of those—or if you think he/she is, he/she probably isn't. So what are the things that make a friendship really, really stick? B/c you could say that the same criteria for those kinds of friendships are automatically part of a relationships: shared experiences, intense feelings/conversations/plans/goals, lots of laughter and some tears. But long-distance relationships rarely work. Is it the physical aspect? I know I really miss hugging on and being near my best friends, but we stay best friends without it. So I wonder what the difference is?
Wicked M: That is because my Dad is awesome! Seriously. Isn't he one of the coolest guys you've ever met? I'm not sure that the long-distance topic is an easy one. I think that long-distance relationships fail often because of the physical aspect. I could go on and on abut this subject, but I truly believe that most long distance relationships are doomed to fail. Long distance friendships are a completely different thing. I think a lot of friendships are formed to serve a purpose at a certain time in life, but that it is so easy to grow distant from friends when you don't live in the same place. It becomes even tougher when you are in different parts of your life—someone is married, someone is single. Someone has kids, someone is childless. You know what I mean. Overall, though, I would say that most relationships, friend or romantic, fail because of lack of effort. People don't want to do the work.
MSO Rin: Well, just look at all the work the four of us are doing! I’m quite proud of us! We have certainly strayed off-topic: wondering about how fun means something different to us now. And I’m certain this is a wonder that will follow us forever, as we all continue to grow and change and our idea of fun morphs. Today, for instance, my idea of fun is closely linked to sleeping in (something I didn’t do on the Independence Day holiday), making some Country Time Lemonade, and sitting next to my husband while reading a magazine on the back porch as the sun sinks after 9P tonight. And Wicked M would probably second that idea plus throw in a good run. You’d have to be crazy to argue that that’s not a good time. How about y’all—what sounds fun to you right now?
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