Making New Friends

Meet New People!
Sounds easy enough, but I think this is one of the most difficult tasks for us twenty-somethings. We've got our usual crowds, our usual jobs, our usual friends, and nothing is going to change our perfect little worlds--except the fact that we're bored out of our minds with the same old, same old.

Artemis told me that instead of being brave and accepting offers to go do things with people she didn't really know yet, she would usually choose to do nothing and go nowhere with her usual buddies. It's a lot easier to stay in your comfort zone. It's WAY easier to just hide at home and watch TV. But the reality of the situation is that watching reruns almost never promotes a robust social life.

When I moved to a new city for graduate school, I didn't know anyone. Then I met this girl in class who lived a couple blocks from me. We didn't really know each other, but low and behold, she CALLED me later that week. Me. Someone she had just met. She asked me if I wanted to come over and have dinner with her and her roommates. Eureka! And then after that, I called her to go out one time. And each time we hung out, the more we knew each other. After only a matter of weeks, I considered her my........FRIEND. And I was hers. And I was also friends with her roommates and their friends. It just went on and on.

I thanked her one day for asking me to hang out and told her how it pretty much saved my life. And she looked at me with a 'you idiot' look on her face and said, "Well, that's how you make friends".