Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Looking for a Few Good Women

I'm in this weird place in my life where all of my best friends live really, really far away. I talk to them all the time over email and chat, but there's the whole "in person" social life thing that's really suffering. I also recently moved to a new city and started a new job, for which I'm not traveling and I actually have the free time to spend with friends and have a social life outside of my project team. So for the first time since my painfully, horribly awkward first year of college, I'm in a position where I need to make new friends.
Best Friends of my dreams
I always score a solid "I" on the Myers-Briggs personality test, and I like to delude myself into the thinking that my awkwardness is part of my charm. But basically, I'm genetically predetermined to be bad at making friends. The going has been slow, but I have made some strides and met a couple of awesome new friends. The path to having someone other than my dad as activity partner/best friend was littered with some false starts.

I've discovered a good number of "deal breakers" in making awesome new girl friends (side note/new theory alert: now that I'm happily attached and not looking for dudes, looking for awesome girlfriends has become a lot like dating). I'm not one of those people that just gets along with everyone. If you know me, this probably doesn't come as a surprise to you. I'm not proud of it, but here a few of the things that quickly indicate to me that my friend-candidate may not be a fit.


1. Seeing Sexy-o-ween Costume pictures of you on Facebook: We've covered this ground before. Costumes should be funny, and "sexy nurse/kitty/devil/maid" isn't funny (actually it might be funny if you combined all these into one costume). Yes, I'm judgy, and when I see you in your sexy costume I lose a little bit of respect for you. On the other hand, if I see pictures of you in something awesome like a "sexy hungry man dinner" costume - I instantly want to be best friends.

2. Not laughing at my jokes: I'm joking pretty much 100% of the time. I cannot take myself seriously. So, when I lob out jokes and none of them are landing, man, does it get awkward. It's like we're speaking different languages. Yep, I'm totally self centered, but if you aren't picking up what I'm putting down, we're probably not going to hang out. You probably won't be that upset about it, either, because you think I'm super weird, and you're really embarrassed by me.

2a. You're embarrassed by me: Sober, I'm either tripping over my own feet, blushing like a Catholic school girl, stuttering, putting my foot in my mouth, or being otherwise awkward. After a few cocktails, I'm accosting the Asian Man singing Karaoke screaming that I'm his backup dancer, or stealing tequila snifters from Mexican restaurants because they have a funny spanglish phrase on them. Ideally you'll be doing the same. Ladies that think of themselves as classy or are really concerned with what other people think probably won't like hanging out with me.

3. You like nightclubs: I'm a dive bar girl, through and through. I want to be able to mingle with the neighborhood alcoholics and wear my favorite sweatpants to the bar, if I so choose. I would actually rather watch 92 Kids and Counting than go to a nightclub at this point in my life, unless, of course, we're having a Eurotrash theme party and I'm dressed like this:
In that case, we'd just be be having a fun and sexy time. But seriously, I don't want to wait in line, pay to get in, pay 10 bucks for a drink, or have my bum attacked by a gyrating club kid. If you do, I'm sorry, but I think you're kind of weird.

4. I can't talk about inappropriate things with you: There's always an awkward first-time for talking about something really gross or personal with a new friend, and this moment is pivotal. If I'm on a Lisa Lampanelli level, and potential new friend is more Ellen Degeneres, we're probably not going on any more girl dates. If you hang out with me for more than 2 hours or 2 drinks, which ever is shorter, I'm probably mentioning something about a bowel movement or my back sweat. It's going to happen, because proper, I am not. I get super excited when new friend breaks this barrier first, or responds with something even grosser. Then I know we're soul mates.

In sum: I want a posse of awesome, inappropriately funny tricksters who will terrorize the dive bars of San Francisco with me, or drink wine with while watching Real Housewives of anything or Toddlers and Tiaras. We can build snack nests on the couch (I just learned the term "snack nest" from my lady crush Julie Klausner and I'm using it forever) and talk shit about our coworkers. If any of you out there want to talk back fat and bodily functions, please give me a call. I swear we'll have a ton of fun.

Bonus fun girlfriend clip:

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