A Penny for your Thoughts, a Dollar for your Friendship

How do grown adults find friends?

The days of going to school and hanging out on the playground, twirling my hair hoping someone would ask me to play are long gone – sort of. I still feel like the kid with no friends on the playground, but am no longer surrounded by much of a friend-finding environment.

I have thought about the options here: Family - nope, the few remaining alive are not people I want to be around – ever. Work – this is not my favorite place these days, and honestly I work on a floor separate from my real co-workers, and never see them. So I am surrounded by people I don’t know, and who appear to not want to know me. I have been in this office for a few years and know one person on the floor. Human Resources is locked away behind me, so I only have access to a few non-English speaking programmers anyway – not exactly fun friends since I only speak English. 4/5ths of the people I work with are men. No offense to the men out there, but they are not exactly what I am looking for. I want a girlfriend to get my nails done with – go to a happy hour with (when I am NOT pregnant – duh), to shop with and talk on the phone to. I don’t want to worry about who is interested in sleeping with me, or who is trying to get promoted and are therefore being nice to me on those grounds.

I don’t go to church. My teenage girls, although involved in sports, spend most sports time with their dad – so no opportunity to meet those moms really exists. What does this leave? I don’t belong to any clubs. I was not in a sorority in college – so no leftover friends there. And the few girls I grew up as friends with are really out of touch. One announced she was a lesbian years ago and has never been comfortable talking to her old friends since. Another is on the same path, and is out of touch with most everyone she used to talk to. And the third close friend had a few miscarriages and abandon all of her friends who had children. All of these are good reasons – certainly not blaming them at all. But it leaves me feeling a little lonely.

What is a girl to do?