Searching for friendship in the city

Growing up in DC, most of my friends and I parted ways in college. I went to California, my high school friends scattered themselves around the United States (thank you, DC College Grant for State Schools). When I was in college in California, I realized that the friends I met in high school (not all but most) were people I just put up with for four years because I had too...I met people I clicked better with in cali, people who cared about fashion, celebs, and all the other silly things in life that most people in DC are just too important and too busy to care about. So now that I am back in DC, I am finding it pretty hard to meet new people, I really really would like to try not to experience high school all over again (as I have realized I am just very different from them...) But since i don't work with young people (and my best high school friend is moving to New York in a week :( ) how do I meet people? Well I sunk to the lowest of the low...

.....I met a friend on Craigslist.................

I know I know, I cried for about an hour when I realized this thought out loud!!! There was a lot of consoling from London over the phone about this...

It wasn't exactly as pathetic as it sounds...but recently one of my roommates got a job in another city and decided to move out (she gave us about two weeks notice, but that is a different story for another day) and so we put up an ad on craigslist for a fun, no drama, girl between 22-26. We had an open house and 13 girls showed up...we must have put up the holy grail of craigslist ads because our open house was like sorority rush and out of 13 girls only one was a complete wierdo (considering she was 45 years old wanting to live with 3 23 years olds...) So we had a whole list of great girls to pick from...i was not going to let that opportunity go to waste. I really clicked with one of the girls and we didn't pick her to move in, but I emailed her and non-chalantly suggested we go to happy hour, even though we couldn't be roommates...SHE ACCEPTED and our "first date" was last night and we had a blast! Yay! A new friend (AND SHE IS FROM CALI!! YAY!! She might actually get my personality!!)





So I was talking to London about this whole problem of finding friends in a new city, especially when you dont work with any young cool hip people and you aren't in school. We are both normal, cute girls who never had problems meeting people until this stage of our life when it becomes weird to just walk up to another girl in the bar and say "can we be friends?" because in the sandbox it worked quite well especially if you have some candy to bribe them with...

She lives in Miami and has been having the same problem. She googled "Making Friends in Miami"she is almost as desperate as I am :( ... and when I got to work I found this article in my email. After reading it, I am soo happy I dont live there because it sounds so much worse than DC.


http://www.miamibeach411.com/news/index.php?/news/comments/making-friends/





This was my favorite part in the article:


One common media perception of Miami that actually has a glimmer of truth to it is that there are a lot of people here on drugs. This is especially true if you are making friends in the aforementioned service industry, but in this town it is not at all uncommon to be out with a group of lawyers, accountants or even doctors and have a bag of cocaine lying around. You may choose weather or not you want to be friends with such people, but eliminating recreational drug users from your list of potential friends will severely limit your opportunities. The best thing to do is try and separate the drug users from the drug addicts. For instance if someone offers you a line at their house one night when you are pre-drinking to go out, this is not necessarily a red flag. If he is offering you a line when you go into his office to ask a question about a presentation you are working on, this may be someone to avoid.





HAHAH!! I am very glad that I don't need to separate my friends into recreational users and addicts...sorry London, but your stuck...we should all try and convince her to move to DC where everyone here is drug tested...Being in a sorority, I definitely had enough exposure to coke to know that I am soo over that stage of my life, I mean I am trying to be an adult now...or something like it :)

I guess, one new friend (however i met her) is better than 5 of my high school friends...Sorry if the truth hurts....