the Golden Girls must have met when they were 12

I have never been an overly social person, and those who really know me know that pretty well. I'm not overtly anti-social either. I've been known to be a wallflower of the strangest kind, but I really am an open person once you get to know me...if you can see past the strange, seemingly closed behavior. I recall a moment in high school when I was dating this guy who had friends that were in a band and we were all hanging out in the parking lot of said friends house sitting on a curb. Sounds like fun, huh? One of the band members had a girlfriend who had brought a long a couple of her friends. I wouldn't say that I was anti-girl at the time, but I was a little wary of them during those particular moments. I had a rough freshman year which I won't go into, but my second year found me a tad more quiet than usual. I've always been shy and these girls were younger than me and obviously had been a part of that group a lot longer than me so I sat there in silence, watching... probably tearing apart strips of grass or smoking like a chimney- all very engaging behavior. One of the girls eventually walked up to me and asked me if I had a personality. Talk about a sting. In the end, we all became friends but I'll never forget that moment of being painfully aware of how an outsider must see me.

Making friends in high school was easier. My method, so it seems, was kind of 'find the people who are equally as odd as you are' and stick with them. Perhaps not the best idea in hindsight, and it certainly didn't make me valedictorian but the truth is I just didn't fit in with the 'norms', with the exception of the fact that I did like to play sports. I had moved back to the Washington metropolitan area from Florida right before 9th grade. When I was in Florida, I had attended a small Catholic school in which I was a part of a class with less than 30 students. I spent middle school with those same 30 students. So yeah, I found public high school a little more than overwhelming and I certainly didn't know how to be cool. I didn't like the same music other people liked, didn't have the same interests, and I certainly didn't want to be a cheerleader.

In college I was lucky enough to meet one of the most beautiful and influential people during my first year of college, but I never moved very far out of my small circle for more than a few chance meetings. College is a blur of lots of working and studying at the same time which made socializing not really the top on the list of my priorities. I always seemed to have something more pressing or crisis like to deal with.

Now that I am 34 and living in a foreign country, I am finding it even more difficult to make friends. Part of it is the language thing, and part of it may be that I just don't think that I have very much in common with people here. I'm not sure what women my age care about and since I don't have children I can't really use that as subject matter. At this age, most women are married and they socialize with their old friends or with other mothers. I too, am also just a little awkward. Trying to make friends seems an awful lot like dating and I was never very good at that either. Since people here aren't very 'open' (yes, let's call it that) it makes it even more challenging because no one is going to just strike up a conversation with you. Definitely not in English either.

Don't get me wrong, I highly enjoy my own company and I entertain myself with things like this, or reading. I have a reading problem and cannot seem to stop. I try to keep in shape, although I have come to the sad conclusion that I am not a runner- I wish I was. I guess I just wish that things fell into place faster. I mean, my husband is one of my best friends. I always have someone to talk to, but the nice thing about having friends is that you know that someone out in the world likes to spend time with you. I guess that is the part that I miss.