Making Friends As an Adult

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I'm a young Mom.  Most people my age are just settling into their careers or starting to get married.  The majority of people who were my friends when I was still school-aged are single and the few who are married are childless.  Actually, only two of the people I graduated high school with (granted my graduating class was about 75 people) are parents and as fun as it'd be to coordinate with these women, they're working Moms, not stay-at-home-Moms so schedules are challenging and it just doesn't happen.  I actually only have one local Mom friend who I get together with semi-regularly which is a funny thing to confess because I feel like one should have a lot of friends.  I am so very thankful for this friend and am always so happy when we find the time to get our kids together to play and spend the hours talking away.  We relate well to each other and conversation comes easily.

And the truth is, I've met other Moms.  I've met Moms in the neighborhood, at Chick Fil A, and in passing at Church.  I've even managed to have a few play dates with Moms I've met, but it's always a challenge because kids get sick or schedules get busy.

Talking to other Moms is pretty easy.  My Mom told me when I was pregnant with J that once you become a Mom it is so easy to talk to and relate to all other Moms because you're all "in the club" together and everyone can talk about their kid non-stop which makes conversation easy.  I think this is really true.  I can't tell you how many women I've sat with at Chick Fil A while I bounce E and watch J climb through tunnels and have thought, "Wow, we are having really great conversation!"  But then the conversation ends.  The six-year olds stampede in and we Moms of younger toddlers rush our children down while saying how we enjoyed the conversation and then a toddler (sometimes mine) sees the door to the play ground open and goes running through the restaurant so you have to take off.

These encounters always leave me a little dumbfounded and I wonder, "That went so nicely and I feel like we could be friends! Should I have gotten her number?"  And then "Call Me Maybe" pops in my head and I feel lame for not knowing what to do or how to connect beyond play ground conversations with other women.

The Church our family attends is huge and the way people get connected is through home group situations.  Josh and I have found it difficult to get plugged into a home group in our time at this Church because of our having such little kids.  Recently though, I started taking the boys with me to a group for stay-at-home-Moms.  It's been so lovely to visit with other Moms every other week the last few weeks, but even within that group, I feel like we're all having great conversations, but no one is really meeting or talking outside of the group.

...And that makes me wonder, do other people want friends?  Why are friends important?  I know for me the friends I have (married, not married, Moms - whoever) are important.  They encourage me.  My Mom friend and I can text frustrations about our nap time (and let's not forget the Twitter friends I have who share in these woes with me too!).  Other friends with their other lives challenge me in other ways - in my faith, in my individuality... friends are good and important and healthy.  And it used to be so easy to make friends, but is that just because environments like school and college made it easier?  Now as adults and parents we can be so easily distracted when it comes to having conversations and getting to the heart of the matter and isn't it the getting to the heart of the matter that makes such great friends?

I did have some luck in this area lately with a friend I met on Instagram of all places!  We "met," became online friends and then finally met up at the zoo a few weeks before she moved to Texas.  I felt like our kids got along great, we got along great, we had similar views, values, etc and I felt like it was so natural and easy to be her friend.  It helped that as soon as we met up she dived right into real conversation.  So is that what it takes?  And how hard is it to make yourself vulnerable only to be rejected or to even be the only one of the two making yourself vulnerable in the first place?

I have no resolution on this issue, but it's a topic that's weighed heavily on my mind.  I'd love to hear from you.  What stage of life are you in and how does that stage effect your ability to forge friendships?  Any advice for someone who feels like they're starting Kindergarten all over again in the friends department?

P.S. I remembered after writing this the friend I mentioned, April, wrote a post about friendship lately too.  You can read that here.  It's good!