o0o
So after talking about how difficult making friends is – and how bloody rubbish I am at it – a strange thing happened the week before last…
I had two ‘coffee dates’!!
One Friday – one the following Monday.
The one on Friday was the second time I have had coffee with this person, who for the purpose of lessening confusion, we’ll call Person A.
At that stage, I was still in the “i don’t know if she’s my kinda people” stage of things, and whilst there was a lot about her that gelled with my ethos etc, I just wasn’t fully convinced that this was going to be a worthwhile investment for either her or me….
The following Mondays coffee date was someone I have known for quite a number of years. (yep, Person B)
We originally met at work, and these days we work pretty much parallel to one another.
She’s someone that I don’t spend any real social time with usually, but that I do trust to keep my confidences anyways…
Sooooo – I was talking with her about my recent ponderings on ‘friendships’ and how difficult I find them to navigate them, and she is very much in the same boat, as we are both hermits-by-choice outside of work.
I went on to tell her about the two coffee dates that I had had with Person A, and was giving her a run-down of what had transpired on each ‘date’, when I noticed her face was looking more and more incredulous.
And as I was talking, and actually listening to myself talk – I was putting these two seperate events with the same person, into one almost-combined story, and it gave me such an incredible dose of clarity that it actually had me quite gob-smacked for the rest of the day!!
You see, when events happen separately, we tend to tell people about them separately.
For example, each time I had had coffee with Person A, I had come home and told my Love all about it.
What we did, what was said, all the sort of waffley stuff you talk to your Spouse about…
But these coffee dates were a couple of weeks apart, so me giving my Love a rundown of the mornings were obviously also a couple of weeks apart.
But when I was talking to Person B about them, I was telling her about the two events all at once.
And boy oh boy – did that make things sound a whole lot different to my ears, to what I had previously thought I was thinking!!
It was an amazing epiphany – and I think there was even the whole ‘parting of the clouds with rays of sunshine shining through‘ to go with it!!!
Anyways – the upshot of it all is this:
I am going to be brave!
I’m going to be ‘investing‘ in Person B – I’m going to be vulnerable and raw and honest – and all I can hope for is that I come out the end of it with the friend that I think is waiting there for me – and not with feelings of regret and wariness or a whole new level of being reserved and guarded instead…
Wish me luck please!
