I read an interesting article on “family friends”.
The article asks how do you find friends who:
(a) have a husband who your husband likes*
(b) have a wife who your wife likes*
(c) have a kid (or kids) who your kid(s) like and is of a similar age
*In some cases, both spouses need to like both of the other spouses, but frequently it’s okay if you do the gender split. The conclusion is that “it is not easy to find a compatible family”.
For us, we’ve been on many couple/family get together, and many of them just don’t work - usually the kids are compatible enough, but when you do a get together, the women talk, the men talk, the kids played, you smile and say "let’s definitely do this again" - and then you never do it again.
Or, we would hang out with some friends, but I often found myself bored to death on the discussions. Most of the time, we would talk about the same thing or the same person over and over again… Oh boy, it just tires you out.
There is no magic, sometimes you can point to a reason, but most times it’s just straight-up incompatibility…. Because there were no synergy or connection, and you really can’t force it, after a while you get tired of all the gathering.
But what seems to work for us is to have different sets of friends- those friends who have kids that play with Darren and Kailey well. Or, Friends that Mike and I can engage in a decent adult conversation, conversation that allows us to express our opinion.
Really, sometimes it is nice to NOT to talk about kids and their activities and their development and their ever-growing list of needs…it is also nice not to gossip and just talk about day to day things, politics, art, music… or just be yourself (not a mom or a dad) and talk. Most importantly, find a few friends who don’t judge/compare, they let you be you.
Just like today, I had lunch with my girl friend, we chatted non-stop…We had so much to catch up, so much to tell each other, we share stories, we laughed, we had a great time together, at the end of the lunch, we hugged and both left the restaurant with smile on our face…. And that is what friends are for…
Yes, it is not easy to find many friends that connect with you, but if you find one, treasure them, care for them.
