But I Already *Have* Friends!

Today in Adventures with Cyd...

I accidentally invited my neighbor over for a play date with our sons! This does not seem like that big of a deal...except it is, because I already *have* friends. I have awesome friends that I have selected carefully! They are wonderful and funny people with good hearts and little to no drama. Seriously. My friends and I can go for weeks without talking, but I know if I need anything or they need anything, we always have each other...even at 3 am. My friends are exceptional people! And good looking, to boot! :D

Also, a good portion (100%) of these friendships were not rushed. We both had to come around to each other. There was no one time meeting and then BOOM! Besties!  Nope. Slow and gradual. Basically, the opposite of my romantic relationships :P

This neighbor is always outside of her apartment. Which means she must not like it inside her apartment. It's getting colder, and she always has her front door open so it's just the screen door, and if she hears you, she pops out to say hi, or ask about your dog, or see how you are. She's a sneak attack neighbor! And it's not like she's older with nothing to do...she's right around my age (late ((shudder)) twenties). She always seems nice, looks frazzled, and talks hurriedly.

I am a hermit. I like living where I live and knowing the people around me, but I get uncomfortable with anything more, like... introducing them to my extended family. Because then they might think they know me. If we're both outside doing outside things, I'll gladly be a neighbor. But I'm not going to invite you in for hot chocolate after building a snowman. I'm going to say, "Wow, that was great! look at the time! Gotta run!" ...and we'll see you next winter. Of course, if my neighbors ever needed anything neighborly, I'd be here for them. Hell, I'm a great neighbor! I take great care of my stuff, pick up after my dog, keep my inner home quiet...and best yet, you'll never see me in your peephole unless I've been invited. Thank you, but I already have friends.

But somehow, when she saw me walking to my car today, she bolted out of her apartment to ask about my kid and see if we could get our kids together sometime. Which makes no sense, since hers is 3 and mine is 7. And then somehow, it came to be that they'll be over around 6 tonight.

And now I'm left pondering if I should concoct some bullcrap excuse for why this shouldn't happen.

In a brief discussion regarding this sensitive issue with my sane boyfriend, he encouraged me to go through with it. His reasoning? It's weird that I don't want friends (disclaimer: it's not). I argued that I might not be the kind of friend she is looking for, or worse yet, she could be the type of "friend" that terrifies me, and he just shook his head (I could hear it through the phone) and told me that in that event, you talk to the person. Which reminded me about that thing called boundaries and how I need to actually finish reading that book about that.

I had tons of friends once. Seriously, couldn't turn around without knocking into one of them-I was never alone. But most of them turned out to be fair weather, or gossipy, or back stabby... they'd try to sleep with my boyfriend or pull other Jerry Springer like antics, and I cleaned house. So...why should I open that back up? My friends now are diehard! I adore them!

Ok, I need to just bite the bullet. I'll go through with tonight. Maybe she's not all that bad, or maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to get to know other people who might be different. Hell, maybe there will be some shared interests or something. And if there's not, I'm going to start googling "polite ways to get people to leave your home" right after I publish this blog :)


UPDATE: She cancelled on me :) Sweet! Her kid came home sick from school (not sweet) and we decided to try another time (like when hell freezes over) :)