Sunday, October 10, 2010

how to not make friends

you know how sometimes you meet someone & you decide that you really want to be friends with them before you even know them at all? well, i had one of those experiences with a lady who lived on our street when we first moved in here.

we'd been living here for a couple months & it was summer, so naturally brooke & i were sitting in the driveway in the baby pool trying to not sweat to death. we don't have a usable yard due to hills & trees, so the only flat space for our pool parties is the driveway. i try to place the pool over the oil puddle so as to keep the child's feet from scampering through the oily sludge & therefor soiling the swimming water. but i digress.

so brooke & i were splashing around in 7 inches of water, when up the hill comes a woman & a little girl about brooke's age. they were coming over to introduce themselves & welcome us to the neighborhood. they were dressed nicely, clearly having just come from work in a place that had some dress code standards (unlike my job cleaning houses where i dress as gross as i want & no one notices or cares). i was sweating all in my greasy hair & probably had some bugs & dead grass stuck to myself in places i couldn't see (as in, anywhere below my boobs). i was wearing my tacky bathing suit that came from walmart & didn't hold up my monster fun bags because i wasn't anticipating socializing with anyone other than brooke, and i didn't want to dirty up a good one.

they introduced themselves & i crawled, dripping, out of the kiddie pool to try to reclaim some of my dignity. we discovered that our daughters are only about 3 weeks apart in age & they were also home on many of the days that we were, so we'd make perfect play date buddies. i really wanted to become friends with this woman. i wanted our daughters to be buddies because we didn't have anyone else in the neighborhood who we knew & it would be really convenient to have someone just one house down.

she told me that her husband had mentioned wanting to drop over & say hello ever since we'd moved in, but he thought that i'd be scared to have a big black man who i didn't know show up unannounced at the door. and because i'm always really classy & tactful & think quickly on my damp, dirty feet, i said, "that woulda been fine! i love black people!" she looked at me strangely, so i tried to fix it by saying, "before i met my husband, i dated LOTS of black guys." umm... that didn't seem to be fixing it. maybe actually it was making it worse.

awkward silence... and on that note, she left & walked back home.

we'd made arrangements to get together at their house a couple days later. i showed up at the designated time & they weren't even home. hmm... i probably should have taken a hint, but nope, not me. i called & we set up a time on another day. and they were home that time. we walked into the living room & there was a huge, very unique rug on the floor & i had a flashback to a duplex we'd gone into when we were looking for a place to rent a few years earlier. right then the husband walked into the room & introduced himself as chris - same name as my husband. and that's when it clicked and i realized that these were the people who had owned that duplex & were trying rent out the other side. i'd spoken to the husband at the time & he'd told me that he had a wife & a daughter the same age as my girlie. i'd thought then that it would be interesting to share a duplex w/ another couple where the men had matching names & the girls were the same age & that i could probably be friends w/ the wife.

i thought it was pretty cool that even though we'd passed on that duplex at the time, here we were living next door to them after all. it felt like destiny. i told my new friend later, after her big black husband was gone, the story of how i kind of  knew them & how we should be friends because of the destiny & all. i told her that i remembered their names because i'd carried her husband's name & number around in my purse for months after we'd met at their duplex years before.

whoopsie doodle - here comes that pesky awkward silence again....

we didn't become BFFs.

and the moral of the story is, if you meet someone & you want to be friends with them, don't look dirty & trashy & then give the impression that you have the hots for their husband.

the end

11 comments:

  1. Oh, I am laughing my abs off! You've always enjoyed the taste of feet.

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  2. HA HA HA HA HA! HE HE HE HE HE HE HE! Wiping the tears out of my eyes from laughing so hard. I thought this kind of craziness only happened to me! I used to think I was super outgoing and could get along with anyone, lately my attempts at forming new friendships end up much like what happened to you. I am finding I might be a little socially awkward.

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  3. Oh gosh. I'm not very good at the making friends thing either. I always clean my house really well when the neighbor's kids play over so that when she comes to pick them up, she'll think I'm neat and will want to be my friend.

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  4. OMG! That is hilarious! You are a nut!

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  5. is that why you were my friend (cuz i was married to a black guy? hahahahaha)
    i seem to be the one with the off sided sense of humor and potty mouth that says things before people can like me lol
    and it is her loss... plus im sure your chris is way more wonderfuller than hers! =)

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  6. Oh, dear! That's way funny! Some people just set their standards too high.

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  7. Ha! That's funny. I wonder what she thinks! We have neighbors the same age with a little one the same age as ours and I cannot even get them to look at us! Drives me a little bit crazy. Probably, she's jealous.

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  8. Great story! :)
    Reminds me of the time I answered "Notice anything different about me?" from a female co-worker with, "O wow nobody told me! When are you due!"
    It was not, NOT the correct answer.
    (She had her teeth whitened)

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  9. It would take ages to list all the times that I've been left chewing on my big toe. Suffice it to say, I can completely relate. Your store had me laughing out loud for real. The kids think mommy is insane now. Thanks... ;)

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don't let me be the only one doing the talking around here. spill your guts!