Will you be my friend?
Making friends can be hard. Or maybe I’m just really bad at it. Probably both!
So here’s a bunch of times I tried to make friends and it went horribly wrong.
If I can’t make friends, at least I can make content.
When I was in college, I decided to do what any self-disrespecting nerd does:
join the chess club. That seemed like a good way to make some friends. After all,
there’s no way I’d be the most awkward person at a chess club.
"I can see it now, we’ll meet every weekend to sharpen our skills. We’ll go to our first
tournament together. We’ll destroy everyone who gets in our way, and (gasp) before you
know it I’ll have tons of friends to come to my birthdays, my wedding, and my first colonoscopy!"
The President, the Treasurer, and the Founder of the club... were the only members.
"What? Do you have any idea how hard it was to find this
place? I had to look at the community board!" Turns out three dudes created the club just so
they could put fancy titles on their resumes. "Oh! That’s actually a good idea"
I didn’t know much about chess, and I had never played in a tournament or anything,
but for some reason my lil peanut brain was pretty sure that before a game,
you’re supposed to shake your opponent’s hand. I figured if these guys went to the trouble of
founding a whole club, they probably care about proper chess etiquette. Chessiquette.
So I sat down for my first real game over the board. My palms were sweaty. Knights
are weak. My bishops: ready. One guy brought some of his mom’s spaghetti. I was nervous,
but on the surface, I also looked super nervous. So we set up the pieces, and then I did what
I thought I was supposed to do. I reached out to shake his hand.
And he... *spooky violin* reached right back to shake my hand. Zero hesitation! Yes! Lil peanut
was right! *sonic ring sound* You DO have to shake hands before a game! Nobody ever taught me proper
chessiquette. I must be one of those prodigies. Of course I lost our game, he was the President
of The Chess Club after all. But there’s always next round. So we set the pieces back up and I
confidently extended my hand. To the same guy. That I was already playing against.
I was so nervous about not fitting in that I didn’t really notice how casual things were once I
actually got there. These dudes were chillin. Nobody was gonna
hate me if I didn’t follow some unspoken ritual. "He did not shake thine hand before the subsequent
game of the match. HERETIC! BURN HIM!" Noh...
I cannot remember how many games we played,
but I do recall that I reached out to shake his hand before every. single. One.
What, you want me to risk getting burned!? To the death!?
I eventually came to my senses and realized that I was the only one reaching for handshakes,
but I felt like I was in too deep. So I kept going, and with each game I fell further into
the abyss. The darkness was all-consuming. They must think I’m so weird. I bet they hate me.
I could sense the fire growing in their eyes. When the meeting was over I bolted from the room,
narrowly escaping their crushing judgment. Guy in club: "He seems nice!"
Obviously I wasn’t "in too deep." I could have laughed it off and said,
"You know, for some reason I thought you had to shake your opponent’s hand before
every game, but *tisk* now I kinda feel silly." And they probably would have been like "You know,
I was gonna ask, but I didn’t want you to think I didn’t know what I was doing."
And then we would have laughed and laughed and found out that the chess pieces were inside of us
all along... We need surgery. I may not be very good at it,
but I can’t not make friends. I’m mostly human! I’m drawn to people like a moth to
a flame. Except moths don’t lose sleep thinking about how they embarrassed themselves in front
of the flame and how the flame probably never wants to see them again. Moths just... die.
One time I moved to a new town, and I thought volunteering at an animal shelter might be a good
way to meet some people. So I applied to do that. Usually when you’re being interviewed, you want
them to pick you. So I spent most of the call trying to convince them that I am great with
animals. (on phone) "I am great." But I didn’t stop to check if I wanted to pick them. I could
have asked a few questions, like "What exactly do you Do?" But no, I had to find out the hard way.
They gave me the address of a pet store, and told me to show up at like 9pm.
Kinda weird, but I gave it a chance. When I got there, I was greeted by a
mom in her 40’s. I don’t know if she had kids, she just had those vibes, you know? We walked to
the back of the empty store where she showed me: a box, hardly tall enough for her to stand up in,
let alone a slender giant like myself... The front face of the box had an array of even tinier boxes.
A grid of cages, each one containing... an angry cat. Frankly, I don’t blame them. I
didn’t enjoy being squished into there either. So mom vibes and I squished into there, behind the
cages, where she described my new job. I’d need to change litter boxes, refill water and food bowls,
and then, let the cats out to "play"... She told me that all of the volunteers are
scheduled so nobody else will be there at the same time as me! I’ll never see another human,
ever again! Which is not, it turns out, a great way to make friends. I mean,
I guess I could try the cats... "So, you go to school around here?"
"...Yeah I just started at UCLA." I guess technically it was a shelter,
and it did contain animals, but that is not what I had in mind when
I applied to volunteer at an animal shelter. "Boy, have we got a deal for you! Step right
up to our patented iso-lation chamber. For a nickel, we’ll fill it with furious animals!"
Will I make any friends? "...No, stupid!"
It was really sad to see those cats stuck in such tiny cages, and I just feel like
anyone who doesn’t do something to help them is a terrible person. So anyway, I never went back.
The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard about how to turn someone you know
into a friend is to just treat them like you’re already friends.
"Hey! Do you want to come to my birthday party?" "Yeah!"
"Hey! Will you come to my wedding?" "Yeah!" "Hey! Wanna look at pictures from
my colonoscopy?" "... Boy do I!" Before you know it, you’re hangin’ out,
sending memes to each other and "Oops! Too late. We’re already friends."
One night my girlfriend and I went over to an acquaintance's house for the first time.
I met this acquaintance online a while ago, but now we were hanging out... in person. SpoOOoky.
It went about as well as you’d expect. We met her roommates, we played scattergories,
and everyone had a great time. But after I left, I had this crushing feeling. For no good reason, I
just felt like I must have screwed it up. In case it wasn’t clear by now, I have social anxiety!
Now, I know that there is no way that I’m bad enough at scattergories to get ghosted. But
knowing that a feeling is irrational doesn't magically make it go away,
any more than knowing that you’re colorblind would magically make you see colors.
I wanted to know that I didn’t ruin our friendship before it even began, but I have been on both
sides of relationships where one person keeps asking for reassurance. Asking every once in a
while is fine. But there is a point where it’s too much. As they say, "You’ll often meet your
destiny on the road you take to avoid it." But that feeling demanded to be felt. So,
against my better judgment, I gave her a call, and said "Hey,
I just need, like, a drop of reassurance that I didn’t totally ruin our friendship tonight."
After a moment of silence, she said "Ever since you left,
I have been talking to my roommates about how worried I am, that I accidentally insulted
you guys somehow, and that I ruined everything." Folks, I do not have words to describe the metric
ton of relief that washed over me in that moment. I hadn’t even considered that she
might be worried about what I thought. And that’s it, that’s the story.
See? Everyone from the intro is fiiine. The only thing that got hurt was my feelings. :)