HOW TO NOT MAKE FRIENDS

For anyone finding themselves in a new place (literally, not in a figurative “phase of life” type of way), the process of making friends can be challenging, and when you’re an adult person who tends to make or not make decisions based on a constant fear of rejection, putting yourself out there can be especially tough.

Actually, making friends for any adult is especially tough, as we are no longer afforded the luxury of having our parents release us into a room full of similarly-aged people and just be like, “Okay, here are your new best friends! One of them will get their period especially early which will send you into an existential tailspin at age 10, and another one will show you how hard pot can make you laugh. Enjoy!”

I recently moved from one city to another, and I do not like the new place I call home. At all. Being the social creature that I am, however, I do still crave human relationships, leaving me with no other choice but to “make friends.” Making friends as an adult is also difficult because the first several hangouts feel a lot like a first date, except your date is not at all interested in having sex with you, leaving you with only your wit and charisma to rely on. When the best you can come up with tends to sound something like, “wow it really sucks here; I can’t believe anyone would ever live here,” you kind of learn to take “we should get coffee sometime” to mean “I will now work to avoid you for the rest of my life.” It’s great!

I have no idea how to make friends, but I have learned a lot in the area of not making them. So feel free to just not do any of this stuff, should you find yourself in a position to seek companions in the future.

Constantly reminding everyone that you’re not from here. I find myself wanting to inform everyone that I’m not from here, and continue doing so long after having realized that no one cares. I think I wear it as a sort of cloak of protection, shielding my sensitive lil self from the possibility of being rejected, or to at least spare myself from the awkwardness that comes with not knowing who everyone is gossiping about. NOT FAIR! I want to be friends so I can talk about you behind your back, too! As ugly as this sounds, there’s just some part of me that doesn’t want to be mistaken for “one of them,” even though “they” seem to live pretty content and fulfilling lives, which I suppose is a thing that can happen when you’re not always looking for a way to exclude yourself from being a part of something. I wouldn’t know, though - I’M NOT FROM HERE.

Constantly reminding everyone how much better the food is, everywhere else. Nothing is more obnoxious than a person who constantly compares a decent thing to a better version of that same thing. Everyone thinks the pizza is better somewhere else - not really treading any uncharted waters with that one, you young, bad-boy, you! On a positive note, the lameness of the food offerings has encouraged me to start cooking, so I’ve become pret-ty good at pouring syrup on frozen waffles if I do say so myself. The secret is to toast the waffles. You can probably find the recipe on Pinterest.

Being honest when people ask you questions like “how are you?” Unless this person is your therapist, Uber driver, or some other such individual who is being paid to care how you happen to be feeling at that exact moment, no one actually asks how you are to hear how you are. The same thing goes for people asking how you’re adjusting to your new town. They don’t actually care. They’re just waiting for you to say “fine” so they can go on talking about themselves without feeling like a totally self-indulgent dick. They don’t care that you miss your friends, or what about this place is different from the last place; they just want to be done with work and get home before all the parking spots on their street are gone. If you feel compelled to answer the question, “How are you liking it here?” with, “Well, honestlyyyy…” JUST DON’T. Don’t answer. Honesty makes people uncomfortable, and ultimately responsible for their actions, so just shove a bunch of pretzels in your mouth and point to your chewing hole like, “Oh, of course you would ask me that now, how silly!” and let them change the subject to a topic more interesting.

Talking shit about the people who live in your new town to the people who live in your new town. Similar to the last point, shit-talking is an art meant to be handled with the codependent grace of someone who hates everything, but still wants everyone to like her, at whatever cost. Having your old friends to reach out to in times of crankiness will get whatever stale, hostile energy is burning up inside of you. It’s kind of like how you mutilate effigies of everyone on Facebook so you don’t actually mutilate everyone on Facebook in real life. Right? Honesty about how much you hate the new city you live in is reserved for your friends from the city you used to live in, and is especially easy if that city is notorious for being abrasive and cantankerous. These friends live to talk about other less-cool cities, especially if they’re in the same state. Do your old friends a favor and call them to vent, and just know you did your good deed for the day as you hear them laugh and laugh in delighted, judgmental amusement.

Refusing to leave the house. This is probably pretty common sense but ughhh, this is so easy to do, and my new work-from-home uniform of oversized flannel pants makes taking 10,000 photos of my dog sleeping really, really easy. Plus I don’t know where anything is, which sends my control-freak grip into overdrive... I suppose the only way to learn is to get out there and figure it out, but she just shifted into this new position to sleep in and I’m just not really at a good “stopping point.”