I've been occupied with moving and managing daily life's more obvious details, plus work and silly things like opening bank accounts, so I've not had tons of time to explore this idea of "community-building" and all the things that fight against it.
Seattle has a reputation for being a hard place to make friends. The conventional wisdom is that there's a bland niceness. But often it'’s hard to break beyond the superficial. It's been called the phenomenon of the plastic smile. And the Seattle freeze. Is that reputation deserved? Have you had a hard time making friends in the Seattle area? Why do you suppose that is? There's a class in how to make friends in Seattle. What can it teach?
Anyone else have any thoughts on making friendships? I'm of the opinion that if there is such a thing as a Seattle Freeze, then it's just an expression of basic rudeness. Back in Chicago, there were certainly as many rude people as not, and it was easy to just ignore the jerks, right?
So I pose this to my friends and family back home:
- How do you make friends?
- How many times do you offer yourself to a new potential friend?
- Have you been anywhere that was more or less friendly than your hometown?
4 comments:
I found that post to be very interesting and I am really starting to wonder if that is what people say when they move anywhere new - "it's really hard to meet people here". When I moved to Minneapolis, I did have a tough time meeting people. It's pretty well known here that's it's tough to break into a MN clique . . . A lot of people have lived here their whole life and keep the same friends. I have a very good friend up here, who has lived here her whole life and still doesn't think to invite me to do things with her and her other friends, because she just doesn't think of it. I guess after a while, you just kinda get use to it and adapt. Interestingly enough, I have found that some of my closest friends up here are also "transplants" like me.
Now - on the flip side of things and in all fairness, when I first moved up here, I was pretty young and didn't have all the confidence in the world. That accounted for not meeting people right away. If I had made an effort to go out and join a club with people with similar interests as me, it probably wouldn't have been so bad. However, I am really shy when it comes to doing something new like that all by myself. So - next best thing - I got a second job. When you are young and single - it's easy to work two jobs. Especially if you have no social life.
Another thing that helped is that I switched full time jobs to company that had more people my age.
So - that pretty much exhausts the moving to city that was less friendly. As for the how do you make new friends . . . One of my co-workers had pointed out to me one time that one day while we were working together, I was talking to another girl, that worked with us, about shopping. After she left, Rob commented that he didn't have shopping in common with me, to which I apparently replied - Ok, let's find something else we can talk about . . .He said that he really appreciated the fact that I went out of my way to find something that we had in common (for the record, it was Food and Cooking that we ended up talking about).
Anyhow - i think offering a class on making friends or whatever would really be for the socially inept. The best way to meet people is to get out there and just do stuff - go places . . . and be open to doing new things!
And as a funny little side note - Reid and I have been talking recently how we need more couple friends that live closer to us - the closest "couple" friends that we have still live an hour and 1/2 away!!! Any ideas on how we can do that?
Ok - I should really get to work now. That's my insight for the day for whatever it's worth!
summer
That's a hard question to answer - most of the friends I've made have been friends of friends, or it's just kind of flowed naturally without having to work at it.
I think Summer hit it right on the head -- the best way to get out and meet new people and make friends is to do the things you want to do. Take cooking classes or wine classes. Obedience sessions for the cats. Rec league volleyball. Whatever you like to do, find an organization where you can go do it, and you'll meet people who do the same things you like to do.
Those are some good comments. Whatever you do, make the effort and take the first step to initiate converstation. Invite the neighbors over for a BBQ. Or Get to know the neighbors by baking them something. (They should be welcoming you, but who says you can't do it the other way around!) It sounds like you have some great opportunies at work to meet people, at the various social events or meetings. I think that most friends are derived from family, church, work, or neighbors.
*looks around innocently* What, who, me? Suggest that you move back to Chicago? Dunno what you're talking about... :-)
Seriously, though, I don't think you guys will have any trouble making friends out there, especially once you're a little more settled. I mean, look at all the friends that you had out here that were people you met at work. You two clearly have a knack for becoming good friends with your coworkers. Aside from that, I'll just echo what everyone before me has said... find activities to do that will introduce you to new people. Take a class. Go to a book club at the library. Become bar slugs so people shout your names when you walk in the door. Lots of things you can do to meet people!
Just make sure Lisa gets Uncle Bill's permission to have friends outside the MS family. :-)
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