Epiphany in Baltimore

2001-10-11

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

I'm getting frustrated with my lack of a social life.

When Gale moved out on her own and into her own apartment in Detroit last year, she complained about not being able to make friends. I made fun of her for it, then said she should just throw a big party. I'm finding out big-time that it's not that easy.

Back to last year. Meanwhile, I was staying in a residence hall and had 700 other people my age and in my general stage of life living in the same building I was in; thus, it was easy for me to make friends - as it had been for the previous five years I lived in the dorms. Yes, it was a bit weirder my last two years because I was surrounded by freshmen and I was in grad school; still, there were enough people to hang out with.

Now, I'm finding myself in the same spot as Gale was in last year. I have no friends. Now, that's a bit overly dramatic, to be sure. I've made a number of friends here at work, and some of the relationships have extended a little bit beyond here. For example, I come in every morning and work out with two other guys here, and one of the guys is a super nice guy who I've come to look up to a bit. He's in the English department, too, and is about 30 (this is his 3rd year at the school, and 7th year teaching, so I'm just guesstimating), and is married with two kids. I've been to his house for a bbq, and have done other small social things with him. And he's the best friend I've made here at school, and that's great and all, but he's also not someone that I can call on Friday night and ask if he wants to go out to the bar. J's in a different spot in his life than I am. There is a world of difference between 24 and 30, especially when marriage and kids is thrown in there.

There are a few other young teachers here, but I haven't connected with them like I would have liked to. Neil is a first-year teacher in the math department, and seems like a really cool guy, and I know he goes out on Friday nights. I've hinted a few times that, "Hey, give me a call next time you go there," which is tough enough for me to do, especially when it seems like it is never followed through on. It doesn't help that I never see him in my normal day-to-day activities. He's always really nice when I see him, but nothing has ever blossomed from it.

Still, I always thought I had a lack of good guy friends as compared to my good girl friends. Here, that's not the case. I have more guy friends than girl friends, of which there is only one who could qualify - the other new English teacher here in the department. She's a nice person, but is seriously attached to her boyfriend and that seems to consume most of her social life.

Otherwise, there don't seem to be even that many options for good friends here. Yeah, they're acquaintances, and they're all nice. but they're either far-removed from my age group or in different spots in their lives.

That's not to say that I can't be good friends with someone married with kids. I don't want to say that at all. It would be asinine to close off friendships with a whole sector of people, especially people that I want to eventually become. Still, I'm looking for people to go out with on weekends and have some fun with, and that seems to be tough to find. I don't like feeling like a third wheel, which is what generally happens in situations like the one I described above.

The worst part is that I feel like if I left tomorrow for some unknown reason, everyone would forget I was here in a month, and I wouldn't stay in touch with anyone except maybe J. That's a rotten feeling. I've made no lasting friends so far. That's also a nagging feeling that I got after my year in res life last year, when unlike the previous three years, I made no lasting friends (Kevin was a friendship that I had developed before the year, Stacia is someone I still stay in touch with somewhat but I was never that close to her, my RAs were generally cool but not in the lifelong variety, I got to know hardly any fellow AHDs because our schedules were so different).

Last night, I was pontificating with Jason about the Master's Program at the public schools here - if you devote five years of your life to teaching here, you get your Master's degree for free. Five years, though... I'll be 29. Oh my god. If I'm not married and have some sort of direction in my life more than I have now, I'm not sure what's going to happen. But it's not like I've made much progress in that area. There aren't even any new prospects. I know of not one single female teacher under 28 in this school. There might be some, for all I know, as it's a big school and I know only about half of the teachers. But you'd think I would know if there were any more. I think not.

("So why did he write 'new' prospects?")

I do not want you to think that I'm having a bad time here. I'm not. The people are really nice. There's this very friendly 40s-ish woman named Marcia who is from Boston and pronounces my name as "Mock." J has become an unspoken mentor for me. I've become a better teacher. My kids are great. The city is beautiful and there's tons to do. My kids are great... But no one to do it with.

It's getting pretty old sitting at home on Friday nights. This entry was precipitated by an e-mail from my old RA friend Apryl, who cancelled yet another trip up here from a neighboring city to check out the night life of this town. The only time I've gone to a bar is when my parents came to visit. The most exciting thing I've done with my roommates on weekends is go to the movies and grade papers.

Perhaps Jason - who is feeling much the same way I am - and I will have to go out to some of these places ourselves. And I suppose this is the obvious answer. But I think we just assumed that by now, we'd have local friends to show us around and not have to discover things by ourselves. However, it appears that that will be the case. And I suppose this isn't bad - persay - but I'm not a huge bar person or anything and enjoy sitting down at a quiet bar/coffeeshop and listening to some folk singer singer her heart out to me. Jason's not into that. But I'll settle for just about any social excursion at this point.

What it boils down to is that I apparently just don't know how to meet people. Gale suggests I join a ski club. But I don't ski (though I'd like to!), nor do I know where to look for such a group. I don't want to do anything that I've always thought was weird, like place a personal ad. I'm just not sure.

Then I tell myself that it's only been one month and eleven days since I moved to the city, and during much of that time no one did anything social because of the worst atrocity ever committed in my lifetime. So there's time.

I just wish the time would come quicker. I'm a bit lonely and bored.

At least Survivor starts tonight.