It’s hard to believe sometimes that is is 2011 and I will be 27 years old this year. I know I’m a fully fledged adult (and have been for quite some time) with my own salaried job, car payment, rent and bills. I do all my own grocery shopping and cook all my own meals (although I never turn down a dinner at mom and dad’s!). I get up on Saturday mornings to clean the apartment, empty the dishwasher, run errands, workout and do laundry.
Yet there are times when I still feel so damn young, inexperienced and immature. I don’t feel like I’m at the same level as my peers or my friends and I often feel like I’m getting left behind in life. I always imagined that by 27 I would be married, settled in my career and possibly getting ready to start a family. Instead I’m trying to finish graduate school, involved in a serious relationship, working at a job I enjoy but that’s not nearly part of my long term career goals and not quite sure where exactly I will be a year from now.
I’m at a point in my life where I am realizing how few friends I really do have. I can count on one hand the number of people outside of my family that I can call on when i need a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to me vent, or simply someone to gossip and giggle with. Of the 6 girls that I have called my “best friends” over the years I only still talk to 2 of them. And one of them is busy with her husband and her soon to be one year old son, I feel guilty intruding on her life as I know she has so much more going on than I can even imagine. I’m slowly getting back into contact with one of those friends, however it’s difficult when she lives too many states north to count! But at least we’ve got IMs and those stray text messages every once and a while.
Right now I feel so lonely without a net of friends around me. It’s not to say I don’t have any friends, but most of my friends are married and focusing more on their family life. And my friends with boyfriends seem so wrapped up in them you’d think that nothing else in the world existed on occasion. I just know I’m in a different place than most of my small circle of friends and I know I really need to branch out and find more people who are at that same point in their life.
However, it’s difficult because I’m not really sure how to make new girlfriends. I feel like I’m really bad at making and keeping friends given my track record, but I know it’s something I am sorely missing in my life. I want a group of friends (or even just one or two girls) that I can go out to dinner with. I need girlfriends to go shopping with and get their opinions as I try on new jeans, dresses and shirts (it helps to have someone there when you cry in the fitting room because things don’t fit). I want friends who will go and grab drinks with me after work, brunch on Saturdays and take workout classes with me at the nearest gym. I want some girlfriends who actually like to do all of the girly stuff. I feel like there should be a “dating” site that matches women up with people who make good friends for them, (and I’m sure it’s out there I just haven’t really looked).
