Wednesday, June 14

Recruitment

I am happy to report that my extra-curricular activities are going according to plan. One of my big ideas was to expand my social circle, varying it some more and broadening it as much as I can stand. Not only is there a natural attrition rate to my friendships---between some people moving and others just drifting away, I've lost touch with quite a few over the years---but I also don't feel there's much variety to the group. I always think the world must be a certain way (e.g., basically reasonable) because everyone I know is pretty much that way. What a pathetic fallacy!

I tried for a time to keep my friend circles disctinct from one another, but now I'm trying for the opposite. I want my friends to meet each other, even though it may be easier for me to keep them in discrete factions. I want to see what sorts of reactions and connections come about from people mixing. That's sort of behind my brunch group (which is exclusively female, simply because I have observed women express themselves more freely in a gender-segregated environment).

Now I've realized that my male friends have a higher rate of diminution than female friends, for some different reasons. Mainly my own dating-type relationships seem to get in the way of me hanging onto my male friends. I am too sensitive to how the bf might feel about me hanging out with a guy friend alone---and my bf's never get along with my guy friends (not in years, anyway). The few I have are probably closeted gay men. So I need to recruit more straight-boy, non-boyfriend, male friends. How exactly does one do that? It's weird to tell some guy you aren't dating anyone but just want to be friends with him. They don't get it. And if you go out on a few dates with a guy, why would you want to be friends after you don't want to go out again? Maybe I'm intolerant. Okay, I know I'm intolerant. It's part of my charm, kind of like Prez Bush. (We can discuss that later.) Meanwhile, I am going to work on recruiting some non-closeted gay male friends. I wonder how the military is doing on that these days?

4 comments:

David Holt said...

Just steal your girlfriends' husbands and boyfriends in a platonic way. :-) They aren't likely to focus on sleeping with you, and are probably not gay.

Memphis Chix said...

That is a great suggestion.
Unfortunately, I also make a habit of not being friends with married people. Either that or I'm friends with both, which is an altogether different thing, since being friends with a couple is different. You can't just ask your friend's husband to go play pool or watch the Redbirds game with you & leave her at home.

David Holt said...

So you're prejudiced against married people? How rude... We're just going to go off and form our own club without you nasty single people. Wait a minute... We already did... Never mind...

Memphis Chix said...

(See what I mean about married people not being any fun to hang out with?)
=-D