Accidental friendships

Tomorrow morning I have a coffee date with MMCB. I have a coffee date with MMCB every Thursday. Every Thursday, that is, that MMCB isn’t jet-setting off to Europe or Hawaii or Viet Nam or dropping her cell phone into the basin of an Australian water closet (actually a *very* UN-MMCB thing to do). Sometimes I marvel that we’ve been meeting for coffee for 11 years.

I first met MMCB at sixth grade registration for Mouse and her son, when a mutual friend introduced us. I remember meeting her and I remember thinking that she was really nice and friendly but that I would *never* be able to keep up with her! Those of you who know me in real life are probably laughing at that. Yes, I can be rather nuclear powered at times. All I can say is that a lot more of my energy is positive these days than it was when I was young, or even 10 years ago. But man oh man, MMCB is one of the most positive people I have ever known and her energy is right out front there. I love her dearly but I do not think I would want to be a tech support person on the other end of a call from her! Just for example.

I was meeting for coffee with a group at that time and so was our mutual friend. The next thing I knew, MMCB was in our group. People started to drop out of that group as our kids wended their way on through middle school and high school and beyond. They went back to work or moved out of town or whatever. Somehow MMCB and I kept on going. Nowadays, we can talk to each other about almost anything and, depending on the subject of conversation, we sometimes finish each others’ sentences. And yes, the GG and are always wondering why a globe-trotting jet-setter would want to hang out with the likes of well, meeeee.

It’s odd how friendships die or ebb and flow or manage to stick for a long time or forever. When I met Sam (archaeologist, not dog) so very many years ago, I also didn’t expect to form a long-term friendship. Like MMCB, she was very nice and friendly and interesting and all. It was just that I was tied up with my own life and didn’t envision making a new friend at that time. But look at us. We have been friends for over 30 years and I think we are life-long friends at this point.

I think that in general, my friends have more positive energy than the other kind. I am not an unfriendly person but I think I prefer to sit back and let people decide if I am their friend or not. It’s kind of like, if you can drill down through my layers until you have an idea of who I am, we can be friends. And yes, that means I don’t have a whole lot of friends because most people don’t want to bother. I have been known to quietly fire so-called friends that were negative or got too high maintenance for my liking. With some people it’s a temporary thing (I need a break!) but there are a few folks around town here that have me ducking behind the grocery store aisles when I spot them.

P.S. I’m talking about non-relatives in this post. I have about a billion cousins and in-laws and things and they are stuck with me!

2 Responses to “Accidental friendships”

  1. Margaret Says:

    I have someone I know from lamaze class 25 years ago; we still go out to coffee and have great chats. She’s younger than I am (by quite a lot), prettier, thrice divorced, a Republican and I’m more liberal and married once. Yet something clicked. It’s weird how that works, eh?

  2. Sam Says:

    Awww! Confirmation: life-long! Sweet! Delay in comment is due to spending yesterday offline in the north Georgia woods….