Friends-in-Law

When I was eighteen I had my first real girlfriend, and waiting that long gave me a greater appreciation for her, or at least I thought it did. By that time I had finally gotten used to having friends and interacting with people on at least a surface level, so I thought I was ready to take the next step. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and it had nothing to do with her, either. On the first few dates it was great. We went out to eat, to the movies, and for a walk down by the river, and those times were easily the most incredible of my life to that point. But then she wanted me to meet her friends, which is where everything fell completely apart.

I like to think I make a good first impression, if maybe a little bit manic. You see, I have a tendency to oversell myself when I first meet people because I want them to like me so much. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s all about best foot forward but instead of putting one foot across at a time, I leap over that line and it tends to intimidate people, I think. I haven’t really asked for fear that it’s the truth. Since this girl was my first girlfriend, you can imagine how over-the-top I was when I met her friends. Here’s a list of things I did:

1. I hugged each and every one of the four people who went out with us. While this seemed to be somewhat okay for the two females, I honestly think the two guys thought I was crazy. Lesson learned: that bear hugs with people you don’t know can be incredibly awkward and stunt future conversations with those people.

2. I talked about how I wet the bed until I was 13 years old. And I know what you’re thinking. “How is this overselling yourself?” Well, I thought that if people identified with me and/or felt sorry for me, it would start a connection. Lesson learned: when you lead with bedwetting issues, people can’t focus on anything else when they look at you afterwards.

3. I did my MC Hammer dance. It wasn’t as random as it seems. The conversation had turned to cool dance moves and I thought I would jump up and show them that I knew the coolest one of all time. Either they thought I was joking or they thought I was serious. Whichever one they thought, though, that’s what really made them feel sorry for me. Lesson learned: don’t shuffle in a restaurant because people you’re with will pretend you’re “confused cousin Larry.”

You can imagine how long the relationship lasted after that encounter. I can only guess at the things her friends said about me after the date. I’m lucky that was the time before texting because I know they would have been blowing up her phone with all kinds of questions or declarations about me and my sanity. Before the week was out things had begun to be awkward between us, at which point I cried in order to save the relationship, but it was over. I had been friend-blocked, and it stung. That’s when I realized the Spice Girls were right. If I wanted a relationship to survive the long-term, I would have to “get with” her friends. No, not like that, you pervs. I had to pass the friend litmus test, which would take reassessing my approach.

I had to think back to how I had gotten the few friends I had at that point and employ that method when trying to win over the girlfriend’s friends. That is, if I was ever able to get another girlfriend, which I finally did four months later. We worked at the campus library together so we became friends first, which was a very good thing. She had gotten over the awkward me before we even started dating, so she knew what to expect, and it was more natural to tell her how I was feeling, especially when it came to meeting her friends. She told me to do two things and I would be fine with them:

1. Be myself. She knew I was quirky and that was alright, but she didn’t want me to try and force anything. If it came naturally, fine. It was the times when I felt I HAD to be quirky when it came off strange and unnatural.

2. Find out about her friends. Instead of spending the time inside my own head, worrying what they were thinking about me, I should simply ask them questions and find out what interested them. If those kinds of things dominated the conversation there was less time for me to bring up something just for the sake of bringing it up, like bedwetting.

These two suggestions worked like a charm, and I found that I did much better with the friends-in-law. While they would probably never become my friends, that was okay because at least it proved I could get along with her friends and they wouldn’t try to get her to dump me. Since then I’ve gotten much better at meeting new people, at making friends and acquaintances, and at being myself, but sometimes it’s still hard for me to put it all together. So I play the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” in my head at those moments and it calms me down.

Sam

The Friendship Archive