Relay: Making Friends the Analog Way
As has been previously established in the pages of this newspaper, I am a nerd. But I have mostly considered myself an extroverted kind of nerd who never really had a problem making friends, whether in elementary school, summer camp, high school, or college (junior high, of course, being the exception, but let’s not talk about that).
That’s why I was wholly unprepared for the difficulty I would eventually have making friends as an adult.
It is a trend that has been well documented by researchers and journalists. In April, while sharing commentary on a series of “friend dates” she had been going on, Elizabeth Bernstein, a Wall Street Journal columnist, cited a handful of studies and experts who had come to several conclusions. Among them: Adults lose friends when they become romantically involved with another person; adults have less time to invest in growing friendships, and life events such as marriages, divorces, and college graduations nfluence the shift of relationships.
“A body of research shows that people with solid friendships live healthier, longer lives,” Ms. Bernstein wrote. “Friendship decreases blood pressure and stress, reduces the risk of depression and increases longevity, in large part because someone is watching out for us.”
I watched for many years as my father, a jovial kind of guy, made friends with ease. He was the unofficial Mayor of Everywhere We Went. He had the gift of good conversation and could chat folks up in almost any situation. Oftentimes it led not just to new clients for his contracting business but to new friends who later helped out in hard times.
I might look like my dad, but I don’t talk like he could. And for me, moving around a lot — seven times in the last six years — seriously impacted my ability to make and keep friends. Take, for example, my most recent move, to the South Fork.
When I came here in the spring of 2015, I had exactly one close friend east of the Shinnecock Canal. I was grateful for her friendship then, as I am now. But you can only ask your one friend to hang out so much before you start to be a pest or come off as clingy, and so there were a lot of subsequent dinners for one and solo evenings at the movies. I spent a lot of time and gasoline driving UpIsland, where the rest of my friends and my family were living — which then made it even harder to make friends here.
It got to the point where I seriously considered starting a simple social networking website, which I would have called Hamptons Friends or something like that, which would have been some sort of localized cross-pollination of Craigslist and Meetup.com. I checked the availability of that internet domain name once or twice — at the time, it had not been taken by anyone — but realistically, the thought of having to build and then moderate such a site seemed monstrous. It would have eaten up all the time I had available to spend socializing. Too counterintuitive. I decided I’d have to make friends the analog way.
Eventually, after I had lived here about a year, an out-of-state friend who knew of my predicament messaged me on Facebook. As it turned out, she had a friend who lived in Southampton, and she set the two of us up for a friend date at Wolffer Estate. We hit it off almost instantaneously, and have seen each other pretty often since then.
A couple of weeks ago, in casual conversation with the folks who run the John Jermain Memorial Library, the subject turned to the library’s monthly board-game night for adults. This was a no-brainer. When the time came, I piled my games into my car and headed up to Sag Harbor. As soon as the other gamers filed into the room, and we realized we shared some favorite games in common, I knew instantly that I had found where I fit in. Perhaps nerds will eventually find each other.
But even without my realizing it, over the past year and a half, the seeds of friendship had slowly been planted nearly everywhere I went: While on the job. While living in rented rooms in houses here. While taking classes at the gym or dance studio for fun. Even while waiting in line for food at La Fondita.
It’s autumn now, but those seeds have finally grown and blossomed, and it’s a really, really good feeling.
Christine Sampson covers education for The East Hampton Star.