Cold and alone

The subject of friendship has been on my mind lately, mostly because in less than a month, my friend count plummets faster than Minnesota bridgework. El-zilcho, to exact the count.

I don’t make friends easily. I know that comes as a shocker to anyone who’s ever witnessed my curmudgeonly ass avoid eye-contact with entire rooms of strange people. However, despite my Harvey Pekar-ness, I seem to have quite a large circle of close friends. I’ve never been the kind of guy who has those friends who will just pop over for a beer or to watch the game or just to hang out, but I do have plenty of people I can confide in and rely on. The problem is, each and everyone of these friendships has materialized through A)work or B)school. Every single person I’m friends has either been a coworker or a classmate or someone I met because of school or work.

I’m not that guy who’s gonna go to a bar or a party and leave with two new friends. If I don’t already know you, I don’t want to talk to you. Sorry. It never even occurs to me even try to make friends with people I don’t know. For instance, last week the moving company sent a dude over to check out the house for an estimate. Pretty cool cat. We bullshat for a good hour while he scoped my stuff and made notes in his palm pilot. He liked my dogs, was disgusted with the Tribe. This was a guy I could have easily been friends with. But I wasn’t ALREADY friends with him, so it never even occurred to me to try.

This is going to be a problem in Minnesota. I don’t know anyone there, so there’s no one to even lube the way, force me to be social. I could easily see myself housebound for months at a time, emerging twice a year to squint at the sun and bleach the food crusted in my Unabomber beard. Oh well, maybe I’ll get some writing done. It was nice knowing you, world.