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Friday, June 10, 2016

Building and Maintaining an Adult Friendship.

Bruce and I are quite different in the ways we've experienced friendship. He makes friends easily and likes almost everyone with little effort. I had a pocket of close friends until my family and I moved when I was 12. My best friend was Keely. I couldn't make new friends until I was 14 and met Melissa. She and I got through a lot together during our teen and early adult years.

Bruce came to a new state to teach. I lived far from my friends. Bruce and I met, and we helped each other at work. I knew that an adult friendship, particularly one that included me, would be quite different. These are some of the steps I learned.
  • Recognize the investment. Bruce was relaxed and happy about the whole deal while I was making myself crazy, believing myself incapable of managing another relationship. We both had to realize that it was going to be hard work (a least for a time).
  • Decide on a level of risk. Investing that much is always a risk. I decided to go all in and see what happened. 
  • Build up experiences. We went to movies and regional shows. Every little shared experience, like examining all the pens at Staples, strengthened our bond. 
  • Get the secrets over with. I think Bruce knows every bad thing I've done. He's heard most of my stories. He claims to have no secrets. Hmm.
  • Read together. For the first year or so, we read books together. I think we read 5 or 6 and discussed them as we went. It was our tiny book club. This brought up a lot of ideas we never would have discussed otherwise.
  • Release your sense of humor. I think we've merged on what we find funny, and we can make each other laugh pretty easily. 
  • Hug. Bruce a master hugger. I'm sure that made us closer more quickly. 
  • Schedule. Bruce didn't like this at first, but with work and family, it was practical. For me, it was imperative know when we would see each other again. Bruce has embraced the scheduling! It makes me feel much more secure.
I'm glad I tried all this and learned from it. It has gotten a lot easier.


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