Making friends

Accepting the extroversion is real

Yesterday my roommate Erica and I sat at Blacksmith Bakery eating croissants and looking out at the wet tarmac at tiny Langley Airport. Erica showed me photos of her cousin’s wedding in Malaysia. “Everyone’s getting married but me,” I said dramatically, placing my hand against the rain-streaked glass and gazing out like a Victorian poet. Erica laughed.

The hormones have been at high tide this week, and combined with my little sister’s wedding, my impulse to fling myself at any age-appropriate man has been strong. (No, I don’t need counselling, you need counselling.) Unfortunately, thus far my cohort is comprised of mostly women and a few baby boys. Okay, they’re somewhere in their twenties, but they may as well be babies for the good it’ll do me.

Because I like my roommate, have long-distance friends, and have been so busy, I haven’t had a lot of time to get lonely yet. But yesterday I felt pangs of “nobody to do anything with”. The pain au chocolate helped, as did going to three thrift stores. A sudden lust for hidden treasures possesses me and blots out all other emotions. Still, I prayed my furtive little “send me kindred spirits” prayers as I looked out at the unseasonable downpour and thought of my social life washing down the drain.

I got on our class’s group chat and asked if anyone wanted to come for Sunday soup. Three women said yes. “Okay, but you each have to bring one single man in his late 30s,” I said. Just kidding, I only thought it.

I used to spend a lot of time focused on how much I didn’t fit in. I was pretty awkward and shy. But I still liked people, a lot. Then at L’Abri I had to welcome stranger after stranger after stranger into my home, make small talk with them, and try to help them feel comfortable in a strange place. My focus began to shift to how I could help others feel seen. The practice with small talk helped, but primarily, I began thinking more about others and less about myself.

Now when I come into a new setting, of course I want to be known and accepted. I feel awkward sometimes, like when I go to a new church, as I’ve been doing. I want to make friends and be welcomed. But my way of doing that involves taking the initiative and welcoming others. The girls I had over this afternoon over were 21, 21, and 22. The Gen Z slang was real, no cap. Not my usual friend demographic, but right now we share a common vocation. And at almost twenty years older than them (!!!), I have more self-confidence, longer hospitality practice, and better mugs. I can reach out and not feel so bad if no one responds, because I do have other friends.

Recently I’ve come to accept that I’m likely an extrovert. MBTI quizzes be like: “Do you A. like to dance on top of a table at the club all night, or B. Crawl into a tunnel and sleep for a week?” Extroverts can be portrayed as complete social junkies who will join any riot or parade rather than be alone. Even in our last class, the vicious stereotype surfaced that extroverts don’t like to go deep, which is the opposite of true in my case. It’s this kind of stuff that’s kept me from accepting my own tendencies. After all, most of my friends are introverts. I wanted to be one too, and complain how the world wasn’t meant for me and no one understands my need to be alone.

But actually, you can be shy and awkward and an extrovert. You can enjoy reading and thinking and spending time alone and be an extrovert. I like spending time alone doing quiet stuff yet thrive on meaningful connections and fun. But I know that meaningful connections don’t happen immediately or with everyone. So I’m trying to just stay open to whatever comes my way.

For today’s lunch I made lentil soup and fresh bread. One girl brought tea, another banana muffins. We talked about what kinds of therapies we want to try, how cringe it feels when our prof observes us counselling, and how easy it is for us to be vulnerable or not. Two of the girls had studied English lit; the third had studied visual art. The hospitality-loving part of me felt itself coming alive again. Are we all going to be best friends? Probably not, but who knows. Good things don’t need to last forever to be good. But I want to have my hands open to them whenever they appear.