Friends

Pippa's post about friends made me want to post this, because I've been thinking about friends a lot too lately.

I think I'm a bit lonely in Melbourne. I've noticed it's really hard to make friends here. I would call my flatmate and a few people at work "friends", and that's about it.

In Adelaide it seems I went to a few gigs, meet a few people, and then became almost life-long friends with them. In Melbourne I'm lucky to meet the same group of people twice when I'm out.

I met this girl at a wedding in Adelaide, and yes, I won't deny there was an attraction (at least one way) but we went out together the next day, and had a ball together. I met some of her work friends, and I could tell pretty much instantly that if I was back in Adelaide, these people would become my friends.

Nothing like this has happened in Melbourne except with workmates. Which is fine, I work with some great people, but it's just weird to me it's like this. It's something I didn't plan on encountering when I moved here. I expected to go out, see the same people, hang out, get friendly and become part of "the group".

Yet it hasn't happened.

It's like that episode of Seinfeld when he's talking about making friends with people when you're older.

"When you get in your 30s, it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now, that's pretty much who you are going with. It's as if you're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications for new friends. The fact of the matter is they don't know the places, they don't know the food, they don't know the activities. If you're introduced to a friendly guy at a club or a gym, it's like you want to say to them: Hey look, I'm sure you're a very nice person, you seem to have a lot of potential, but I'm just not looking for friends now.

Of course when you are a kid, you can be friends with anybody. There are almost no qualifications required. If someone is standing out in front of your house now, that's good enough, You walk out say hello -and before you know it you're jumping up and down on the bed! As children you can have almost anything at all in common and its good enough for a friendship - You like coke? I like coke. Great let's be best friends!"

This, and the fact I can relate my life to an episode of Seinfeld kinda freaks me out...