I was really intrigued by your comments on my last friends post. I've been thinking a lot about our/my relationships with other people. It is very interesting, but I can't seem to get a coherent thought together. So instead, here is a question for you. Would it/is it hard to make/be friends with someone who is
1. fat?
2. skinny?
3. old?
4. young?
5. different race than you?
6. different political views that you?
7. different marital status than you?
8. different parental status than you?
9. different religious or spiritual views than you?
10. rich?
11. poor?
12. from a different background from you?
Are any of those issues HUGE issues when you think about making friends or meeting new people? Are there certain things you look for in a friend (for instance-moms who are very similar to you and attend your church- or something like that)? Are there certain people you are intrigued by? or drawn to? Are there people you're turned away by because of one of these things? I'd love to hear your thoughts/views on this.
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So I missed the comments on your last post. I'll have to go back and read them.
Here are a few things that make it hard for me to sustain a relationship. No order, just as they come to my mind.
- Overweight woman who points out how fat she is and how skinny I am. I know I'm thinner than the average woman. But I still suffer from my own body image issues. And I tend to feel a bit judged when someone compares their body to mine.
-Moms who are 'helicopter' moms. I am much more laid back and I feel a lot of pressure to make my kids act perfect around these mom's kids because of the mom's stress level.
-moms who are much older than me. I live in the Silicon Valley where the average age to start having kid must be in the mid 30's to low 40's. I had mine in my 20's. I was part of a mom's group where I was by far the youngest mom. I just didn't seem to click with them and didn't have much in common.
Although, as you can see from above, I tend to limit my friend options :-) I would love to be friends with a woman/women who loves her kids, but wants a life outside them as well. Religion doesn't matter, race, etc. Just a mom who is relaxed, more social than me, and who wants to hang out.
I have trouble being friends with women whose parenting is very different from my own. It is hard when they let their kids run around like maniacs and there are no repercussions to hitting or behaving badly.
I also am finding it hard to be friends with a mom who eats fast food for literally every meal. We occasionally go out to lunch, for fast food, with some other moms, but this mom is all the time, also for dinner too. I'm not saying that I eat really healthy, but come one, you have to know that it's not good to feed your kids that at every meal, and have you seen the size of your 3 year old? He's got problems already.
Interestingly, my husband and I are also finding it hard to be friends with a particular couple because of the way they spend money. They make two very nice salaries, but have debt up to their ears and are stretched so thin by credit debt, yet they still buy whatever they want whenever they want it just to show off. She often brags about her new coach purse or impulsively buys a new laptop, cause there was free financing and isn't that like free money? I find this really hard because we have one income and we try to be very careful about how we spend our money. We could spend it on new laptops and purses, but we'd rather be smart and actually have a savings and money for our kids to go to college.
(Wow, sorry, I guess I really had to say a lot about that one)
So, yeah, very interesting topic.
Being the first among my college friends to get married and have children cost me some friendships. One friend in particular kept making sarcastic comments about my "domestic bliss," and I had to let that friendship die.
I find it hard in my adult life to maintain friendships with those without families. I lost a good friend soon after I got married because of spending "too much time" with my husband.
I also was the first (and second) of any of my friends to have kids.
I find it hard now to be friends with someone without kids, only because I have to take mine with me basically everywhere and I don't have a lot of freedom. I've rarely met a couple who wants to go to Chuck E Cheese if they dont' have kids.
That said, my SIL's don't have kids and we're very good friends. So that varies.
Other than that I have friends with very different political, religious, and parenting views. We just tend to steer clear of topics that will cause friction.
heck, my husband and I couldn't be more different politically, but I still let him hang around.
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