Married Friend Woes

I will never forget the first time I was thrust into a situation with Dalton's mission homies. I also remember feeling incredibly degraded by one of them after I was nice enough to make him dinner. Another one didn't make eye contact with me until the third time I saw him. Most of them grew on me, and then they got married. I like most of their wives very much, but there are a few that seem to live on a different planet. So let me tell you how much I dislike hanging out with another couple while my husband speaks to his friend in Spanish almost the entire time, and the wife is someone who I have absolutely nothing in common with. I feel about these situations the same way I feel about zombie noises, which is basically the sound a person would make if they were moaning while gargling phlegm. Few things make me leave a room more quickly.

It's not like I don't already have a hard enough time finding girls I want to be close friends with, but finding girls I want to be close friends with that married guys my husband wants to be friends with? That's an antique shop find worth keeping. Now, imagine finding two wives that like each other, two husbands that like each other, and then the husbands actually like the wives while the wives like the husbands. Does this even exist? Sure it does, but in my experience, it happens maybe once or twice a year.

Since Dalton and I got engaged, I've often felt like it's impossible to maintain strong friendships. Plus, I've never really been good at befriending girls--they're just so dramatic and foofy sometimes. Girls drive me bananas. I drive myself bananas! But when I find a girl who will go hiking with me, I hold on tight. It has always felt more natural to make friends with guys, but I realize now that very few of them were purely interested in meeting up to discuss impressionist artwork. Seeing that my other half may not appreciate me spending time with other males, and I'm not so keen on the idea either, I now have no other option than to practice being friends with girls. I used to be good at it. Is there a Girlfriends for Dummies book I can check out at the library?

The Bennett family's lives are busy with my full-time job, Dalton's full-time school schedule, Dalton's part-time job, Dalton's internship, the responsibilities that accompany our extra activities, our church calling, hitting the gym/pavement, making time for family, and so on. I'm sure this sounds similar to your lives. In the rare occurrence that we have a night to ourselves, we often don't find it appealing to call friends. Perhaps, in time we will get over this, but our date nights are important to us. Scratch that, I actually hope it stays just how it is and I suddenly find a few more hours each weekend to spend time with the girls or our favorite couples.

We are currently heading into strange territory where some of our married friends are having babies, which is another level of separation. We have a wailing, yet lovable, someone rerouting the usual topics of conversation. What do I know about colic and jaundice? It seems so much easier to make friends as parents, because naturally, you want your children to have friends, and therefore, you make a special effort to befriend the parents of your child's friends. You willingly embrace these strangers' compost bins, their network marketing businesses, their dandruff, or whatever, because you always have one topic to fall back on: parenting.

All of this might sound absolutely absurd considering we live in the mecca (Orem/Provo) of young married couples. However, we live in a neighborhood, not an apartment complex that is teeming with newlyweds who host game nights every day of the week. Dalton doesn't socialize at school because, well, he's married ... to me.

For now, I feel incredibly lucky to have one ultra-bestie that fills my social life with rap music and action movies.