How to Make Friends -1- (Swiss Hero)

How do you meet people when you are new in town? There are many ways and our heroes here at the rehab center have tried a few that they wish to report on. After a thorough survey conducted on various friends, it appears that co-workers are top of the list. You can go for drinks after work and they can introduce you to their friends. As a free-lance writer, Jean is out of luck. Working for a start-up company, Patricia was initially left with three options.
Option 1, the boss. Great guy, but she doubts him, his wife and their 5 kids would go for a drink after work.
Option 2, a nice guy on his good days but his nick-name at work is flip. And it’s not just a clever name.
Option 3, also a nice guy. He never goes out.
This leaves Patricia also out of luck. Maybe as her company grows, so will her options.
The second suggestion from their friends was to meet people through the neighbors. ‘Nuf said?
The internet came up third on Jean and Patricia’s survey. And since they are both single, they ventured out on the web scene. Jean opened an account with match.com and got to meet several troubled souls that we would rather not discuss here. She was forced to give that up. Patricia, who has a phobia for dating, decided to let go of her pride and sign up on myspace.com, a more subtle form of meeting guys. She sent out messages to a few guys in the Boston area who completely ignored her. She was beginning to think that she was totally not interesting, when dreadlockesq answered. A lawyer for juvenile cases from low-income areas. How exciting! She leaves out the fact that he indeed has dreadlocks and is 5’10 (and had probably lied about his height) and pursued the messaging. She eventually made arrangement to go for an “after-work drink.” NOT a date. An after-work drink. She made that clear to everyone around her. Comes the day. Of course, she gets lost trying to find The Enormous Room, a lounge bar in Cambridge. She is half an hour late and quite pissed off (because it’s the second time that day that she gets lots. All in all, she has been lost for 3 hours and 30 minutes that day). Dreadlockesq has indeed lied about his height, but he seems nice. After a drink (“God in bits and pieces” – gotta try it. Pomegranate, tequila and lime. Fantastic), she relaxes and tries to ignore the fact that he sits very close to her on the couches. The Enormous Room is definitely a great lounge with couches and all. Excellent music. (She makes a note for later to come back with a real date sometimes). When he starts to put his hand on her knee, she starts to get really tired and announces it is time to go. He walks her to her car (once they locate it…), gives her a hug. She thinks she is off the hook when he suddenly makes for her mouth. She swiftly presents her cheek. She will most likely never hear from him again. Myspace.com real life meetings are out. She will keep her account to stay in touch with her current friends around the world.
Meeting people in public places seems to be pretty high up in our survey. So Jean pulled a bold move at Panera last week. She listened in on a guy’s phone conversation, wrote down his email address and entitled her email, “Stalker Girl.” He thought it was cute and they went out. After the second date, Jean realized she wasn’t at all interested, and when she told him, he wrote back that she was “psycho.” So much for that little tactic.
On their list of How to Meet People, Jean and Patricia still have options, such as sign up for a class to learn whatever as long as there are people involved; or participate in Obama’s political campaign; or dinner for eight - another slick dating service recommended by Flip. We will keep you posted on the progress with these options. Should you have any further recommendations, please post them. We need all the help we can get.

Lessons learned this week:
- The dating scene is not a good way to make friends.
- Guys fear rejection just as much and maybe more than women.
- Should consider buying a navigation system.

Mood-meter: cynical.

Stay tuned for when a helium tank flies through the floor from downstairs.