I am a little proud of myself

because it would be easy to sit around lamenting that I am starting at square 1 while living at home. 

It's not so easy to be 25 and say "hey, wanna come watch a movie/have dinner/whatever at my parents' house tonight?" to a stranger. 

I do have one friend who lives in the area still, but frankly, she's sort of a homebody, so I'm not going to meet people through her, and she doesn't have lots of time. 

There are two possible reactions to all of life's problems. 

1) Grab a tub of sprinkles and soft serve ice cream and lap that baby up. 

2) Do something about it. 

Because new friends don't just show up in your living room. 

You don't usually make them in line at the grocery store. 

Sometimes you're lucky enough to have them at work, but oh yeah, I'm unemployed. 

So the reason I'm a little proud is that I've been a bit daring and brave this month. 

My favorite country radio station rented out our awesome nightclub for country idol but I have no friends who like country music?

I went anyways. 

I talked to a couple strangers. A couple strangers talked to me. 

I had some good old Budweiser, because that's one of my few remaining ties to the Lou.  

It wasn't nearly as awkward as I expected from a dancing standpoint, because it ended up all being country line dancing, so no one was dancing in group. 

I made a friend that I'm looking forward to seeing at country idol this month. We taught each other the dance steps as we picked them up. 

Then I went to the Capital Region Young Female Professional meetup's dinner out. I ate pasta and sat near 3 people whom I all enjoyed immensely. 

I made a point to include the quiet girl, Karen, next to me. Chat with her. Found out that she lived a block away from me in STL, and attended the nursing school next to mine. She moved here because her boyfriend is doing his PhD at RPI (one of the local universities). She was super-nice. 

That quiet girl found me on Facebook. We tried coordinating something. She asked me to come out with her, her boyfriend, and his friends on Friday for drinks. I went there at 9:30 for one of those quintessential nights where you know you're young and having fun and laughing and talking as you walk down the street at midnight. And when the guys (none of whom were single...don't get too excited) slipped into engineering chat, we talked about healthcare :) 

This week Karen, a track teammate who was a few years below me and I are going ice skating. I get to see some of the other girls I enjoyed at another meetup soon. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm proud of myself for going into situations knowing no one (which often is the best way anyways), and not sitting around waiting for friends to find me (except occasionally on Facebook). If you knew me when I was little, you know that I absolutely cried like it was nobody's business anytime that I went somewhere the first time. I'm mostly over that, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I still have to talk myself into going somewhere new sometimes, and remind myself to take a deep breath. 

I really, really value character and personality in friends, so I don't just make good friends everywhere. But, even so, I've found it's possible to make some really neat friends while living with your parents in the burbs.