Friends

Now here is a perfect topic for a Friday afternoon. Something I think about often, my friends. You see they have been few and far between in my life. Let me explain. And I will try to do this without sounding like I am whining or complaining.

I have always had friends but not always "good" friends. Especially of the same sex. I am not the guy that hangs out with other guys. Never have been, never will be. Let's go back to grade school. I was usually one of the bigger (read husky--oh hell, read fat) kids in my class at St. Theresa's. (Catholic school meant the same 45 kids together in a class for eight straight years.) That meant the the guys who were cool did not pick me for their teams or did not really want to be the fat kid's friend. Therefore most of my friends in grade school were the sons of my parent's friends who were forced to play with me when my parents and their parents socialized. From those forced relationships a couple of friends developed. One of those I still have today as a peripheral friend that I see once in a 20 year period and send Christmas cards to. We were friends throughout high school and maybe a little better friends during our college years but still not a person I would ever confide in.

Most of my friends in high school (my close friends) were girls. Girls that I would have gladly had a romantic relationship with if they had been interested but I was willing to settle for their friendship since they weren't. One of them I still correspond with at Christmas and if I had to count my true friends in life, she would be in my top 10. I can say that I did not have a single close, male friend in high school. Like I said, I was never "one of the guys." Some of the guys let me hang around with them. Pretty cool guys too. Five of them had a pretty decent (best in our school) rock band and I was their roadie. I got to do that because my parents had a station wagon that I could borrow most of the time. But I believe that without that station wagon I would have been long gone no matter how many amps and guitars I was willing to carry. 

In college I met my first wife and that pretty much did it. I have always been the kind of person who would rather spend time with my significant other than with anyone else. I never understood the guys who would go out for beers, play cards, shoot pool or to bowl than be with their wives. I would rather be with my wife (yes, even my first wife) than with any of the guys I knew at the time. Conversation interested me more than sports or games. And conversation has always been kind of a girl thing, right? 

If I look back at my first marriage I can see that most of the people we socialized with were friends (and relatives) of my wife. Since she never liked any job I ever had that meant that she also didn't like any person I ever knew that came from those jobs. When I taught school we never associated with any of the other teachers which was probably just as much to do with the fact that she didn't like my job as the fact that I was the youngest teacher by almost 20 years at the school where I taught. And she was even younger. (I was 22, she 19.) And later when I moved on to Jostens she absolutely hated the entire company and anyone associated with it. So no friends there. This meant that our friends were really her friends and their husbands. Again, that was OK with me. None of those guys was I really in a hurry to hang out with. (Boy, I sound difficult, don't I?) My first wife was also very social so she had a bunch of friends, especially when our kids got into school and she started socializing with the parents of other kids in our kids classes.

During that time (and even now) I am still not that close of a friend with many of the folks from Jostens. I would say that I have made many friends over the years with Jostens but very few that I do much more than talk business with. I think part of the reason that deep relationships don't develop with the Jostens folks is that we are so separated. For the first 20 years of working with Jostens I didn't have another rep that lived closer than 75 miles from me. So we only saw each other four or five times a year or talked on the phone on a monthly basis. No major relationship develop that way. Now my best friend with Jostens lives only a few miles away and she and I talk almost every day. And even though we consider her and her husband our friends, they are the age of our kids so again, not folks we end up socializing with on a regular basis. 

When I met Kathleen I had some friends from Leavenworth. Notably, Jocelyn who was the person who told me I needed to get out there and meet someone and basically pushed me into the looking on the web for the person that I eventually found that became the love of my life. But Jocelyn (who married Craig within a week of when Kathleen and I got married) moved to China and eventually split with Craig and our relationship has kind of fallen away. Not for any particular reason, just that we don't see each other (even though she has returned to Western Washington) often. I don't think we have seen her since Christmas 2008. That is probably more our fault than hers and we need to make more of an effort to reconnect. If I was counting those 10 most important friends in my life, she would be on that list as well.

So, when Kathleen and I were first together, our friends were pretty much people I had known before I met her and the few Jostens folks that lived nearby or came to visit. And this was AOK with me. Kathleen and our kids were all I really needed at that point. I am that kind of person. A one person guy. And then we started cruising. 

Or I should say then we discovered Cruise Critic. If you don't know what I am talking about, Cruise Critic is an online community for those of us who love to travel on cruise ships. (No cruise ship cracks allowed here.) As everyone reading should know, I met Kathleen online, so why should it be any surprise that we would meet our best friends online as well. Because that's where we met them. 

In 2005 we got lucky enough to take a short, six day, repositioning cruise from Vancouver, BC to San Francisco. On the Cruise Critic thread for that cruise we met two other couples that we just clicked with. (That's our picture at the top of this post.) And these wonderful people have become our dearest friends. Even though two of them are clear across the country, we talk online on a daily basis either on the Cruise Critic boards or through e-mail and now on Twitter. And like my relationship with Kathleen, these long-distance relationships have become the best friendships I have ever had in my life. 

The two that aren't across the country have become our closest friends. They live about 120 miles north, just across the border. I can honestly say that other than Kathleen there is no one I would rather spend time with. We try to see them at least once a month but we are in heavy withdrawal because we haven't seen them since Thanksgiving weekend (but we will remedy that tomorrow when we meet them for lunch halfway between our two homes). We just seem to click with these two. They are so much like us (and yet not like us) and we love seeing them. They have introduced us to their family who have welcomed us like we were part of the family. A better bunch of kids you could not meet. 

Next month is going to be fantastic as the six of us will again be vacationing together. First the four of us from the NW will visit the other two at their home, do a road trip to Key West together and then all of us will sail away for a week in the Caribbean. We can't wait. And we know that they can't either. The Mates back together again. That's what friendship is all about. At least it is for me.