Heard about this blog via the lovely Erica, and since I wonder if I have enough local friends (and, obviously moving, the answer will once again be no) seemed like the book (Amazon) would be just the thing for one of the many, many long haul flights I’m taking.
I really enjoyed it, very honest and funny. Since I left university, I’ve been missing the kind of relationship I had with my roommate, similar to the one I had with my roommate at boarding school. Pizza and girly movie nights used to be a staple, but then in Ottawa my social life was very different. I felt like I had a lot of acquaintances (I guess I am good at that bit) but didn’t manage to close the gap to friendship with enough of them. Remember talking to a friend there (who was from Ottawa) about how I hadn’t wanted to be push myself on her because I assumed he had tons of friends, but she didn’t and I wish we had started hanging out more, moved from acquaintances to friends, earlier.
One of the things I realized leaving KW, was that there were so many people there who I wished I had spent more time with. Life was full, I travelled too much, lots of reasons, but the main one – I lacked follow up, I didn’t make time. I didn’t invite people out to do things often, I felt like I would be imposing, that their lives already had enough in them and they didn’t need more friends. They might have wanted more friends, though. The book also offers some definition of friendship, which are helpful – assuming you’ll hang out on a regular basis, the kind of person you can suggest something last-minute to. The breadth of people she managed to meet, too, was really cool.
One of the things that tipped the balance for Sydney over Zurich, was that I already have a good, non-work friend there, and I felt with the chaos this year, that was something I needed. But I’m going to meet new people, and make more effort to follow up. But definitely, I recommend this book, whether you think you have enough friends or not!