Nothing like good friends
Went to K’s place last night for a girls night in, something that we like to do quite regularly - eat crap food, drink wine and watch movie after movie while talking and laughing amongst each other. Last night was a smallish gathering, just three of us (K, V and myself) but it turned out being just the right amount of bodies for the rather cosy living room.
As we were drinking our wine and munching on nibblies while waiting for the pizza to arrive (I offered to make the dough and bring it over so we could make custom pizzas and pop them in the oven but the idea was shot down as being too much effort, so pizza hut was ordered instead - not too bad when drunk on wine), we looked through old photos and talked about our friendship - not just the three of us, but of the Stranglies.
Here, I should take a break to explain. There is a group of girls that I’ve been friends with over the past 8 years, and we’ve dubbed ourself StranglyHumorous after K (pictured right) made a typo in one of our mass-emails to each other where she talked about how ’strangly humourous’ we all were. We liked the name and decided that since we all sent mass emails to each other anyway, we’d make a yahoo group so we could keep a track record of all our emails and just have the one email address to send them to.
All the other girls attended PLC at various stages and met over the course of their education, whereas I went to Mac.Robertson Girls High and met one of them through a girl who moved from PLC to Mac.Rob. The friendship with the girl soon waned, but my association with the girls grew tighter, and over the years we have become each other’s second family. We’ve been with each other through some extremely amazing highs and terrifying lows, but we always say that whatever the rest of the world thinks, the Stranglies have each other - something that we consider ourselves extremely lucky for this. 8 years…I guess we better start planning for the 10 year anniversary!
And yes, all that food on the table was for 3 girls. We got through almost all of it, all that was left when V and I left K’s home this morning was 4 packets of rice crackers, the peanut brittle, and most of the tin of coconut-covered peanuts. Kinda scary, huh? Oh, and beverage of the evening was Arrogant Frog - French import red (can’t remember what type we were drinking!) that is actually fairly decent for a bottle under the $10 mark, but then again I’m no wine connoisseur. Like Dylan Moran says, I think there’s two kinds of wine - one that you’ll taste and take away the bottle, and the other that makes you gag like you’ve taken a mouthful of turps. Occasionally, very occasionally, you’ll get a subtle one that initially violates your tastebuds in a most savage manner, but then the aftertaste turns out not to be so bad.
Anyway, back to the story at hand.
In this day and age, it seems that genuine people that you sincerely take a liking to are extremely hard to find. Perhaps I’m picky, but people irritate me quite easily and I’m finding more and more that the more people I meet, the more disillusioned I become with the amount of wankers, tosspots and people with generally no sense of humour there are out there. Well no, that’s a bit harsh - it’s just that they don’t get *my* sense of humour. What this means is that, while I quite enjoy meeting new people and socializing (despite my homebody nature), I very very very rarely make an effort to actually get to know people better. As they say, you’re lucky to have ONE good friend - and I’m blessed to have 7 who love and accept me unconditionally, for all the good and the bad. We get each other on a level that I’ve never experienced with anyone else - family, partner or lover. We can talk all night without taking a breath, never get bored of each others company and despite our extremely different backgrounds, tastes and interests, we share a similar sense of humour and enjoy talking about everything from feminism and sexual discrimination to what brand of chocolate is the most orgasmic.
If only I could find a man with whom I connected so well!
These being my thoughts, I’d sometimes wondered whether I was the only of the Stranglies to experience this, and talked about the issue with both K and V last night, only to discover that they were experiencing the same thing - which included the lack of patience with others who we didn’t connect with! While I don’t mind it that much, I’ve been thinking about it today and wonder whether it’s a good/healthy thing. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade in my friendship with the girls for anything, but it’s through meeting and mixing with new people that we get shifted out of our comfort zones, challenged and presented with new and different ideas and personalities - something that is integral to growing and continually developing, or so I think.
What exactly does a mid-20s girl who doesn’t drink THAT much, hates pubs and clubs and tolerates bars only if there’s comfortable seating and/or jazz/swing/blues/indie rock/80’s music playing do to meet new people? I wonder…
Oh, as for the rest of the evening? The pizza arrived, we plonked down on the couches and worked through the ENTIRE of season 1 of “The House of Elliott“, finishing episode 12 at around 6:30am this morning…and we’re planning repeat performances with season 2 and 3!
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Comments
Ellie 
And thanks for the recommending of OkC, it’s been extremely interesting 
I too find it difficult to make connections with new people, well beyond five minutes that is, but my standards have always been high, I need loud outgoing alternative friends who can drag me into conversation. Your friends sound brilliant
It’s a lucky thing to hold onto such a relationship group over a number of years.
As for where to meet people these days, a few of my friends have had varying success with the internet. Yeah, I know it seems weird at first, but it eliminates the slush pile quickly and painlessly. OkCupid seems to be a good one at the moment, don’t know if it’s really your thing, but hey it beats sweaty groping in bars.
cheers