new years friends.

So, New Years Eve is just around the corner now. A time to get drunk and be with friends. I’m not sure I’ll really be doing either. The drinking I’ll get to another time, possibly the next time I blog. But suffice to say I’m not a big drinker, though since it is New Years, I’ll probably make the exception and at least intend to drink (whether that results in getting drunk or giving up and switching back to coke halfway through the night, only time will tell). But the friends part, I will discuss here and now.

You see, this year I’m spending New Years Eve with my boyfriend and his friends. Of course, ideally I’d like to spend it with my friends and my boyfriend, but this isn’t an ideal world and it’s hard to organise that when we live north and he lives south. The other big problem with organising that is I don’t have a lot of friends to go out with. Sad to admit, I know, but it’s true. I can count the friends I have from primary/high school on one hand. I can count the friends I’ve made and constantly make an effort to see from uni using just my elbows alone. So, that’s less than seven friends. Of course there are many people who I’m friendly with, but there’s a difference between friends – the people you get along with and friends – the people you can call up and hang out one on one with. It is the latter to which I am referring.

Out of these friends, the biggest group I can have at a time is three. Myself, and two others. Because the rest of the friends aren’t part of the same group and heaven knows you can’t just throw everyone together like a mix pack of m&m’s and expect them to all get along just so you can have a big group to go out with and take nice group photos with. Oh, that being said, I have forgotten ‘the boys’. The boys are a group of about five to ten of my brother’s friends who are great as individuals but irresponsible, loud, hard to organise and known to bail out or get into a fight halfway through the night when you put them all together. Not the best for organising what’s supposed to be the biggest night of the year with.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the people I have in my life are amazing and I would much rather have just a handful of really great people than a roomful of only okay people. But upon hearing about these great big girls’ nights out or holidays of 10 friends from others, it makes me sad to know I don’t have that. One of the things I envy most about my boyfriend (though doubt he truly understands this ... unless he’s reading it now) is his friends. Eight of them total, five boys, three girls. The perfect ratio, because let’s be honest, if there’s too many girls it turns bitchy and whiney and I just hate girls when they’re like that. They go out clubbing together, they go to concerts together, they go on holidays together. And it’s always fun and it’s always easy. Organising ‘the boys’ is rarely easy, always last minute and has a real possibility of failing. Now, I would never try to push myself into this group. They are his friends and they’ve been his friends long before I came into the picture. They are all from high school. But it would be nice to able to hang out with them and experience that big group thing a little more than I do at the moment.

High school is definitely the easy way to establish a group of friends. My high school group did used to be bigger, but things change. And once you leave high school, how do you add extra people to the group? You can’t just bring in one of your friends and hope the rest of the group gets along with and happily adopts them. Because even if you try to do this, that person will always be primarily your friend and either they might feel slightly left out or the group might feel slightly threatened/annoyed. So, you can try to all meet someone and become friends with them at once. Which is hard to do since it’s rare your group will all be in a place where it’s easy to meet new people. Uni was good for new people, but what are the odds you’re all studying the same thing? Work is good for new people, but how many people work with all their friends? And if you did, would there really be any more staff left who weren’t already in your group? Activities are good for new people. But how many groups (of girls) all belong to the same sports club these days? Once you’re out of a place of education and all moving in different directions, how do you meet new people that everyone is happy to have there?