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Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Advice please.

Okay, so, you ever meet someone, know right away you would make really great friends or drinking buddies or whatever, and then just have it take for-fucking-ever to be friends, already? Is friendship like dating, where, you know, if you haven't made plans together within X amount of time, they're just "not that into you," eh? I'm not shy, but the wrench in the I'll-just-invite-mystery-person-out works is that MP is a boy, and that kind of shit can be easily misread, go horribly wrong, and make all of our future work-related encounters really, really awkward. Fuck. Oh well.

7 Comments:

At 2/02/2005 03:57:00 AM, Blogger deborah said...

Tis a hard situation to be in... and in the end it comes down to how hard you are gonna make it for yourself. Meaning, are you going to sit and ponder or are you gonna just go for it!

Are there situations where you can ask MP if he wants to grab a drink after work? Check out a band? Say in the middle of bundy on or bundy off time?

Sometimes it is easier if there is a group of y'all going. Then you can do the charming "I am a great person to hang out with - Be my friend dammit" routine. And then next time around he'd wanna hang ten doing the friend thing.

Are there common tastes in music?

OR

Maybe you need to be sneaky and kinda pretend to be interested in someone else, and then ask him to drinks. This way he knows for sure its just a friend thing... without it ever being awkward.

And re-reading that... it sounds a little weird and stuff... but thats all I can come up with.

 
At 2/02/2005 06:47:00 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I got zero advice for you. I can only say I know the feeling. Work makes it even more difficult. And that's where we makes a lot of friends as adults.

OK, maybe a little advice. Ya gotta become the social director. You got start putting together group outings and add this person as one of the gang. Like Saffron said, once you get 'em out, you can do the self promotion thing during some one-on-one interaction time.

Also, I don't think you can avoid the friendship-misconstrued-as-romance thing no matter how you approach it. If two people are vibing off each other really well and they are both single, at some point, one of them will wonder "why don't we take this to the next level?" Now they may conclude that it not the path to pursue, or it may take an open discussion to diffuse the situation, but I think it's part of human nature to at least consider it.

 
At 2/02/2005 10:25:00 AM, Blogger Mary said...

Friendships are a little like dating. Maybe not as much not being into you - but I always think if it's too much work, it's not meant to be. I ask a few times and after NADA - I let it go.
Good luck Sid!

 
At 2/02/2005 11:57:00 AM, Blogger Sid said...

Good points, all (except for jokester, who I suspect is planning to spam my comments or something, and who clearly didn't read the post through). I don't think the whole social orchestration thing will happen, since, besides me and MP, everyone has been there for a while and no one does any after hours hanging out that isn't funded by the boss, so that whole social dynamic is pretty set in stone, apparently (which makes me slightly nuts. The only thing worse than moving to a new city with no friends is having a full time, 6-day-a-week job where your coworkers aren't interested in being friends. It's really isolating and isht. And then you end up doing crazy things like...blogging.)

I think I'm with Mary on this one. upon further reflection, it's just been too long (months), and our fun is probably at its pinnacle now--witty remarks and occasional funny conversations--and so i will seek my amigos elsewhere. bleh.

 
At 2/02/2005 01:06:00 PM, Blogger Greg Beck said...

Hey Sid, check this out. It’s like my daddy used to tell me, he’d say “Greg, (that’s what he used to call me when he was in a sociable mood) I know you’re gonna do what you wanna do anyway, but never stick your pen in the office inkwell”. Despite temptations and all that good shit, I’ve pretty much stuck by those rules. Plus I don’t do office parties, Christmas parties, drink with my coworker’s, and with the exception of a couple of hot chicks from the neighborhood I never hang out with my coworker’s. I don’t even eat lunch with my coworkers. I’ve doing the same gig for fifteen years and those rules have kept me out of trouble. My problem is that if I hung or went out with my coworker’s, with the exception of a couple of hot chicks from the neighborhood, sooner or later I’d forget who I was with and up would go my freak flag, and I’d get that look. And Sid, I know you know what look I’m talking about. The look that say’s “lookie here at this crazy muthafucker, wait till I get back to the office and tell some shit”. But you do what you wanna do, cause I’m just sayin and shit.

 
At 2/02/2005 01:13:00 PM, Blogger Greg Beck said...

It’s like my daddy used to tell me, he’d say “Greg, (that’s what he used to call me when he was in a sociable mood) I know you’re gonna do what you wanna do anyway, but never stick your pen in the office inkwell”. Despite temptations and all that good shit, I’ve pretty much stuck by those rules. Plus I don’t do office parties, Christmas parties, drink with my coworker’s, and with the exception of a couple of hot chicks from the neighborhood I never hang out with my coworker’s. I don’t even eat lunch with my coworkers. I’ve doing the same gig for fifteen years and those rules have kept me out of trouble. My problem is that if I hung or went out with my coworker’s, with the exception of a couple of hot chicks from the neighborhood, sooner or later I’d forget who I was with and up would go my freak flag, and I’d get that look. And Sid, I know you know what look I’m talking about. The look that say’s “lookie here at this crazy muthafucker, wait till I get back to the office and tell some shit”. But you do what you wanna do, cause I’m just sayin and shit.

 
At 2/02/2005 05:47:00 PM, Blogger Mary said...

That does, suck, Sid. You don't always become best buddies with people you work with but maybe by going out with them socially, you meet other people - yada yada. Eek, I think I would be very hesitant to ask if that's the way the office dynamic is. :(

 

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