At It Again

I have to confess… I’ve been trying to make male friends again.

I know it’s a fool’s task and I’m bound to get disappointed but there’s just something masochistic in me that likes basking in the warm glow of rejection. I suppose things would be easier if I knew how to relate to others, or wanted to try for friends more than about 15% of the time (with the rest of the time being in a “why bother” mode).

So here’s what this fool is doing. First off I’ve met twice with some guys to play music. I met them on Craigslist and didn’t get killed in some basement at the initial meet up. I guess not many people get killed in basements in la-tee-dah Pine Valley. The first time it was just the one guy and myself and we flubbered around some songs where only one of us knew the songs and eventually we just played praise songs. Hey, at least I got out of the house for an evening. The second time we were joined by a drummer and a young –pup guitarist (I think he was early thirties). This worked out a little better but we still don’t really have much of a common musical grounding. Not like when I went to my ol’ high school pal Rogers house in January. That was nice, not having to explain bands or music.
“Ya wanna play this song by The Choir?” “Sure! I love that song!”
Versus
“Have you ever heard of a band named The Choir? No? How about Adam Again? Okay, here’s an easy one: Phil Keaggy. You ARE almost fifty and have been a Christian for longer than three years, right? Okay, how about The Newsboys. Really? You haven’t even heard of The Newsboys? Rich Mullins? Now you’re pulling my leg. No?

So we’ve played twice and the idea is to get together the second Monday of every month, which is just around the corner and we still don’t have any new songs picked out. I guess we’ll play “Wrap It Up” for an hour.

My second attempt is even crazier: I’m crashing a men’s Bible study at a church where we don’t attend. Our own “church” is pretty much a lame-o worship center (“If you want fellowship you do it in our own small group but keep that crap outta this building”) but we go there for complicated reasons. However my kids have choir and go to the mid-week Kidz Club (or whatever it’s called) at a different church where I drop them off at 6:45 and pick them back up at 8:00. I supposed I could drive home and back again during that time or patronize a bar but I’ve been kicked out of every bar in the tri-state area for telling lame dad jokes so that’s not an option. I had been seeing a room full of guys when I dropped off my kids so after Christmas I decided that I would interject myself into their club. And there’s nothing they can do to stop me! BWA! HA! HA!

So far I’ve attended eight classes and I think there about about ten more until summer. Because my wife found a statistic somewhere that it takes adult males 10-12 interactions of being around each other before any kind of friendship forms I figure I’m already two-thirds of the way to disappointment. I try to talk to at least one other guy each week but so far it’s not like anyone is approaching me after the study ends. There’s a core group of five or six that are there each week (which I guess includes myself) and an additional roving cast of ten or so who may or may not show up. It’s pretty obvious everyone knows everyone else and they all go to this church (big surprise there). It’s a decent sized church with two services so maybe they think I go to a different service than the one they attend. Maybe.