Recently I wrote to two authors, both New York–based, to tell them I admired their work and that they’ve inspired me. It’s a lesson my parents taught me ages ago, but one I’ve seen realized repeatedly this year: You never know what kind of opportunity a new connection might bring. And who doesn’t like to be told they’re brilliant? You really can’t go wrong.
I heard back from both writers within a week and each sent thoughtful, funny, and personal notes in response. One even offered to mention my blog on her popular website.
Professional networking is very similar to personal friending. You have to believe that people will be open to your advances. We psych ourselves out of approaching a potential BFF or emailing a role model because it seems far-fetched that they’d want to be friends or network with us in return. But, as has always been the case this year, people are happy to make new connections. More often than not only good can come of it and, at least in the case of networking, writing an email doesn’t take much time or energy.
My girl-dates with Kelly and Julie were a refreshing change of pace. I could talk about the specifics of my career goals and failures without having to do the kind of explaining I might when chatting with a lawyer or a consultant. They’re not only potential friends but potential colleagues, and each gave me great insight into local opportunities for writers. It’s not only what you know but who you know, and I’ve made some serious progress on the latter.
As much energy as I’ve dedicated to new friends this year, I’ve spent a fair amount of time with old ones as well. This weekend, Jenny, one of my old college roommates, is in town with her boyfriend. They live in Manhattan but Eric was in Chicago for business, so Jenny came at the tail end of his trip to show him our alma mater. The three of us spent all day in Evanston—walking by the lakefront, showing Eric where we lived senior year (and where the homeless man made his home on our front porch), and eating lunch at Jenny’s favorite café. Tonight we’re dining, with Matt, at a restaurant around the corner from our apartment.
“Would it be possible to get some bread, please?” Matt asks our waitress. “For the mussel broth?”
“Our chef doesn’t want to serve bread,” she says. “I’ve recommended it to him before—people are always asking—but he feels pretty strongly. And I’m kind of intimidated by him, so I was just like, ‘Whatever you say.’ ” She puts her hand up in a “don’t shoot” gesture and laughs.
I like this girl. She’s friendly and chatty. She seems easygoing and funny, and reminds me of my friends.
“Maybe she could be my BFF,” I joke as she walks away. “She’s all cute and spunky.”
“You should ask her out,” Matt says.
“How? That would be so embarrassing!”
But now the idea’s in my head, and the question of how to make my move nags at me the entire meal, like that feeling you can’t shake when you forget what you’re going to say. I try to let it go but I can’t focus on anything else.
This is my chance! It might be awkward, I might be rejected, but I’ve wanted to blindly ask a girl out all year. I need to just do it.
Problem is, there are people watching. As uncomfortable as I would be if it were just me and the waitress, it’ll be ten times weirder in front of Matt and my friends. The pressure will be serious.
“Thank you guys so much for dining with us,” the waitress says with a slightly southern twang as she hands us the check. “Have a really great night.”
“You’ve got to do it,” Matt tells me. “This is what you’ve been working toward.”
“I know, I know.” I’m wringing my hands, unsure of my next move. Jenny and Eric are, understandably, laughing at me. Not with. At.
“Write her a note,” Matt says. “Then if you get rejected it won’t be to your face.”
“Yes! Perfect. But I have horrible handwriting. And what if she sees me writing it, never responds, and then she’s our waitress the next time we eat here? This is our favorite restaurant, I don’t want to ruin it for us.”
I decide to have Jenny write the note. Her handwriting is legible, and if the waitress sees her writing it and decides we’re freaks, at least Matt and I can show our faces here again. Jenny has nothing to lose, while I stand to sacrifice the best scallops in Chicago.
The finished product is written in perfect script on the back of our check:
Hi,
I’m new(ish) in town and live around the corner with my husband. You seem cool and like we could be friends. Would you be interested in having lunch sometime? Hope to hear from you.
—Rachel
After my name, Jenny adds my phone number and email address per my direction.
“That’s lame, just put your number,” Matt says. “Email address is a cop-out.”
Matt’s a big believer in live phone conversations. He just recently, and reluctantly, jumped on the texting bandwagon. “Email makes it easier for her,” I say. “Gives me a better chance of seeing her again.”
If you’re trying to make a new friend, you need to make it as simple as possible for her to get on board. The less work she has to do, the better chance you have of hearing back.
See, I’ve learned a few tricks this year.
We’ve now been lingering with the check for a good fifteen minutes.
“She’s looking at us,” Matt says. “She’s definitely wondering why we’re still here.” Jenny and I can’t stop laughing.
“Okay, go! Go!” I’m like a police officer sending out the SWAT team. I’m nervous to be there when our waitress—whose name I don’t even know—sees the note. Yes, I’ve gotten braver this year, I’ve gotten better at going outside my comfort zone, but I’m not made of steel. And this leaving a note thing is new territory for me. I’m anxious and excited all at once.
“I probably won’t hear from her,” I tell Matt later that night. “What if she doesn’t turn over the check? Then she won’t even see what we wrote.”
“She’ll see it. You’re right, she probably won’t call, but you never know. At least you can say you tried.”
The next morning I wake up with the slight headache of someone who drank just enough wine to think it was a good idea to ask out a potential friend on the back of a restaurant check. Does that even happen in real life? I’ve definitely only seen it in the movies.
“At least I made Jenny write the note,” I tell Matt as we’re lying in bed. “We can go back there anytime with no weirdness.”
I check my email while I’m eating my morning oatmeal. And there, the only thing in my in-box, is a note. From her. The waitress. Maritza.
Hey Rachel,
I got your note. I guess I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you guys that much but y’all seemed very nice as well. I just moved here from Texas myself in November. Funny that you’re “newish,” too. Let’s do lunch for sure! When is good for you? I’m off Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday so if those days work, let me know. I look forward to seeing you again.
—Maritza
She wrote the email at 2:40 A.M. She must have sent it as soon as she got home from her shift. I immediately forward her email to Matt, Jenny, and Eric with a note of my own: “She didn’t get a chance to talk to us? I thought we were best friends!”
Jenny tells me I probably found the one waitress out of a hundred that would actually respond, but I don’t know. A year ago, maybe even last night, I would have agreed. But it’s hard to believe I could have struck gold on the first try. And haven’t I found, over and over this year, that people are flattered when someone extends a hand of friendship?
I write Maritza back that afternoon. (I’m succumbing to game-playing—a Shasta Nelson no-no—but I wait a few hours to respond. After writing the note, I don’t want to come off as desperate. Or, any more desperate.) I thank her for not thinking I’m crazy and we make a date for next Sunday.
Buoyed by my success with Maritza, I head to the clothing boutique on my corner. Celia, the store manager, and I have become friendly since I’v
e moved to Chicago. When I wanted an outsider’s opinion on my would-be wedding dress, I showed her the pictures on my iPhone. She said I looked like a ballerina. Considering I’ve always said I was a ballet dancer in a former life, she pretty much won my heart with that single observation.
Since we first met, I’ve learned Celia has an older sister who is her best friend and that she’s dating a guy in the finance world. I’ve wanted to befriend her since I first started this project, and not only because she knows what clothes work for my body and could possibly hook me up with a discount. I put off asking her out for a while because I hadn’t built up the nerve. Starting the year with friend setups was my way of wading into the friendship waters. This direct pickup approach? It’s the friendship plunge.
I made my first attempts a few months ago. I went to the boutique ready to make a move, but each time I tried Celia was either not working or was there with another salesgirl. It seemed wrong to ask her on a friend-date while another perfectly nice, friendable person stood watching. I didn’t want to leave anyone out.
But today I’m feeling lucky, high off my earlier triumph, and when I walk in the door I quickly see that Celia’s the only employee on duty. Can I just cut to the chase? Shouldn’t I at least pretend to be shopping? I mean, there is a sale going on. And I could certainly use a new dress. It only seems right to try on a few options.
“I’m looking for something to wear to a rehearsal dinner,” I tell Celia. “Nothing too fancy, but with sleeves for winter.”
She offers a few options and I settle on a black number with short sleeves and a ruffle down the side.
As I hand over my credit card, it’s time. “I’ve been meaning to ask you for while, would you maybe want to get lunch one day?”
“I’d love to! I really would.” Celia sounds genuinely excited by my invitation. “You know, I meet great people here all the time, but it’s so hard to ask anyone to hang out.”
“Yeah, believe me, I know what you mean.”
“Especially since I work here. I don’t want customers being like ‘Why is the salesgirl asking me to lunch?’ It would be unprofessional.”
In all the time I’ve thought about asking Celia out, it never occurred to me that maybe she wanted to be my friend, too, that perhaps something was holding her back. Celia’s approximately seven feet tall and impossibly thin and pretty. Almost intimidatingly so. And she has an impeccable fashion sense. For whatever reason, this combo told me she was probably pretty well-stocked in the friends department.
I never would have thought of it on my own, but Celia’s hesitancy to personally befriend customers makes perfect sense. Of course she can’t risk potential business by asking customers to drinks. What if she asked me and I got weirded out and never returned? Or worse, I complained to her boss?
It’s another reminder of why, when I meet someone who could make a great best friend, I should just go for it. I’ll never know the other person’s story. She could be a store manager anxious for new friends but reluctant to look unprofessional. Or she could be a waitress even newer in town than I.
In the last twenty-four hours I’ve successfully tried to befriend two women, and the takeaway? You’ll never know what she’s thinking until you ask.
Well, that and a little black dress.
FRIEND-DATE 45. Jordan’s friend Hallie joins us for dance class almost every Saturday. Today the three of us go for our usual post-cardio brunch, but Jordan, still hurting in the aftermath of a late Friday night, bails mid-meal. Hallie and I finish lunch—including Jordan’s leftover hash browns—and decide to do some early holiday shopping. It’s our first time hanging out just the two of us. This is my favorite kind of friend-date—the impromptu, we’re-just-gals-doing-our-thing-on-a-Saturday-afternoon outing. It’s exactly what I was missing at this time last year, the void that inspired me to start this search in the first place. There’s a quiet feeling of victory surrounding this date.
My brother and Jaime are hosting our family for a welcome-to-the-neighborhood dinner party tonight. Alex has finally settled into his Chicago life—a new job, some furniture, a working knowledge of the city’s grid layout—and we’ve spent a Saturday or two sitting around in his apartment, watching TV and not-talking like only siblings can. Witnessing his new beginning has been a bit like peering into Dumbledore’s Pensieve, giving me an opportunity to look back in time at my own Chicago start from a third-person perspective.
Alex is me three years ago. He has plenty of family in Chicago, and is acquainted enough with Jaime’s friends and their significant others, but he doesn’t have many—or, maybe, any—of his own local friends. Yet. He left a tight-knit group of buddies behind in New York, moved here for love, and is currently too busy enjoying the spoils of sharing a hometown with his girlfriend to be upset about a lack of male bonding time. And when Sunday football rolls around he watches with Matt. He’s taken care of.
For now, Alex is totally satisfied. He’s happy and fulfilled, and if you ask him about his friends—or lack thereof—he’ll say, “I’m fine with it. I’m doing great.” And he means it.
My brother might change his mind one day and launch a (more low-key, less obsessive) BFF search of his own. Or he won’t. At the moment, I feel worse about his social circumstances than he does—due in equal parts to my new hyper-sensitivity to relationships and the fact that I’m a girl—so I’m keeping my mouth shut.
Taking stock of Alex’s situation has shed light on how far I’ve come. On quiet Friday nights I’ll get a text from him that says “What are you up to tonight?” and I’ll almost always have plans, usually with a friend I’ve made this year. I feel guilty that I can’t be there for him the way I wish someone had been there for me, but I know he’s happy for me. Not too long ago I was the one on the couch figuring out who I could call. Now I’ve got the packed social calendar.
“How’s the quest going?” Jaime asks me over dinner.
“Really well,” I say. “I’ve definitely made some new friends, if not a very best one.” I’m excited to tell her about my recent conquests and my dates on the books with Maritza and Celia.
“It’s amazing the way you find these people,” she says. “The new friends I’ve made in Chicago have always been through my existing friends. I’ll go to one girl’s bachelorette party, where I’ll meet some of her other friends, and then we’ll exchange numbers and start hanging out on our own.”
“That’s a pretty ideal way to meet people,” I say. “The problem for me was that when I moved here I didn’t have that base level to get the ball rolling. I couldn’t meet friends of friends because I didn’t have enough friends in the first place.”
If I haven’t found one single best friend forever this year, maybe I’ve done one better. I’ve planted the seeds for a future in Chicago. I’ve built a life here, and established the first layer of connections that Jaime is talking about—the people through which, in time, I will make even more friends. Jaime’s method of meeting people is probably the most organic—her BFFs “just happened,” as everyone thinks friend-making should—but it’s impossible without some first-degree companions to kick-start the process.
This project started in January, and now, in early November, I finally have enough new friends to meet people the way Jaime has, the way we all want to. I found Alexis through Hannah, Hallie through Jordan.
The “just happening” is finally happening, it simply took a year of work to get there.
FRIEND-DATE 46. Maritza waves at me from a table in the corner. Considering she commented on how little we talked at dinner, I wasn’t sure she’d recognize me.
“I had to Facebook you to figure out who the note was from,” she says. “You know what’s so funny? I actually got two notes that night, and they were both from girls.”
“Two notes? Does that happen a lot? I thought I was so crazy.” The big stink I made about leaving my little message seems a tad melodramatic now.
“It’s not so uncommon, but they’re
usually from guys. The night you were there I served a big group of girls at another table and they left a note saying ‘When will we see you again?’ I must have been really on my game.”
I thought I’d noticed something under the surface with Maritza, a spark that spoke to me as her BFF-to-be, but apparently she’s just charming. Still, two notes in one night? Both from friend wannabes? What are the chances?
“I think you were my server last time,” Maritza tells our waitress when we start to order.
“Yeah, I probably was. I basically live here.”
They get into a long conversation about the restaurant business. Our waitress is in fashion school and debating a move to New York to follow her dream.
“She’s from New York!” Maritza says about me.
“It’s true,” I say.
“Oh really? I’ll totally need to pick your brain. How do you guys know each other?”
“She picked me up when I was her server,” Maritza tells her. “Watch out, we might recruit you.”
I can see now why Maritza would get two notes in a night. She’s clever, friendly, funny. She’s magnetic. The kind of girl that everyone wants to be friends with.
Over the next hour I learn that Maritza is from Austin, she was once an aspiring actress though now she likes working in the restaurant biz, she’s a big-time indie music lover, and she found the Flashdance-esque T-shirt she’s wearing—with a picture of Madonna on the front—at a local thrift shop.
Oh, and she was on Road Rules.
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