I need some fine wine and you, you need to be nicer.

...otherwise known as, how a terribly judgmental introvert made friends in graduate school.



On paper, my MFA program nailed new student orientation. All the first years, invited to the fifth floor of the 11th Street building for an evening of eating cheese and imbibing at the open bar. A significant step up from ice breaker games a la the human knot, yes? Despite my hermitage I wasn't too worried. Give me Pinot Noir, I thought, and I can make small talk with anyone.

Before they let us anywhere near the bar, though, we each had to stand up and introduce ourselves. Ah, impromptu public speaking. My least favo(u)rite thing after running into distant acquaintances at a supermarket, or amateur cooking blogs. After seventy-ish quiet creative types stuttered through their own three sentences of self summary I made a beeline for the bar, where I was amongst the first three people to be served.
       "This is where we find the talent," a professor remarked. "The ones who line up first for free drinks." He sounded eerily genuine. I offered my standby half-smile which often segues to smirk, got a cup of red and went to the cheese buffet.

That's where I stood, for the next forty odd minutes: against the wall, loitering over the food table, fully expecting to either be approached or accept that, 25 years after a kindergarten teacher told my parents I was socially behind, I need to sometimes make the first move in talking to people. The only person I eventually conversed with was a second year, who said he was crashing the event for free booze. He was 24 years old. I told him I had to go to the bathroom, and left.

Riveting, I know.

All appearances to the contrary, making friends in the program mattered to me. I needed any friends, period; I was alone in a new city, with my British husband across the ocean waiting for his US greencard. Beyond general contacts, though, I spent years aching for creative companions. I wanted friends I could call up, meet at a bar and bitch about passive voice over a dirty martini or three. People who I could look at and say, 'I have this new idea for a novel' and actually witness excitement in their reaction, because this is the shit that matters to them.

Note, this is also one of the primary reasons I lurked in the online writing community, rather than participate - I'm too guarded, and frankly too judgy to make writer friends online. I need to meet someone (in person) and know & trust them, weeks/months before I can throw around the term 'friend' much less 'critique partner'. I think it's lovely the community works for so many people; I wish I were one of them. Alas: leopard, spots, etc.

Nearly two months of classes passed before I made friends in the program. For me, this is a rather respectable timeframe. Hilarious; I know. I'm incredibly discerning with people I choose to spend time with, and I'm also rather prickly (especially sans wine): even if someone makes a good impression on me, I take a while to warm up enough to make a good impression on them. I knew a few weeks in that I wanted to be chummy with most of my classmates, but wanting wasn't enough. After every class my exceedingly extroverted husband would call and ask if I'd made friends and be aghast when I told him I 'just couldn't make myself'. My one victory was a chat on the subway platform with a girl from my workshop; she was a similar age to me, cute clothes, lived in my neighborhood, we even had the same first name. Plus, her day job was fishmonger. The lady was cool. 
"WHY didn't you exchange numbers?!" hubby scolded. 
"She didn't ask," said I.


I've typed all of these recollections up as though building toward a big reveal. In truth, I've no clue what changed in me - if anything. A few weeks post-subway platform chat, I watched The Fishmonger and a few other classmates leave together at the end of our workshop. They headed down 11th, crossed 6th Ave, and kept going towards the turn for Greenwich Ave, where our program's fabled bar of choice sat in wait. I'm told by the others this moment was not nearly as dramatic as I remember, but I see me pausing at the intersection for several long seconds, willing myself beyond the comforts of my solitude, then eventually running into the crosswalk and dodging taxicabs, finally catching up to my classmates at the other side.

"Are you guys going to bar?" I asked. "Take me with you!"
This part, at least, is an accurate recollection. I was out of breath and I half-laughed, because I knew I was pathetic. I literally chased them down and demanded they include me.
"Sure," said The Fishmonger.


A year later and The Fishmonger and I see each other almost every day. We've stayed out until four AM way more times than is age-appropriate, sharing a bottle of wine and talking about our manuscripts, our goals, our drunkenly bullshit views of our selves. She has keys to my apartment and I'm currently babysitting her plant (its name is Audrey). More to the point, we've taken all of our writing workshops together and I trust no one more than her when it comes to honest, productive feedback to my work. As a nice bonus, she's eons more socially talented than I and we've picked up other wonderful friends along the way, mostly due to her possessing skills that I lack. She makes my life - and, more importantly, my writing - better. I wouldn't trade her for all the online writing friends in the world.


So, ta dah! Run after your workshop classmates en route to the bar and someday you, too, might have a collection of writer friends. They won't be as good as mine, though. As aforementioned, I hold out for the best.