Making Connections in a New Town

I had a whole nest of misconceptions about what my social scene would be like when I moved to this new town. Two stupid ideas were at the core, and, in line with my silliness, they are mutually exclusive. 1) I assumed I would be okay alone, and 2) I assumed it would be easy to make friends. 

I Was an Idiot

The alone assumption ran deeper than what I learned from being on the road, seeing as how I hated the isolation that brought about. I think, ever since I was a teenager, I had a romantic notion of “starting over” in a new town, maybe gotten from some series of afterschool specials or some such nonsense. You know, where the young person runs away and ends up somewhere new, waiting tables and tackling the world alone, reading books in their small apartment by evening, walking the city streets on their days off, admiring statues and appearing to outsiders as ultra interesting in their solitude. I even thought I could do that myself when I hit hard times as a young person. Why would you kill yourself when you could just run away and start again? Well, for one thing I had a lot to learn about killing oneself (no alarm meant; I never tried), but I also had a lot to learn about starting again.

I assumed it would be easy to make friends for several silly reasons, too.  I’ve always had a lot of friends + I am friendly + I like people. Voilà, right? It was true, though, even when I moved to a state where I knew no one (Montana, Oregon), that I was with the most gregarious person on this planet, my now-ex-husband. We used to begin an evening sitting at a bar and end it with ten new best friends. In Atlanta when I left work to stay at home with baby Finn, I made the best friends of my life through a playgroup that started as a breast-feeding support group. Later, as a super busy working mother, with a child in private school a state away and a husband who was busy another state away, I made friends with neighbors. Later, I made friends at work. I still am friends with people I met with Paul, from playgroup, former neighbors, former workmates. As they say, I have always been blessed with an abundance of friends.

When Tracy and I were on the road, I kept these friendships up through regular calls and Zoom, but I also saw people—in person!—on our annual Friends and Family tours. We’d drive up the East Coast having notified people we were coming, and we’d swing through Tracy’s old stomping grounds of the Midwest, dot around California, looking for anyone I, a formerly non-hugger, could now hug for realz, year after year, in part driven by Tracy helping me make up for all the months of seeing not a soul we knew. 

Embarrassingly, then and in retrospect, we were treated like royalty. Otherwise busy people made room for us, in their driveways, at breweries, driving out to a meeting location that worked for us all. We hosted potlucks at the trailer for Tracy’s old Econ crew, we stayed in my college friend’s driveway, we met a friend at a BBQ joint late in the day—an old friend from Massachusites who was visiting Texas and who didn’t mind adding an hour to his full day of driving in order to sit and trade stories with us over dry BBQ that didn’t get sold that day. It was wonderful!

People asked us questions, they arranged all our friends to meet us, they cooked us multi-course meals and insisted their disinterested teens sit during dessert to hear about life on the road. 

It’s Not Me That Was Cool

I now see that this was because what we were doing was cool. We were not. Living the American dream of retiring early and traveling, in an Airstream no less, off-grid when the Covid-bound world was learned the advantages of that, all without a safety net—that is cool. My blog probably helped; people who glanced through it only on occasion knew we’d been everywhere and seen everything and would have stories to tell, and they knew I was good at telling those stories. So we were not just welcomed, people insisted we come. 

I was an idiot to be blinded by that small version of fame, I really was. Of course that was fleeting! Of course that’s not what real life would be like! And, the few people who live in the town I’d picked—I was aware they have their own lives, that they’re entrenched in their own circles of friends and family like I used to have, in schedules of work and errands and the occasional fun that’s all established without me.  I remember what it was like to have to choose, during the rare free time you have, between necessary errands and helping family and life-giving time spent with *established* friends. To barely have time for them.

When I admit it to myself, I can clearly, embarrassingly, see the subconscious visions I had floating around in my addled-with-thyroid-disease and neurologic-drug-addicted brain. I was imagining cheerful cocktail or dinner parties where people (not the actual people I know in Madison, because that would have been thinking clearly) invited all their friends to meet the superstar newbies. I was imagining myself regaling strangers with stories from the road. They would think we were so, so cool and would invite us to their houses, where we would meet their other friends, and our network of people would grow so thoroughly that I could choose among them my new besties!  What a world!

As it is, I have told not one person what it was like to live in the trailer. When we travelled, I used to give out calling cards with the blog’s URL on it, and, you guessed it, now I hardly write in the blog anymore, much less promote it. My friends I have here (whom we knew previously) are fucking busy. Of course they are! They have all the contacts I had when I left Maryland, and, in fact, many, many more because they’ve lived in Madison for decades upon decades. I don’t even know what that’s like, because I’ve never lived in one place for that long. 

All of this is a very long preamble to me describing who I have actually met and how. Kind of as a blueprint to anyone curious about starting over. It ain’t easy, but I can say that I now have one friend! I’ll show you how I did that.

I’m Working on Improving

I couldn’t do much at first, when we were living in the trailer and then in the apartment because both those locations required a car, which I don’t yet have. Tracy was doing all the errands and driving me to so many initial medical appointments that there was no way I was going to demand he drive me around to do stuff I didn’t even know yet if it would have a payoff. 

Who’s New Club

The one thing I did back then was join the Who’s New in Madison club, which sounds promising, right? Not when it was formed like 100 years ago and is still comprised of the same exact people, no joke. It seems to be mostly old women who are already friends. They do have a subgroup of literal new-to-Madison people, but the fact that that’s one of many subgroups is telling. I posted once on their facebook group with my picture and short bio, saying how excited I was to meet them and how I would love to do something close to me, or if far away then maybe someone would be willing to pick me up? I was met with several messages of good intention, but also a bunch saying stuff like, “Our directory shows groups near you,” and “There’s a public bus you could take.” Those fell flat on my ears; I gave out friendly good cheer and expected it in return, not realizing how large the group is or how established they are with each other. I left it.

With this, as with lots of my other attempts here, Tracy says I’m being impetuous and judgmental. Well, he’s actually nice and would not use those words, but I know what he means. And he’s right. But, God this has all been so difficult: leaving the road, picking a location, buying a house, starting over. I was hoping making friends would be easy. I hope you’ve gotten the gist that is is not, and I’m starting to adjust my expectations (read: be less impetuous and less judgmental) as the actual move has gotten a little easier. 

Church

After we moved into the near-east area, I did a bunch of things to make friends. I signed up for a ukulele class, one that I knew was technically below my skill level, but it would have other people in it! Plus, I could walk to it. I also started going to Hippie Church and talking with my neighbors. I’ve barely introduced myself at church, but I did take Finn, and he then went to his UU and got the bright idea to join their folk band. Maybe I could do that with mine! It would be a way to meet people without having to put myself out there. But, they may actually be looking for talent, in which case I might be better off joining an action committee. There are a million within that church alone.

Neighbors

The neighbors’ front also been a slow start, until I mentioned to our exact-nextdoor neighbors (who are very friendly but not outgoing) that I like playing board games. They introduced me to a woman down the street whose nickname is the Mayor of Ohio (our street is Ohio Ave.). She invited us to a backyard barbecue, where we met so many people my head is still spinning, including several other neighbors whom I have seen already on the street, one couple in particular with whom we’ve played board games once already and who is in my exercise class.

Ukulele

Which is getting ahead of the main part of my story, my one actual friend, whom I met in that ukulele class. She lives two just blocks away, is also retired, and loves to play the same songs I love to play. She is absurdly busy (she’s lived in Madison her whole life) but makes time, about an hour a week, to play uke with me, to play uke together. We have so much fun! We laugh! It’s been so long since I met regularly with a friend—not Tracy’s and my friends but my friend—and laughed. It’s been years. Imagine that for a minute.

From uke class I learned about local strumming groups, one that I can bike to called the Pineapple Players. Even though they are mostly older than I am with musical taste much older than mine (my son and his young cousins would laugh out loud at that statement), it’s still someone to do something with once a week. One person there is even in the Who’s New in Madison club (of course, she’s an older woman who’s been here forever!), and we recognized each other from the one event I went to. 

The Pineapple Players is lead by Alice, who offered to drive me, on occasion, to the Prairie Strummers, a group of around 50 players who also meet once a week, and my first time with them was a true delight. The leader saw my stranger’s face and had me stand up at the beginning of class, and at the end they all played a welcome song for me. It felt truly welcoming.

Back to Julie, the neighbor who plays uke with me, just the two of us because she’s so busy. She told me about exercise classes offered by the school system. I signed up for two I could ride my bike to. I learned that I am too fit for exercise classes for “Over 50”—and I mean that with all possible humility, but truly I could kick the asses of the women who teach my classes. Still, one of the people in one of my classes was not only at the barbecue we went to given by the Mayor of Ohio but also a boardgame player we played with once. 

Madison does truly seem like a small town with big-city amenities, which was one of the reasons I chose it. I’m hoping I’ve gotten a friendship/acquaintance ball rolling, and maybe it will snowball into something even faintly resembling the fantastical images I had in my mind before moving here. If the snowballing doesn’t happen, I do have that one friend. And, two uke groups, one church, several neighbors, and a future of exercise classes to look forward to, all of these populated by people I haven’t met yet.