sarahski

I wasn’t really sure to title this post. “Sarah waxes on about friendship, part infinity” didn’t seem quite right.

Matt and I just had an interesting conversation in the car, and so I wanted to blab a little bit. I feel like this might be one of those times where I’m accidentally offensive, which probably means that I should just keep quiet.

My natural tendency is to like people, to care about them, and give them the benefit of the doubt. When we see people, I usually get all smiley afterwards and proclaim to Matt that “we’re going to be friends” – whatever that means.

I’ve said for many years that I want this “best friend” that is the friend that I see periodically, go through life changes with, but that I can always talk to if I need to, or if she needs me. I got her back yo, and she got mine. (For lack of a more eloquent way of putting it)

However, I’ve also learned that this idea just doesn’t work. I am right on the line between introvert and extrovert, and the introverted part of me isn’t good at setting up friendships, while the extrovert really wants to.

This comic, from this person, sums up my interaction with people pretty well.

One major thing I appreciate about my friend Kate is that she’s been so honest about feeling this way too, that being proactive is really hard for her. I think it’s partially because of this that we’ve become pretty good friends. (I consider her one of my closest friends, truthfully)

In the link there, I also talk about how, while I really like the “one friend to rule them all” principle, it usually ends up biting me in the butt, because I choose personality types that don’t meld with mine in the long run.

I’ve been thinking about it – and 300 words into this post, I’m getting to my point here – and it’s not so much that I need a “one ring” friend, so much as I really like what I’d call “meaningful” friendships. My favorite people are those whom I feel like I share a bit of their lives and thoughts and can share mine, likewise. I’m not saying that I want people to share details with me that they’re not comfortable with, but if they have a crappy day, they can tell me about it. Friends that I know really like gummy worms, but maybe not cake, so much. I realize that at this point in my life, when people are growing up, having families of their own and really putting down their career path, this isn’t so easily obtained. And that’s fine. It just makes me super happy when I know that I can talk to someone, because they can talk to me, because we know things about each other.

A couple of friends of mine have become pregnant in the last little bit, and internally, I was quite a bit more excited for one friend. It’s not that I was unhappy for other friend, but I realized that I was very excited for one friend because she had shared with me her desire for children, whereas the other friend really hadn’t. I consider her a friend, but I don’t really know much about her life, which makes it more difficult for me to celebrate life events. If a friendship with someone is based on something static, when that thing is removed or changes, it’s much harder to maintain a friendship. Whereas, if the friendship begins at a point and expands to other things that ebb and flow along with life, I feel like that friendship is more likely to last … not stay the same, but last, nonetheless.

I feel like this post needs an eloquent ending after such rambling. But in order to give it a proper ending, I feel like I’d need to have reached some destination, and I haven’t. I can’t say as I have, this is just another step along the way. Friendships are something that is very important to me, and now I can better define how and why. I really like people. (In certain quantities … I am still an introvert) While I thought that I desired one particular friendship, I realize now that it’s not the case … what I want are a few meaningful friendships, and for those to be reciprocated.

Now that I’ve got all the depth out of the way, wait ’til you hear my conspiracy post about Dr. Pepper …

I announced this last month, and now I’m very excited to be able to provide you with some details.

On January 3rd, sarahski.com will no longer be home to the geeky wife blog. This website will revert back to being simply ‘sarahski’ and for the time being. You don’t need to delete your bookmark for this site though, as I’m still planning on having regular content.

The exciting change though, is that the geeky wife is getting a new domain, and a new name. Those who have been reading for a while know that for the last few months, my friend Stacy has been co-blogging on Wednesdays. I appreciate her contribution more than I can express, and I’m so excited to be able to incorporate her to the site more fully.

Joining me and Stacy are my friend Kate Ditzler and my sister-in-law Karen LeGendre. Kate is currently working as a homeless awareness advocate while she makes plans to go to grad school and prepares for her first baby, due in late April/early May. Karen is a recently married business graduate who is currently working at a credit union. You’ll get to know more about them later, I promise.

But here’s why this Geeky Wives expansion is more than just pluralizing a blog title. I asked these ladies to consider joining me because they are incredibly talented women with something to offer. We’re going to be expanding the store with something from each of us, offering the goods and services that we do best.

We’re all *very* excited about what’s to come with the geeky wives, and we hope that you will be too. We’ll have more updates as the time draws nearer! On behalf of Stacy, Kate and Karen, I thank you so much for your support and I look forward to seeing what the future holds.

Kate Ditzler is a good friend of mine whom I met through NaNoWriMo this year. Check out her blog at Practicing Empathy and follow her!

One weekend a month, my partner Tim rises before noon without my prompting and prodding and poking, grabs his bag of strategy books, calculators, and dice, jumps in his car, and zooms off to hang out with his friends to play D&D all day (and night).

I’ve been role playing since I was 12. It was an online, text and chat based roleplaying game where everyone was in the chat room at the same time. All of the characters were in the same location, in small groups chatting. It was, obviously, a very relationship-based game, full of teenage girl players and heterosexual couples getting it on via fades to black all over the place. It was set in the Tortall Universe, created by Tamora Pierce.

When I was 19, my college roommate asked me to join a roleplaying game she was doing on livejournal. It was also a text based RP, involving exchanging comments and creating long, elaborate threads. Get this — it was a Harry Potter Alternate Universe, where the only canon characters that existed were Albus Dumbledore and, of course, Voldemort. It was, again, a very relationship-based game.

I played D&D once. I was twenty years old, and Tim and I were dating. My college roommate’s boyfriend and Tim offered to buy us wine coolers if we let them teach us the basics of D&D. They rolled out characters for us, and we played a few rounds. Man, was I bored (even with the booze). It was all statistics and adding and fighting — something that I kind of despised in board games like Risk (and don’t even talk to me about Warhammer). I found the waiting between dice rolls and action tedious. Where was the character depth? The relationships (romantic or otherwise)? Backstory was all well and good, but… not really my cup of tea.

So, despite being invited every month to go hang out with Tim and his friends and join the Adventurers Incorporated (Link: http://adventurersincorporated.blogspot.com/) crew — perhaps as their token femme fatale — I turn him down. My name is Kate. I’m a D&D Widow.

I don’t begrudge Tim his interest and this time (12+ hours in a row some months) for a few reasons.
1) This is his interest, and they’re his friends. He should get to have fun, and I don’t need to be there.
2) I have my own friends and my own interests. Tim getting out one weekend a month generally gives me time to indulge those friends and interests.
3) We have our joint friends, and our joint interests — it just so happens that D&D isn’t one of them. We can do something together some other time. (We really enjoy getting coffee together, and just chatting. Or having movie nights. Or letterboxing.)

On the other hand, I worry about D&D Saturdays for a few reasons.
1) Sometimes the things that we’re expected to show up to together — like family gatherings — also happen on the first Saturday of the month. I worry that Tim’s friends will think he’s lame for putting family first.
2) When Tim is out and about, even though I love the chance to have alone time and do crafts with Sarah, I don’t like being alone late at night. I worry that when Tim comes home by 2 am, which is the curfew he set, that his friends will think I’m a horrible, dominating shrew for hoping that my Husband will be home by the time I’m ready to sleep.

But these are my own neuroses that I just need to get over. (Tim’s friends like me. And they treat him and me reasonably well, considering he’s the only married guy.) I really enjoy sending Tim out on a Saturday morning, having text message updates about how the team is doing throughout the day — and sometimes the DM even lets me kibitz and tells me how many hit points are left on the dragon they’re fighting. When Tim comes home he tells me all about that day’s adventure. I tell him all the stuff that I did while I was alone, and while I hung out with friends. And then we fall asleep together.

Yours, mine, and ours works for our marriage. D&D is Tim’s. Blogging and writing and crafting is mine. Time together — like bedtime — is ours. I’m a D&D Widow, and I don’t mind.