The Goodbye Girl

I hate saying goodbye.

I think the first time I realized how much I hated it was when I was leaving a summer program in my early teens. I had fallen for a guy and he stood by the window of the bus waving as we pulled out for the airport, and I sobbed like I'd never cried in my life. Now it's funny, because in retrospect I realize I had spent a whopping 3 weeks with him -- by which I mean hanging out with him in large groups of people. Only. And yet I cried as if the Montagues and the Capulets were keeping us apart. I mean, HYSTERICS. I distinctly remember sniffing and sobbing into the bus window and watching it steam up, and dramatically placing my hand there, absolutely SURE I would never be the same. (If I could find my journal from those days I'm sure I would put the folks in Mortified to shame.)

It happened over and over again. I was quick to make friends on one week vacations, and then would spend months depressed that we'd had to split up; we'd keep in touch for years, and write letters (yes, people born after 1985, we used to write letters), but those goodbyes were the worst. When people talk about their favorite songs from hair bands, it's probably telling that one of mine is of course Tuff's I Hate Kissing You Goodbye. For the record, I was rarely kissing anyone, much less goodbye, but I sang that song with heart when I was a teen. I hated goodbyes, so naturally I was going to hate kissing someone goodbye, you know, someday.

With time, I stopped being melodramatic about it and shifted to a tactic I'm quite fond of: avoidance.

Maybe it's a conditioned response. I grew up without any family nearby; we were in the midwest with our closest cousins in California or Canada and the rest of the family was international. I quickly discovered that the counterpart of energetic, hilarious reunions was tearful, aching goodbyes; watching my mom and her sisters or brothers agonize over having to part ways. Goodbye meant a descent from loud laughter in the middle of the night to horrible silence. Or seeing how sad my parents were to put my grandma back on a flight to Iran, worrying about her and the distance between them. Persians have a phrase "Jaht khalee" meaning "your place is empty". Goodbye meant someone's place was going to be empty. Goodbye meant acknowledging the void to come.

Yes, over time I've simply avoided saying goodbye. In fact, I avoid events that even relate to goodbye. I prefer to have friends drop me off really (read: 4+ hours) early at the airport so we can talk by phone or whatever else and phase into the parting of ways. Better yet, I will leave them and take public transportation and spend the last day alone. I don't do curbside anything. If someone is moving, I will see them at some point before they leave but not right before; I skip the sendoff party.

It's true, I don't even like watching other people say goodbye. Even fictional people. You know the ending of The Breakfast Club, where they all walk different ways home but you know they'll SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN AT SCHOOL ON MONDAY? Yeah, I usually turn off the movie before their letter gets read.

Sometimes saying goodbye to someone isn't about saying goodbye to *them* forever, but what hits us is that we're saying goodbye to a particular era. See also: me slumped over the passenger's seat in my mom's car driving away from my last house at University of Michigan. (Ironically, during college my favorite song was the *ultimate* goodbye song, Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye.) The way I acted, you would have thought the University, with all my friends, had detonated and I was left alone in the rubble (ok, when I said I had left melodramatics behind me, they still occasionally peek out from time to time).

When someone has had a unique impact on you in some way, and when you say goodbye to that whole experience, maybe that's what makes it so heavy. You'll keep the lessons of it and the fun memories and blah blah blah, but something is changing and that alone is hard. I think it's the person + experience combo that makes it so hard.

All of this came up because tonight I broke my rules and said a proper goodbye to a great friend who is moving and has no plans of turning back. I really have no idea when this person and I will get ourselves together in the same city, or even country, again, so I had to break down and do it. This is someone I look up to in many ways, and I think we had surprised ourselves by becoming closer right before the move. We sat around bouncing ideas about our lives and what we should do with them, getting advice from each other, and he even helped me cut my caffeine intake (which alone is a reason to bring a tear to my eye ;) I was spoiled with easy access to his insights and support and ideas and friendship.

The goodbye rule was broken tonight because I knew I would regret it if I didn't. So we chatted and we said the goodbyes. I surprised (impressed!) myself with how cheerful and light I was able to be, joking and yelling down the hall after him that I wanted Cracker Barrel updates from the road.

And when I closed the door behind him and heard it click, my little heart just sank.

There are a lot of things I am happy to say goodbye to: bad haircuts, obnoxious flight companions, Natalie Portman's trim waistline, and 2010... But this "people" thing is going to take some work.

Friend Poaching: The Social Crime of Friend Theft

Recently I was presented with two cases of severe friend poaching by friends suffering, as many of us have, at the hands of people who don't seem to check their rearview social mirrors when making their moves.

You've probably done it and don't even realize it. The time you spend not hanging out with a friend who was recently snatched from under your nose is a good opportunity to reflect on your past behavior in a new light. Watching my friends go through this recently has brought to mind my own experiences with this, as a poacher, a poachee, and of course the third-party victim of this sneaky art.

It seems there's some question as to the etiquette of befriending other people's friends, and over the course of the past few years I've re-examined what I think the Friend Poaching Bylaws should be. And we need Friending Bylaws because, let's be honest, the internet has put our social graces in the pooper. Society probably didn't need Bylaws before because people interacted in person in the past; now, the use of phone/Facebook/email has made it easier to sidle up to a new person instantly rather than earning that company through time and effort. It gives you access, after a quick Google stalking or similar, to someone who you wouldn't have seen back in the day until another event, where the Original Friend would be on watch.

As for the recent Cases of Friend Poachery that I heard about:

Situation A: The person had introduced a friend to their larger circle of friends a couple of times. That second person then planned an event to which all of Friend #1's social circle were invited. It was essentially a luncheon composed of people you might expect at, say, Friend #1's surprise birthday party... But it wasn't.

Situation B: This one was a double-whammy because, not only were friends poached, but ethics of female loyalty were crossed. A best friend was poached by another close girlfriend, who then proceeded to set up said new friend with castaways that the Hub Friend hadn't worked as setups. Ouch.

Now, as anyone who has ever come to any event I've thrown can tell, I LOVE mixing my friends. I do it all the time; which is why my college friends know my grad school friends, know my family friends, know my random friends. It's just what I do, almost a game in my head to figure out how I can connect people and who might enjoy each other's company. But there are ethics to befriending the friends of your loved ones. And here they are. Print it out and keep it handy.

1. Before poaching, ascertain status
Thou shalt not poach new friends, exes, or people your friend is currently on the skids with (romantically or socially). We have all watched many seasons of Beverly Hills 90210, and accordingly, we know these rules forward and backwards, so I won't go into them.

2. Ease into it
What is the hurry?

These days I will go to a party and come home to a 2am Facebook add. Is that really necessary? When you're befriending someone through an existing friend, determine whether you need to become instant best friends with that person. Because those are the most egregious poachings.

Connectors (aka. Hub Friends) are connectors because on some level, they *like* introducing people. Their ultimate intent (I say this as a Hub Friend) is for everyone to get along. No one is saying don't go to dinner or a movie or hang out with a new friend. But when it happens quickly or when it's done in a shady manner (which I'm not defining, because the short rule is if you have to ask, it's probably shady) is when it's a no-no. By cutting out Hubbers, it removes the fun for them, and then we'll have less of them. And God knows we already have enough selfish people.

Connectors want to build and expand the network, not create grounds for a disassociated rebel camp elsewhere, which is often what happens. To properly poach/acquire a new friend, it is helpful to retain respect for the original friendship, because no matter at what point you join in, by definition you can never have the history the others have.

The goal is to grow your social network, not steal it.

3. Exemption: friends in close geographic proximity to one another.
When a friend moves to a new town, I will often try to introduce them to locals. Logic dictates that those people might become close or that they will hang out more than the distanced friend is able to. My first group of San Diego friends (the ones who set me up blogging, actually) is based on friend poaching, something I constantly acknowledge and thank Hub Friend Amit for.

4. If you poach friends, there are consequences.
There always are. And you have to know this, because when you befriend someone else's friend, a quick calculation can be done in your head to figure out if it's worth it. It's cost-benefit analysis, with people on the scales.

There are people I would have loved to get to know, but out of respect for the friend who introduced us, I keep a distance until I get the signal that they're cool with it- or I ask. If an assessment of other people's feelings doesn't come naturally to you, err on the side of caution. Wait it out. You do not want to be the leader of a rebel camp, nor do you want your life story to read like cheesy US Magazine tabloid fodder.

In the cases where I have poached too quickly (Rule #2, above), the Hub Friend became more distant. Likewise, when my friendship grounds are poached upon, I tend to lose interest in both of the people involved, whether it's to a degree, or completely.

Now, this morning a friend mentioned a poaching situation in which a friend started dating a sibling... Being a romantic, I think some of these rules go out the window for love. But the distance is gonna happen and you better be prepared for it.

We all get excited about new people; the crime (and consequences) appear to come in two forms:

1) becoming so excited that you neglect your original friendship

2) moving in so closely/intensely that you railroad the Hub Friend (aka. The 7th Grade Popularity Contest poach maneuver)

I could write a book on this, but I have Facebook friend adds to attend to.

A Final Note

Most legislation has notes at the bottom, where Congress or whoever talks about the reasoning or the way the laws should be interpreted. For the avoidance of doubt, Friend Poaching isn't the same thing as "Befriending". You befriend a new person with time, shared effort, and generally some level of inclusion of the person who introduced you. If you notice yourself cutting someone out of the loop, chances are you are friend poaching. If you mumble the Poachee's name in conversation with the person who introduced you, chances are you're friend stealing. Maybe you're doing so because you're retaliating ("Poaching Warfare"), or maybe you're doing it because you don't think they'd be interested in whatever you are proposing to do with your shiny new friend. As always, err on the side of caution. Maybe Sid doesn't want to go get a pedicure with you and Nancy, but it's nice to ask.

Most of us have down pat the social etiquette of not moving in romantically on other people's crushes, exes and such. We don't think twice about the fact that it's wrong. The Anti-Friend Poaching concept is the corollary of that.

In closing, be nice to your friends, and enjoy their friends... But don't poach them, for the only things that should be poached are eggs. Because they are mm mm good.

I Know This Much Is True

"A wise woman knows that she knows nothing at all."

1. I know that people come out of the woodwork to ask for favors. I also know the longer it's been since you've heard from them, the bigger the favor.

2. I know that I will never not shudder at the Seinfeld theme song.

3. I know that when people show you their true colors, you best believe them.

4. I know that coffee fixes everything.

5. I know that if we spent half the time with other people that we spend on the internet, we'd be a lot happier.

6. I know that nothing feels better than the feeling of takeoff.

7. I know that when I'm singing in my car I feel invisible.

8. I know that I'm a snob for laughing when someone else said they ate "edanami"

9. I know that even though I consider myself too cool for proverbs, "It's always darkest before the dawn" gives me chills because it's so, so right.

10. I know that I would give up chocolate for peanut butter any day of the week, so take that stereotypes about women!

11. I know that "Don't take this personally, but..." is the #1 worst way to start a sentence.

12. I know that when I call Customer Service and they say "Sorry to keep you waiting", they're not really sorry.

13. I know that 13 is and always will be my lucky number.

"We're not cynical, we're just experienced."

Jon beat me to it and has revealed to the world (ie. his reading public) my new proclamation: an immediate cease on the acquisition of new guy friends. Lilly Code 44.2201 states that "A single woman over the age of 31 will proceed forth with romantic dating, and continue to pay great attention to current friendships. However, under no circumstances will she seek out or allocate more than a modicum of time to new platonic male associates unless an exception applies, such as professional necessity."

The fact is, I am blessed. I have more guy friends than I can count. I have guy friends who are handsome, funny, caring, thoughtful, brilliant, artsy, sporty, you name it. I have a rainbow of wonderful friends. And because of this, for a long time I didn't notice that I, well, wasn't dating. It began back in high school and has followed me until now. A friend pointed out a few months ago that it's really not typical for a girl to have so many guy friends (unless she's one of those "I don't have girlfriends" girls, who we don't trust farther than we can throw her).

As it turned out, I got so caught up in always having a guy around for company that I didn't realize I didn't have exclusive rights to any of them. In the time I was accumulating charming guy friends, everyone else on the planet my age was pairing off (Source: Facebook.com). I can't be the first one this is happening to in history. I wonder if at the end of the ark's line there was a lone animal (perhaps a Lillymonster) galloping forward as they lifted the bridge and saying "Wait, Noah, I didn't get the memo! Wait for meeeeeee!"

Then more recently my girlfriends, in an impromptu session of self-analysis (perfectly timed with the looming of V-day), constructively pointed out that I have a habit of immediately boxing men into the "friend" category. I plead guilty as charged on this one. It just seems to easy to do- nice guy, not sure how I feel or if it has longer-term potential --> friend! And then we can have fun without any of the strings or drama or whatever. It's very rare actually that I *don't* put a guy in this category. My friends have also pointed out that these completely platonic guy friends can sometimes hover protectively, thereby affecting the potential advances of other guys when we're out.

The inspiration: I have lived much of my life (say, oh, 30 years) thinking that you could make the jump (I accidentally typed "hump". yikes) from friendship to relationship later on down the line. You know, get to know him while everyone's defenses were down, and then he'd wake up and realize he loved me and I wouldn't have to go through the awkward "what to wear on the date" thing that I detest.

Perhaps Miranda says it best for us (she's not a tv character, in my sad little mind, she's a friend), "I'm not sexy. Smart, yes, cute, sometimes. But sexy is what i try to get them to see me as after i win them over with my personality!"

But the clock is a-ticking. Not even the biological clock, just the "if I respond "Lilly+0" to another wedding invitation, I will scream" clock. I had to do something.

Please understand, I've had to take preventative measures in part because the species guyus friendus has evolved. Back in the day (example: high school), you had guy friends who you bummed around with after school. You had some beers on the weekend, you went to see a show, you hung out at home and listened to music. A guy was a guy was a guy. You knew what to expect.

Now the lines are blurrier. Just like a cracker jack box, when I open a friendship file with a new guy friend, I don't know what to expect. In multiple cases I'm finding that my guy friends have mutated from the kind where you knew what to expect. Certainly they offer more in some ways, but they also require more TLC than the most sensitive of ferns. They bruise when their calls go unreturned (as in, within the hour), they want to hang out all the time, they text obsessively while they know you're doing something important, and want an explanation when you can't hang out. I have actually had to have a "status of the friendship" talk with a guy friend. I don't initiate those talks when I'm dating; why are we having one now???

Fortunately for me, these guys are not blog readers, so don't think me callous, dear reader. Just reflective.

So because sometimes Guy Friend 2.0 has the potential to require 3x as much attention as a female friend, and because many of my female friends are pairing off and I need to replenish said girlfriend roster (guy friends can be game for most anything, but you always need a battalion of ladies for chocolate runs, mani/pedi afternoons, and the recession-proof shopping spree, no?) -- because of these factors, I have to build a wall at the border, and I don't know how we're handling visas just yet.

Fortunately for lazy me, Jon really summed it up, this new dictum of mine. Basically, if a guy was my friend before January 1, 2009, he will continue to be such, happily for me. If I meet a new guy, he either has to enter the dating line, or we're just friendly acquaintances. Thanks to that wonderful gene of obliviousness that so many of them carry (not you, Jon, not you), they'll never be any the wiser to the new system. Let's just keep this between us, shall we?