Day 124: I Went on a First Date with a Girl and I liked It

If you remember back to around Thanksgiving last year, I was talking about making grown-up friends and maintining grown-up relationships with. Even for those people who I've known from high school and college, keeping up with people is hard, and there aren't all that many people who can maintain relationships as close as we did in the dorms.

There's no flaw in this at all, it's just a natural progression of life, but it's a progression I'm not used to yet.

At that PRSA meeting that I went to a while back, I was seated next to a girl who was doing very similar work to mine, and we struck up a really good conversation and had a lot in common...and I decided that we should be friends...and I asked her out for coffee...and she agreed!!

I'm making girlfriends!

That meeting was a long time ago, but after living through the holidays, life changes (she just got a new job), and an ice storm, we finally got together over Starbucks.

It was really all of the same feelings that I've had going on a first date. I was nervous that I wouldn't recognize her immediately, that we'd have nothing to talk about, that she'd find some horrible personality flaw in me that would instantly render this a bust, etc. I worried about what to wear (do these flats make me look like the type of girl you'd want to be friends with?) and how much make-up was appropriate. I reminded myself to be myself and ran through a couple questions to break the ice.

With one last piece of encouragement from Mark ("Go make girlfriends!"), and a determined smile in the mirror, I headed out.

Conversation wasn't even the tiniest bit awkward, we found lots of things in common and ended up chatting for almost two hours. At the end, we even set up another date over our undying love for unpasteurized and stinky French cheeses.

I am awesome at making friends. When did I ever question it?