#3 Bestie

I am a self styled extroverted introvert.

Oxymoron, you ask? Nope.

I am great at putting on a show, holding conversations, regaling you with wild stories, remembering those tiny details from our last chat and weaving them into the present conversation seamlessly. If I’ve invested this far, it’s because I genuinely care.

But - and it is a big but - the energy it takes me to do this and the constant battle with my self confidence is exhausting.

This is not you. It’s me. Trust me.

Lately I’ve noticed how much harder it is to make friends in your 40’s. We’ve recently moved and whilst we have an amazing long term crew that we’ve hit all key milestones with, it those bonus friendships, the ones that you make at the kid’s schools, sports and other activities that become your people.

Only now, my kids are older. They make and execute plans on their own, which is both fabulous and a little sad. These core childhood years seem to be evaporating as quickly as sand filled creche shoes in a washing machine.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve met some wonderful people here and are slowly building new foundations of friendships. But it’s the crippling self doubt and self consciousness that come with it that undo me.

I told my husband, calm, warm and effortlessly mate-y, that it feels like dating again but platonically. Only it’s much harder that the days of our youth were I was the Queen of the Bathroom Besties, making instant friends over a shared raspberry vodka cruiser while waiting for the loos. Those were the days.

So, like any self respecting 40 something year old, I rang my bestie for a whinge, where we went through the smash hits of”:

“Do people like me?”

 “Am I too much?”

“Do I really need new friends?”

She ever so patiently waited, woman is a saint, to tell me that I am being an idiot and that we in fact had this exact same conversation with our daughters when they were in prep together, a decade ago.

Strangely this gave me comfort. Because no matter how old our brains, bodies and our experiences get, making genuine connections is hard at any age.

I mean I can’t really adopt my daughter’s approach to making friends when she was five and approaching people with “I like Shopkins, do you want to go on the swings?”

But then again if someone approached me with “I like drinking champagne and watching Real Housewives, want to be friends?” I’d dig out a raspberry vodka cruiser and bestie we’re on.

Perseverance and self-confidence are key my friend, we’ve got this.