I count myself lucky. I have enough friends that if I needed to talk to someone - I could make a call (or two) and find someone who would be able to listen, tolerate, interpret, and intercede if needed/wanted. But I have few enough(?) that I could actually be by myself a bit to just - well, to just be. When I was in school, most of my friends were the teachers and principals. And um - before we go there - most of my principals were women - not men. Most of my teachers were women, too - the ones that I counted as my friends. A lot of the kids would be out playing around during recess - and I was the nerdy kid who would be inside doing my homework across from my English teacher - looking up occasionally to ask her what being “real” and “self actualized” really meant. I wasn’t a nerd per se - I was just a bit misplaced. A bit more grown than the rest of the children, and a bit on the impatient side. I never faired well with small talk and superficiality. I know most people don’t want to admit to being ok with those thing, but I have found in the short time I’ve been on this earth that many many many more people are ok with superficiality than they would care to admit. I’m just sayin… As a result, I preferred the more “depressing” adults. LOL. So many of my callers ask me where all this maturity comes from and I guess that is where it is. My sibblings are all older than me - I was born late to elderly parents - and most of my friends were teachers.

I did have a very good friend though when I was growing up. She took piano lessons from the same person I did - and our families were very close. As a result - we kinda got meshed together and became friends. It was sort of by design - we were forced together and thankfully we fit.

My best friend Sam (short for Samara) and I decided when we were 9 that we were going to write a book. We decided to tackle Full House - though the reruns on TVLAND gave us a few other possibilities: All In The Family (back when Gloria was actually kinda cute!), Love Boat, and The Brady Bunch, to name a few. In our thick spiral bound notebooks we wrote and wrote - episode upon episode - and our writing was very - um… adult. We would lay together often - and fight over who was going to be “John & Jim” (2 boys who were complete polar opposites of one another - one very good boyfriend - and another very forward and down right abusive boyfriend) and who got to be the woman who they both were in love with. Can I just say that our play time together was some of the best role play training I have ever had to date? I can? Ok. My play time with Sam was some of the best role play training I have ever had to date! Our little play times combined with our story telling adventures made me the girl woman I am today! She was, well she IS, a very good friend. I of course have my twin as a girlfriend of mine, too… and then one other friend who is a girl. I have 2 very good friends who are boys. That’s it. I’m not a go out and party with 10 friends type of girl. I never have been - and I don’t think I ever will be. I can go out and party - don’t get me wrong. But I party with people I can stand for long periods of time - I don’t call those people FRIENDS - I call them acquaintances. How the hell did I get on the topic of friendships anyways?

It was just on my mind.

Most of the troubles I’ve had with “friendships” has been when I have insisted in making some girls I spend my time with into BFF and they were just not equipped to be BFF. They were not BFF (Best Friends Forever) material. And I really had to stop myself today from beating that fact into the ground. I don’t think some people are MEANT to be BFF - they are just designed to hang around and spend time with or party with and go about their business while YOU go back to your REAL BFF-ers and tell them all about it.

So I guess I killed two three birds with one rock with this post. I explained why I’m so mature. I explained why I have few friends and why I am happy with the few I have - and I explained or shared my first sexual experience with a girl.

Ahhhh - you missed that part, didn’t you?