On the Subject of Friendversaries
Today’s Facebook Memories have informed me that it’s my 10-year “Friendversary” with two of my very best friends, Megan and Carolyn. You know – those other snarky bitches. My fellow Sisters In Geek. They posted our cute friend videos on Facebook and later we shared some Golden Girls gifs and some heart emojis in our 10-years long group chat and then got right back to bitching about work and discussing dinner plans and whining about being tired.
But I’m not content to leave it at that. I want to make them cry.
My husband Evil Rob first met Carolyn and Megan, playing pub quiz every Tuesday night at the Irish Snug in Denver. I’m not 100% certain on the details, just that he needed a team one week and someone suggested he join theirs, which wasn’t full. And they became fast friends, probably because they reminded him a lot of me – snarky as fuck, quick with wit and swear words, lovers of beer and nerds to the core. He kept telling me about them but that was the year we got married and Pook was 7 and I was very busy planning a wedding and parenting a second grader and honestly I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, other than to be glad Evil Rob had made some cool friends.
We finally met in the spring of 2009, at pub quiz on an evening well into my longest-ever period of being unemployed. I was depressed but trying to put on a good face for everyone, and Evil Rob knew that getting me out of the house sometimes was a good idea. So he invited these random friends of his to meet us for quiz at a jazz bar and pizza place called the D Note – it’s not there anymore, which is kind of nice, as now no one can ruin the memory of it for me. We all sat down, ordered beers, and hit it off immediately. I don’t remember what we talked about that night, but I do know it had to somewhat involve a bunch of the nerdy stuff we’re into, because Evil Rob created a three-headed monster that night.
Wait. Does that sound dirty?
Oh well. I’m leaving it.
You know that old adage about how trios of friends never work out because someone is always left out or hanging on the fringe while the other two are the REAL friends? It’s bullshit.
So we were immediately friends, and we all friended each other on Facebook the very next day, and the getting to know one another commenced, and I was always worried that they were too cool for me and I might seem too eager to want to chat or get together for hanging out, or whatever. But as time went on I realized my concerns were unfounded and that OH. MY. GOD. They liked me just as much as I liked them!
Friendships are fraught and weird for almost everyone. They are even more fraught and weird for bookish nerdy girls who grew up into bookish nerdy women. When you find your friend soul mates, it almost feels too good to be true. When you find them as a fully formed, grown ass woman of nearly 40, it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around your good fortune.
They were sharing a house back then, up in Denver. We lived in the suburbs. They didn’t mind. They also didn’t mind that I had a kid that I had to take care of most of the time, while they were happily child free. We all made an effort to hang out anyway. Sometimes they had to hang out with my kid but that all worked out – we’ve successfully indoctrinated him into our nerdy coven, and they’re some of his favorite “aunties”.
Eventually, we started having Nerd Girl Days. Nerd Girl Days involve pajamas, a boat load of cocktails, food, and movies or tv shows that we want to watch… or rewatch, as the case may be. Oh – and super loud passionate conversations about literally everything. We’ve solved all the world’s issues at least 15 times in the last ten years but drank too many bourbon drinks to remember what the plans were. (Sorry.) This won’t surprise anyone who knows us — Sisters In Geek was born on a Nerd Girl Day.
It was magic. That’s how I’ve always felt about these two women: our friendship is like magic. Meant to be. That’s super cheesy, I know. But I feel like I’ve known them both forever, and probably my soul has known them both forever. Somehow. I don’t know how it works.
Things we’ve fallen in love with together: the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the Avengers; Game of Thrones (the tv show – but also Carolyn foisted the books upon us to cheer us up one day back in 2011); Denver Pop Culture Con; Dungeons and Dragons; the new Star Wars trilogy; Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman; Funko Pops; geek artwork; live action updates of Disney films; dystopian fiction; the Renaissance Festival; annual parties for the sole purpose of snarking about awards show red carpet fashion and terrible Hallmark Christmas movies; the Alamo Drafthouse; a local restaurant called GB Fish & Chips; Hamilton and all things Lin-Manuel; Alexandria Ocasio Cortez; Brie Larson; Liquid Mechanics brewery; t-shirts from Tee Turtle.
Things we’ve cried about together: books; crappy jobs; politics; injustice; school shootings; Avengers: Endgame; the Hodor episode of Game of Thrones; the deaths of my sister and Carolyn’s dad; the unexpected death of our dear friend Brett; losing another best friend to cancer last year; everything.
Things we’ve laughed about together: everything else.
They are there for me, have seen me through some really rough shit.
We all have a lot of additional best friends – some we’ve known forever, some only a short time. Some we know in “real life”, some we’ve only known for years on the internet. But they’re all cherished and loved. I find that most people get to a certain age and find staying in touch and keeping up with friends more and more difficult. Life gets in the way and then you wake up one day and wonder whatever became of so and so from college, or that one friend you worked with for 9 years at that super shitty job you both finally left. I’m beyond lucky to have Megan and Carolyn in my daily life. They keep me grounded. They make me laugh. They make sure I eat right when I don’t feel well. They make sure to listen when I need to talk, and they give great advice, which is sometimes just “Eat all the chocolate and watch Thor and then you’ll feel better.” They support my haircut and color choices. They cheer me on when I’m writing silly books. They’re honest and real. They love me. I love them.
When I was a lot younger, I would always look around at these older women I knew who had these fantastic groups of friends – these older, snarky, don’t give a fuck ladies dressed in shawls and comfortable shoes and brightly colored jackets and maybe a funky hat or two, who gathered in cool restaurants and coffee shops and had deep conversations about books and films and loving and dying and living — and I felt wistful, and I dreamed of having friends like that someday. For many years, I felt like it was only going to be a dream, or that I would have to wait forever. But now, I have those friends.
Sometimes I can’t wait to see us when we’re old and snarky and making too much noise at our favorite restaurant and comparing prices on cardigans and bras and prescriptions for our inevitable arthritis, and still swooning over all the ones who make us swoon, and railing against all the bullshit in the world and fixing it over a few bourbon drinks and forgetting the plan come daylight. I’m hoping that we’ll eventually live someplace warm, maybe a big shared house in the desert with lots of dogs and a handful of cats (I am miraculously cured of my insane cat allergy in this scenario). We’re all half-deaf and none of us should be driving anymore (but you know I will anyway), but otherwise we’ll mostly be the same – maybe just greyer and slower and the slightest bit crankier, but we’re still badass and funny and smart, and between the three of us, we know it all.
Other times, I just love how we are here and now. We are badass and funny and smart, and between the three of us, we know it all.
So on this 10-year Friendversary, I just want to tell you that I love you notches to the moon and back and then to Mars and probably beyond but I don’t know how far that is so I can only speculate. I’m so glad my husband picked you up in that bar.
And now back to our regularly scheduled snark.