Strongly Worded

Primary Friends

So on Friday night we had a two-fold adventure.

Fold #1: we drove to deep into suburbia, to see R.'s house (yes, my friend R. is now certifiable homeowner!)

Fold #2: we drove from suburbia to Rhode Island, where we K. lives, and where she was hosting game night: a Friend Integration event and a boyfriend debut.

Before I recount any of the details, I must note that the highlight of the evening was spending about four hours total with close friends, on a multi-leg road trip reminiscent of college (OK, I confess, I never had close friends in college, nor did we ever go on a road trip, but if I had, this experience would have been reminiscent of it). When, in our busy, over-scheduled lives, to we ever spend four hours together without a meal, without movies, without some kind of activity? How rare and nice is it to just speed through the darkness and talk!

And talk we did. It took almost an hour to get to R.'s, and the further we got, the more convinced we were that we were lost, that we had passed R. and her fiance's new house, that we had somehow been sucked irretrievably off the map. And just then, miraculously, we pulled into the driveway. The car got stuck in the snow, and we had to push it back into the street, but it was still extremely exciting.

The house is set pretty far back from the road, in a pretty, wooded area, and it is very big with a huge yard, a hot tub (!), fireplaces, and an enormous back room (it spans the whole house) which the realtor called "the Tuscan room" (perhaps because the exposed beams that suggest Northern Italy?). According to R., "we can't think of any other name for it. Now it's the Tuscan room for evermore." The house (which is still unoccupied) has echoes of its previous owners and their frou-frou taste: angel-shaped towel holders, grape leaf switchplates, and a single floral border that wraps around the top of almost every wall. But the exciting part was seeing the potential--already, great new colors in the living area, a stunning new table and chairs, light flooding through the French doors, R.'s creativity and talent just springing into action. I could imagine an autumn evening sipping cider in the hot tub--the 4th of July on the lawn, furniture nestling into place, a cozy home taking shape.

So, after the tour, we were over an hour late to K's, and we piled into the car bound for Providence, bemoaning the fact that we had almost an hour to drive and that it was already getting late. We called K. to give her our ETA, and she sounded kind of panicked, so we worried that some awkwardness was occuring with the guests she had invited from her graduate program. K. moved to Rhode Island in the Fall to attend grd school--before that, she lived for three years in the same neighborhood as me. Friday was our first encounter with her Providence Crowd and also her new Love Interest. A Friend Integration process is always a dicey affair. I have rarely risked it. Will people mingle? Or form separate camps? What will everyone talk about?

I (nor K.) needn't have worried. When we finally arrived, the party was in full swing. A big cluster of Grad Students (and their partners) sat in a circle playing Balderdash. We knew none of them. One of them had an exceptionally cool dog who broke the ice by prancing around and flicking his ears inside out. The tips of his dark ears were white, giving his face a fondue effect.

We imports joined the game and then settled into a nice, integrated conversation. The boyfriend debut went over well--he was appropriately friendly, but not ingratiating. He'd brought cool music and a CD player. He ensured that everyone had drinks.

Too soon it was time for us to leave. By now it was close to 11:00 p.m. and we had almost two hours of driving ahead of us. We left en masse, observing that the Grad Student Friends lingered.

Once we got back in the highway, we mused over this. We all liked the Grad Student Friends, particularly the one with the dog, and the one with the cool haircut.

But ...

"We did not behave like primary friends. Primary friends are the ones who get there first--they're like the party core--and then the secondary friends arrive and stay for a little while--but the Primary friends stay late and do the post-party analysis."

We worried: are we no longer K.'s Primary friends?

Of course not! Unforseen travel delays had caused our late arrival. Naturally the Grad Student crowd would arrive early and leave late because they lived nearby. Those people all went to school together. We've known K. much longer.

But doubt lingered. We discussed whether we'd ever lost friends in this way. I recounted a group of Primary college friends that dissolved when Corinne, one of the (coolest) women in the clique ditched the others (who were substantially less cool) for a new group of Primaries in another dorm. We tried to woo her back, but it was very hurtful, and never the same. R. shared a similar story about a college roommate who left her for new sarcastic, mean-spirited Primary group.

We weren't really worried about losing K.. But it was nice to talk about friendship, about the dynamics that occur but are rarely articulated. We talked about transitional friends: those we come to know and love through others. Our group evolved in this way: I knew K. from childhood, she knew R. from college, R. and M. met somehow once we all moved to greater Boston, and we've all become Primary friends. Now E., a childhood friend of R., is joining the crew. Over time, significant others weave into the fabric. We can count on each other to come to our parties, be that "core", diffusing that awkward, scary first hour.

We stopped on the way home for fries, and the car was foggy and steamy with our warmth and a slighty sickening greasy smell, but the hot salty taste and the hilarity more than made up for it. When I finally got home, close to 2 a.m., I was tired and crabby. But it was the most fun night I'd had for ages.

Posted by Dori at 6:25 PM