Finding My People

If you live in the same place for years, you may or may not understand this story, but I gotta share it anyway. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that we are a Navy family, this means we move every couple of years.  Besides the stress of moving, there’s the stress of just having your circle of friends.  Making friends as a military wife is stressful and can be a wild ride.

My first priority is ensuring our kids have a circle of friends. Our kids are at the age of having friends outside of school and hopefully those friends live in our neighborhood so they can hang out.  No, we aren’t hand picking our children’s friends for them anymore (you know the playdate years), but we are monitoring to help guide them in the right direction with their selection.

What I Hate Most About Military Life

I get the question about what I hate most about the military life, and my answer is always, “I love being a Navy wife!”  This is a very true statement.  I LOVE the military lifestyle.  I love packing up moving every couple of years, seeing the world, leaving the crazy folks I meet and making new friends along the way.  Nope, I can’t lie about any of this.

What I will say I dislike the most is, having to find my people each time we move.  Boy, oh boy.  Finding my people becomes harder each move.

As I grow older, I realize there are just certain things I will not and cannot tolerate.  Also, with older children, there are fewer opportunities to strike up a random conversation with the mom sitting on the bench at the playground. You already know how it is home alone all day, you welcome any adult conversation to make it through. Heck, you start stalking hoping the other mom is at the playground each day you drive by.

Making Friends As A Military Wife Is Like Dating

I often joke about “wife dating.”  What I mean by this is when you meet another Navy wife in your housing community, at an event, the commissary, a coffee shop or just out and about any ole place. We make eye contact and start small talk.  Something may or may not click.  If it clicks, there may be an exchange of numbers, and if you are afraid to ask for that trade, you go home mad with hopes of seeing her again.  You’re laughing, but you know you’ve done it.

If either is brave enough to request the exchange of contact info or you do the Facebook search, the game begins.  Who calls first?  How soon do you call or text?  How long do you actually talk?  Yes!  It’s that crucial y’all. You can’t seem to be too needy, but you also don’t want to appear to be a jerk.

With this recent move, my goal is to find my people early.  The saddest thing ever is to finally click with someone you see all the time for 13 months.  That 14th month, you decide to be friendly, and they tell you they are PCSing in 2 months.  YIKES!

I’m Making Connections Outside Of My Comfort Zone To Meet People

This will crack some of you up, especially for my readers that know me personally.  On an afternoon stroll with Equestrian Girl Forever, I met a lady, we chatted, laughed and chatted more.  No, we didn’t exchange contact information, but we clicked.  But, for some strange reason, this lady thought I worked out.  HONEY, PLEASE.  NO!  lol

Later that afternoon and after telling my husband how I was going to stalk look for this lady again, I received an invite to a fitness group. This was my in!  Yes, we started a full conversation via messenger, then FB friends and we now chat and hangout.  LOVE this chick by the way!

Reluctantly, I went to the workout class that following Friday.  I swear these women try to kill me at every workout.  The entire time I cuss every last one in my mind.

Let me show you what I imagined us doing….

What we actually do…..

As Brooke said in this video, everyone is so encouraging. I’m nowhere near where the ladies are in the group I attend, but they push and encourage me every day.  I feel like I’m getting stronger too!  SCORE!!!

So, what does this have to do with making friends as a military wife? Look outside your comfort zone.  Check your base or military housing FB groups to see what activities are going on.  Give it a try; you never know where you may find a great group of ladies.  And this just isn’t for military wives; this is for any adult trying to make friendships out in this big ‘ole world.