It's been a long, long time since I've had a personal conversation with anybody other than my mother, my husband, or faceless people I've "seen" only on a computer screen. I wouldn't say that I'm lonely, per se, but I'm definitely starting to head that way. I miss having close friends - the kind I had in abundance before I came out here to Ohio, the kind of which I even had a few when I was in graduate school. The kind who could see me sitting at my desk and be able to make a pretty good guess as to why I was upset without even asking.

I had great friends back in Maryland, when I was still a girl. When I left for college, somebody told me, "Your high school friends were your high school friends; your college friends are your friends for life." That turned out to be relatively false in my case; I ended up maintaining about the same number of high school relationships as college relationships when I left both environments. The number is small in both instances, but they still exist.

Only, now they seem to be languishing. I've been the primary "call-maker" and "emailer" for most of them since we moved away, and I haven't had the energy to keep that up as of late. When I get home from work, I don't feel the initiative to make yet another phone call and reach yet another answering machine. Yes, I know that people are busy; I'm busy, too. Why should I be the one responsible for maintaining contact?

I know why. Because I love my friends, and I want to stay close to them. But why don't they seem to feel the same pull?

Eric is feeling much sadder about the whole situation than I am. He feels more lonely, largely because he's such an introvert and has trouble making even casual acquaintances at work. He breaks my heart with stories about how all his coworkers will go out to lunch together, asking everyone in the office to join them except for him. I don't know how to help him, because I'm not there in the office to see the situation; hopefully, things will be better with his new job. He did say that on his last day of work at the old office, some of the guys asked him out for a drink, and he turned them down. I gently chided him for doing so; he didn't know why he had said no other than he wasn't sure that they had really wanted to go out with him.

There's a particular mutual friend of ours with whom we've been trying to reestablish contact for months now. Every time we've been about to give up trying, we get a blithe little email in return, saying how busy she is, and that she'll call us when things die down an bit. I've begun to believe that things will never die down, and that if she was really interested in remaining close to us, that she'd do better than brief memos. I'm not sure when of if I'll try her again. Of course, it's easy to say this now, but in a few days I'll start feeling guilty for my part in severing the relationship, and I'll call her again. And leave yet another message on her machine. I'll feel duped, but I'll do it anyway.

There's nobody here to whom I can really talk. I was so (let's face it) lonely the other day, that I actually confessed to our new Tech Lady that Eric and I were trying to conceive. I don't know why I did that, other than that I was hoping to establish more than a passing acquaintance with somebody, anybody. She's a great gal, and I'd love to have another close friend.

I miss Amy. I've called her, but it's not the same as a good, face-to-face conversation. I want to talk to somebody whom I can hug - other than my husband. I want to spend an evening with somebody who doesn't necessarily expect me to maintain "company manners."

I sound wretchedly pathetic. Is this what "grownups" do? I've tried to think back to the pasttimes of my own parents, and I can't ever remember them spending much time with friends except for holidays. Mom had a few church friends with whom she'd occasionally spend mornings when I was very young. Dad hung out at the golf course. Maybe I need to take up a sport; our "church friends" are all fellow choir members who are largely over sixty.

I get up. I go to work. I come home and have dinner with my husband. I get on line, then I go to bed. Repeat ad nauseam. I'm bored.

My boredom might be affecting my work in a positive manner. My storytimes these days have all involved the silliest, funniest stories on which I can get my hands, and the kids are loving it. They laugh, and their laughter makes me feel better. For a half an hour, I can forget that I have no real friends around me; the giggles of a three-year-old heal all wounds. When the parents thank me, I thank them back. If I didn't have these storytimes, I'd probably be a wreck.