Query, and Friends over Forty

Would be weird if I actually befriended The Girl’s SpEd teacher?   Like not just “friendly,” but meet for coffee after hours?  She really is awesome and is one of those rare, rare people who seems to like me too, and I think she just accepted my casual invite/bribe to chat about ESY.  At Panera.  On Tuesday.  

It IS, however, entirely possible she just likes free coffee.   

I hit it off with one of The Boy’s teachers a couple years but she got weird when I invited her to a bunco group (Bunco, for the uninitiated, is the mid-west's excuse for a bunch of SAHMs to get together and drink too much.  There is occasionally dice involved.)  In retrospect she had good instincts, since I dropped out shortly thereafter myself.  If you can’t click with anyone over a bottle or two of wine there is no hope.  These are not the people you're looking for. 

I'm sure I was mostly to blame since I'm never at my most adorable when confronting large and less than warm groups of people I don't know, so no fault of theirs for not finding me fabulous, but it just wasn't happening.  Even with the wine.  Did I mention the wine?  It didn't help.  

Ever since I’ve had it in my head that the social mingling of parents & school staff is frowned upon.  It probably is.  The potential conflicts could be legion.  Especially if you spend a little time with them and then decide you don't care for them that much after all?  Have you ever hit it off with a mom and tried to  expand into a couples' dinner and then you find out the couple bicker all night and/or over-share their bedroom fetishes?  

Yikes. 

But still.  Making friends as a grown up is hard, especially for the socially awkward an introvert.  I have been blessed by several very dear friends and made more than I could've hoped for through this space.  (Most of whom I'm excited to see this summer at the NDSC conference!  Whoot!)

But as loved as I feel in general I don't think I can say I'm not hiring - any good company will snatch up quality people, independent of staffing levels, right?  

So.  

I guess I'm getting coffee on Tuesday!?

(yikes!)