see my friends more often

Last weekend me and ‘the guys’ had a lovely evening playing games. I invited them to celebrate my birthday. I usually don’t celebrate my birthday, but they kept on asking about it, so I figured I might as well transform one of our regular game nights to a birthday ‘party’. All said and done they decided to give me a gift, which was the game ‘Hippe Kippen’ (I don’t have any idea what it is called in English and if it even is available abroad). It is such a lovely gift! The game is really nice. You have to collect unique cards of different colours and make rows of them and you can collect points for the longest row, or unique rows. Others can interfere though by making longer rows, or making a row in the same colour, so it isn’t unique anymore. It sounds pretty stupid, but it really is a cool game! We had tons of fun with it.

It reminds me that I really should put more effort in having game nights with the guys. Playing games really is something I rarely do whit other people and to be hounest, I doubt if it would be as much fun as with the guys. When I worked on this goal, I put more effort in seeing my female friends more often. I guess it is because friendship with guys is more stable. When you don’t see them for a while they never ask why you didn’t contact them, or make a big deal about it. It is just ok. On the other hand, guys won’t contact you often as well (at least ‘my’ guys won’t ;)). So I can easily take them for granted, which I really shouldn’t. They’re my friends and deserve attention too! Besides they’re fun!

I really need to catch up with my friends more often, it is just that I find life gets rather hectic and the time slips away from me. However having made the above excuse for my past behaviour I now want to try and still see them often even when life is hectic.

I was looking through my list of things here on 43T and I had forgotten about this goal totally, but it doesn’t matter, because I’ve been working on it without knowing it. I still try to see a friend every week and I must admit that it is going well. I’ve moved back to the ‘city’ (in my opinion, the Netherlands only has two real cities, but other people seem to think otherwise ;)) in which my school is, so I’m much closer to my friends then I was with my previous internship (I did that in Rotterdam and the friend that lived closest was an hour away by public transport). Now I’ve got three close friends living about 10 minutes away :). On the weekends I still go ‘home’ to see my father, boyfriend and I try to meet with the friends that still live there.

Some of my friends live far away and we’re all busy with our own things, so I don’t see them as often as I (and they) would want, but that is inevitable in life, since we all went somewhere else to pursue our own studies and careers. I do talk to them every once in a while by phone or e-mail and we’re always trying to set a date to meet. I guess that is as good as it gets, but I’m happy I manage to see them a couple of times a year. Besides, then we got a lot to chat about :P.

Also I’ve stopped putting energy in friendships that are not worth it. Some friends just don’t seem very interested in me and my life anymore and when we meet it is always because I arranged it. I know that you can’t be friends with everone forever and I should not try to stick to how things were 10 years ago. Sometimes you loose old friends, but you also gain new ones. I’m glad I do see that now, it saves a lot of energy for the friends that do want to see me.

Well, I am marking this goal as done. I’m happy with the way things are between me and my friends now. Sometimes I see them a couple of times a week and sometimes I have a week where I’m busy and don’t see any friends. I just should be a bit flexible about it and take it as it comes. At least I’ve always got new ideas and things to do with them, so I’ll be fine :).

Walking with Sunita tomorrow then Cinema with Anita. They are Fab friends.
Okay next on the list.
Phone Verna
Phone Lynn and pop around for a cup of tea.
Call Maia in Sept she should be back by then.
Speak to Dh about Ds’s birthday in October. Invite everyone or a small party!

I went to a theme park with some friends last weekend of april. Man, was it fun! I hadn’t been to a theme park for a long time. So it was loads of fun, not only discovering the rollercoasters and other attractions, but also the girls. we hadn’t done anything like this with the 4 of us before, but I can say it was really nice. We laughed quite a bit! On the photo we’re trying to take a good photo of us lying in the grass, but the sun was so bright we all ended up with our eyes closed. We’re planning a new trip as we speak.

My internship really has a bad influence on my social life. It is no longer possible to see one friend a week. I do try to see as much friends as possible though. So, I still feel that I’m doing better on this goal then I was a year ago. I try to call my friends more often too!

I justed invited a few of my friends over for Saturday. I think we might try to cook some cool recipes I found today. My friends and I love to eat!

Lynn Jenny and Hamida
Following week Verna and Karen

Out with Sunita and William. Going up town on the train with Ds. Must check if anything is going on for us.

I’ve been seeing at least one friend a week for the past months. Often I even saw more friends :). This really makes me happy, because friends are important. I want to keep this up. I think I’ll see how it goes the next two months and if I still see at least one friend a week, I’m going to mark this as done :).

G,A and myself are now booked to go to the Country Living fair. Now need to find a pub or resturant to go to. Posted on mumsnet waiting for the answer.