Confessions of a Former Social Butterfly

Socially speaking, some folks are spokes on a wheel while others are hubs. Some people socialize with and bare their souls only to a few incredibly close friends, while others tend to circulate amongst a larger set of acquaintances. People who can be categorized as hubs, however, aren't just folks with lots of friends; they go a step beyond that. They bring people together.



While I've never though of myself as wanting for close friendships, I've always seen myself as a natural hub. I'm guilty of having played matchmaker (or having tried to) more than my fair share of times. I always think of friends of mine who don't know, but who I suspect would like, one another, and have tried to set up social gatherings where they can meet and get to know one another. I likewise enjoy meeting my friends' friends, and befriending them in my own right. Although formal salons are no longer de rigeur, in my day I have organized study groups (while in school), hosted potlucks, and planned and thrown tons of house parties. I'm a joiner, a signer-upper, and close to fearless in new social settings. I strike up conversations with strangers while waiting in line at the Post Office, if that gives you any idea.

Perhaps my training as a telemarketer (I spent my college years raising money from alumni and undergraduates' parents for financial aid, faculty salaries, improvements to buildings and grounds, etc.) made me so comfortable in my own skin, or perhaps my willingness to take such a job was a natural outgrowth of my gregarious nature. Either way, I'm an extrovert, generally speaking.


This feature in particular came in handy when I went through my separation and ensuing divorce a few years back. After three years of marriage, and five years of couplehood all told, I found myself living on my own, and I craved company desperately. I was lucky: I had then (and still have) an amazing, and amazingly supportive, network of close personal friends. I always describe my relationships with these people by saying that we write one another reciprocal blank emotional checks, which we can cash as needed -- even if it's inconvenient and without a moment's notice. Even as time passes, and as we get older and have families of our own to attend to, I suspect that if I called one of these friends with a true emergency, they'd drop everything to be there for me. I know I would for them.

But I digress. As much as I loved these friends, and as good as they were about being there for me, a gal can't help but feel guilty kvetching without cease about the same woes to the same sympathetic ears night after night. It's not like I was a bastion of epiphanies and realizations at the time. I just had to grapple with my uncoupling -- the reasons behind it, why it was a good thing, what it meant, and what was going to happen next -- for a while before it all started to make sense.


When my gracious but beleaguered closest friends started to show signs that they were tiring of hearing of my saga, and before I shifted gears, began dating again, and spent our periodic phone conversations regaling them with humorous anecdotes of first-date woes, I sought out new friends. I decided to reestablish myself as a hub par excellence, constantly making dinner plans, hosting parties, and doing whatever it took to make sure I wasn't alone.

It was exhausting.

I guess exhaustion was what I needed back then. I sought it out so that I didn't have time to let the "what ifs" run rampant in my head. I succeeded. I befriended new colleagues, I made gym buddies and started attending spin class religiously, and I signed up for a share in a summer beach house. I made sure that I always had something to do, and someone with whom to do it.

It was actually a lot more rewarding than being married, at least the first time around. I engaged with folks who valued my input, dealt with me fairly, and sought out my company.



As great as it was, socializing ad infinitum took a ton of energy. It also drained my budget. Going out to eat is never as cheap as cooking at home. Throwing parties is loads of fun, but the time devoted to buying groceries, libations, setting them up, and then to facing the inevitable post-party cleanup is time you don't get back.

Eventually I met my husband (who recently made sure to let me know he'd rather I stop referring to him as "the Mister" online). Eager to invest myself in our budding relationship, I beat a hasty retreat from my status as unofficial party planner for my crowd. Although I didn't get lost in our relationship such that not every "I" statement turned into a "we" statement, I relinquished my post as Minister of Fun for my peeps, and stopped making plans on a nightly basis.


These days, I try to maintain a balance. Without sacrificing the one-on-one time essential to a healthy relationship, I still like to socialize with my friends. So sometimes my husband and I go out with one of my friends, or one of his, and we're lucky enough (and we're of such an age) that each of us has friends who are in relationships of our own with spouses or significant others whom we both like. So double-dates are also on the agenda. However, inevitably I, or we, wind up going out so frequently that I start feeling overwhelmed by my full dance card. This is usually followed by an inevitable return to hermit/shut-in status, and then followed by my reintroduction to society....

It's hard to get it right. Friendships that aren't nurtured eventually evolve into acquaintances or ex-friends. Now that I'm in my thirties, breakups with friends usually aren't a function of any big dramatic event so much as the result of a gradual parting of the ways. One person has a kid, and the other doesn't; one person is coupled and the other is single and in need of a wing-man; and so on.

I'm not yet ready to become a spoke, but -- for me, at least -- hub status is too exhausting to maintain continuously. I have to figure out what there is halfway in between the two and try to become that.