Friending.

Since we've been married we've had to find a bit of a balance between "His Friends," "Her Friends," and "Our Friends."

I'm probably the biggest one to blame. I don't really like making new friends. I like my old friends. They're good. And I don't know a lot of His Friends and so I'm less eager to do stuff with them. Why do stuff with his friends if I don't know I'll have a good time with them?

And Mitch would argue (and he's right) that he doesn't do stuff with my friends because I never plan stuff with them. Yeah... I need to work on that. I guess I haven't been good about planning stuff for both of us with my friends because I tend to still do my friending alone. Ashley and I go out to lunch. I go to Jackie's house. Or Heather's house. And their husbands may or may not be there.

And we have some Our Friends but really, it's so hard to find couple friends. See, when it was just you, you could be friends with whoever you wanted and not be friends with anyone else that you didn't want to be friends with. When it's both of you, you have to find the right balance of the husbands liking each other and the wives liking each other. It's like dating all over again but for couples. And more people have to like each other so it's way harder to find the right ones than the old way of dating.

Regardless, between the two of us, we have a lot of friends. Sometimes it's overwhelming to have so many friends. I know everyone says that you can never have too many friends and to some extent, I agree. But at the same time, it's impossible to spend enough quality time with every friend. It's only natural that some friends get less attention than others.

Anyway, in an effort to make the appropriate time available for all of the friends we have, I suggested to Mitch the following idea:

What if we made one long list of my friends, your friends, and our friends. Then, we can make an effort to do something with each couple. After the "date," we'll give them a grade-- A, B, or C. If they're A List Friends, we'll increase the frequency of doing stuff with them. If they're B List Friends, we'll do stuff with them once in awhile. If they're C List Friends... well, they're C List Friends.

It's not about being snobs. We love having friends. It's about organized friending.

Unfortunately there are two substantial obstacles to this idea.

1. Mitch would never in a million years let me make an actual list like this because frankly, he likes being friends with everyone. Keep inviting us to things. He loves it. I do too.
2. The logistics of the idea aren't quite realistic. Admittedly sometimes we don't see friends just because we don't. That doesn't mean we don't like them. It just means we (and likely they) are busy with other things. And that's okay. We'll see you when we see you.

It's funny because for all the books on dating and classes on dating and lessons on dating that there are for singles, there's nothing about Married Dating.