Do I smell bad?

Friends.

I used to have them.

But, somewhere along the journey of marriage, 3 kids & moving cross country, they seem to have disappeared.

I have people I know pretty well, acquaintances, co-workers I get along with, classmates I see outside of the classroom and wave to.

But, friends? Not so much.

I can count on 1 hand the number of people I can say are my honest-to-goodness friends.

And none of them live in this state.

One I haven't seen since my mom's funeral, 2 years ago. The other I see once, maybe twice a year.

I suppose, if we had decided to stay in the po-dunk little town we went to high school in, like apparently everyone else we went to school with did, maybe I'd have some people to hang out with every once in awhile.

Normally this kind of shit doesn't bother me, because, well, I really have no life. I get up, I cook, I wipe butts, I clean, I go to bed. That's the gist of my day. But everyone once in awhile, I get a bug up my ass, something stuck in my craw, sand in my vagina, whatever phrase you want to use, and I get a tad bit pissed over the situation.

Like tonight. The hubs is out at a bar, with a co-worker. He's been gone for 4 hours. He'll likely be gone for another. Once again, I dealt with the end of dinner, and the whole bedtime routine with two extremely cranky children all by myself. He went out earlier this week, and did the same thing. He goes out every week for dinner & drinks with his geek buddies.

I have no one to go out with, no one to do anything with.

And this is not for lack of trying. But, something that I've come to notice about small towns is, once someone has a circle of friends, it seems almost impossible to break into it. We've lived here for almost 6 years. I've never had a girl's night out, my kids rarely are invited for playdates (although I have hosted quite a few), and the few people I can call the closest thing to a friend have almost NOTHING in common with me. They don't like the same music or movies, or they have completely different hobbies.

Not that I'm judgmental in any way. I'm open to pretty much everything. We're close friends with a couple who are baby-wearing, organic food buyin', compost makin', God-fearin' Conservative hippies. We're also close friends with a guy who is a gay Atheist. Like I said, completely not judgmental. It takes all kinds, and far be it for me say only certain types of people can be my friend.

Then, to add insult to the friend-less injury, I couldn't even find a damn friend to go with me to a concert in October.

Seriously??

I asked everyone I knew, no one was interest. It's not like I asked them to go to the opening of a porn movie. It's a damn concert. Are my interests and tastes THAT extreme that no one would even consider it? I was even willing to buy the damn ticket for them. The hubs was willing to go, but the ticket cost a hell of a lot less than a sitter for 6 hours, so we decided he would stay home and watch the kids.

The hubs has tried to help me. He's tried SO hard to help me. Trying to get me and the wives of his co-workers together, hoping that we'll be friends. I've tried, but nothing sticks. It doesn't help that I'm a 30-something college student, who is constantly surrounded by 18-23 year olds. Like they WANT a friend who has kids & a mortgage. No, they'd rather go out every weekend and get completely trashed like any good red-blooded American college student. I'm too old for the college kids, and too young for the wives of my husband's peers. I'm stuck in the damn middle. It sucks, big time.

I think the problem is, I'm not young & stupid enough to try and mold myself to whatever people want me to be. Yeah, I'm married and have kids, but I still listen to loud music. I can cook a mean chile verde and damn I make good zucchini bread, but I love video games (me & our RockBand have a standing engagement). I'm too old for the skinny jeans but not quite ready for the elastic waist polyester knit pants.

I'm in the no-man's land of womanhood.