"They're different from my other friends, they don't start sentences with "You know who just died shoveling snow?" *

I am going to write another post that might – or might not, since it doesn’t involve animals - spawn vitriol and disgust. (And I am not picking on poor Miz S, I swear I’m not – her response was tame (and at least sincere and balanced) compared to some of the emails I got on that post, and now I will say no more, I promise.) This topic is especially worrisome to me after reading Alice’s funny and heartfelt post about making new friends, which left me feeling like my soul is a withered old crone, perhaps with a big wart on her nose.

People will think, God I can’t believe she even HAS any friends. Maybe you won’t be surprised, who knows. But here goes.

I asked Gina (who totally generated that BFF anxiety in ME when I first asked her out for coffee lo, these many eons ago) recently if it would be very awful to have “Leave me alone, I have enough friends” tattooed on my forehead. It’s not that I have thousands, or that I really think you can have too many. It’s not that I don’t meet people I am sure I want to hang out with, and who would make my life better, funnier, or just simpler. But I am feeling very stressed lately, and have not had nearly enough time to myself.

And what I want – what I NEED – to do, for example, on school mornings is drop the two older boys off and return home to plunk Terzo in front of Sesame Street for an hour while I drink a cup of tea, read the paper, catch up on blogs, get the laundry started, wake up a little bit…in other words, probably all those things that other people get up early, before their children, to do. And which I don’t, because I have never been a morning person and the fact that my offspring rise at the ass-crack of dawn has not changed my proclivities, if it has changed my actual actions. I may like you, you may be a perfectly nice person I will be sorry I didn’t get to know, but right now I don’t want to go walking with you, I don’t want to take the kids to the zoo, I don’t want to go to the park, I don’t want to do anything but what I said above. I don’t want to DO anything. I don’t want to SCHEDULE anything. I just want to BE for a few moments, catch my breath, and figure out how to get on with my day. I have a husband who works long hours, and three children who must be fed and clothed and kept healthy, and I have work to do (that actually pays money) even though I no longer go to an office. I have to do necessary things like go grocery shopping and clean and run errands, in between picking up and dropping off children at various schools, and I truly don’t understand why NO ONE ELSE seems to need to do these things. (I also seem to need a lot of time to myself, which may or may not be normal but that’s what it is. I enjoy my own company and don’t get nearly enough of it. )

You know what else? Friday evenings? I don’t want to go out at ten for drinks; by ten I would like to be in bed, asleep. I don’t want to sit in your living room and fondle dildoes with the rest of your friends at your Tupperware – er, excuse me, Passion Party; I don’t want to see a movie I know nothing and care even less about, or stroll the mall, or do much of anything other than have a drink or a restorative cup of tea, maybe watch a period or two of the hockey game with my husband, read some of my book, and go to bed early. If my neighbors are out on the porch, I might wander across the alley and have a glass of wine and a bit of a chat with them – this event does not require showering, make-up, or for that matter, shoes, and is a highlight of my social life. I am TIRED. I am LAZY. I don’t like feeling obliged. I am possibly the most antisocial person I know.

I don’t see enough of the friends I already have and love. E lives three minutes from me and I see her when we drop the kids off and pick the kids up at school. Gina lives three miles from me and I see her maybe once a month, if I am lucky and we are both healthy, awake, and in decent moods. And I don’t love her any less when she calls to cancel because she’s feeling yucky and it’s raining and we don’t feel like venturing outside, and she doesn’t love me any less when I call to cancel because I have had a rotten day and just want to go to bed with the comforter over my head. And THAT is the kind of friend I need. Not one who minds if I have to cancel, or doesn’t understand why I don’t want to pay for a babysitter to go do something I actually have no desire to do. I am very fortunate to have several dear friends like that; I also have some wonderful cyberfriends to whom I consider myself closer than people I might see even every day (and somehow I know these friends, if they lived near me, would be the friends I would want to see and who would understand when I needed to hibernate.)

I don’t want to join a mommy’s group, or discuss books with people who consider Maeve Binchy great literature (not that I haven’t read and/or enjoyed a Binchy title…), or schedule exercise everyday at the same time (for that matter, I prefer to run by myself, as my running is done as much for its mental as its physical benefits.) I don’t want to make elaborate plans that require planning like unto the invasion of Normandy.

I really should have been one of those hermits who lived atop a pillar or in a cave somewhere. I probably should not have gotten married and procreated four times. I probably will not be surprised when I am old and alone, with my sixteen cats and neighbors who don’t know or care if I am dead or alive. There are many people I love, and fewer people I actually enjoy spending time with; but mostly, I need way more time by myself than I get, and I am starting to mightily resent a lot of perfectly nice people demanding more of my time and attention.

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* Richard (Tom Selleck), on "Friends," about Joey and Chandler