notjustamilitarywife

In the spirit of my last blog entry, I thought I’d do a post on how to meet non-military friends.  This is much harder to do than you might expect.  The college experience, I learned quickly after graduating from college, is in no way indicative of the social conditions of the real world.  I got lulled into a false sense of security at our first base assignment as well, because we lucked out and got assigned to the only base within 30 minutes of my home town and my college town.  I didn’t have to go looking friends because I already had a crowd to hang with there.

Then we got sent to San Antonio for navigator training.  Holy crap.  I got pushed into the metaphorical deep end of loneliness and boredom.  First of all, we reported in a good two months prior to my husband’s class start date, so all the people who were to be our peers weren’t even on their way yet.  I got a job lined up but it involved waiting around to fill in for someone’s maternity leave, and that baby took a month and a half to make his way into the world.  It takes me about two days, maybe three of doing basically nothing before I go stir crazy and I reached that point almost right away.  I decided I was going to make every effort possible to make some new friends while I was waiting around to work.  I’m a well-adjusted, fairly socially adept person- shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Wrong.

However, I did eventually meet some fantastic friends.  Granted only one of those is from outside the military circle.  However, she is awesome and worth all the hassle I went through trying to make a non-military friend.  And I’ll share my ideas and tips for meeting new people with you here, in the hopes that you’ll have a higher success rate than I did- or at least, find that one awesome civilian friend that I think every modern military wife should have.

Since I have a natural tendency towards wordiness, I’m going to spread my tips out over several posts.  That way, you’ve got something to look forward to- lucky you!  And that way I can always add more if I get new ideas.

1. Craigslist

Yes, I am actually suggesting you use the personals on Craigslist.  If you use common sense and you’re careful, it’s possible to meet genuinely nice, fun people who are looking for new friends.  I met my one ‘non-military’ friend in
San Antonio on Craigslist, answering an ad she put out looking to meet new friends in the area.  She and her fiancé actually met the majority of their group of friends from their last home on Craigslist.

Now, back to the point about common sense- there’s a lot of creeps and weirdos skulking around on Craigslist, so you have to be careful.  Generally you can tell from someone’s email if they are a normal person looking to expand their social circle, or if their intentions are trending in a more sinister direction.  Still, if you get good vibes and you want to meet someone, do it in a public place.  Make it a group thing if you can.  Don’t give out personal information like your address or even your last name until you really feel you can trust someone. 

For more tips on using Craigslist safely, check out my article on hubpages:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Meet-Friends-While-Avoiding-Creeps-on-Craigslist

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