u/bezoar3i

Planning to do nothing but grill at home with my husband this weekend for the 4th, and got momentously sad about it because I am so god damn awful at making friends. We moved here 2.5 years ago for my job. My whole adult life my friends have been women I have met at work, because working in a male dominated industry (engineering) you are sort of forced together and make fast friends. I do truly love my new job, but way less women than my last job and the women at work I just don’t click with. There’s two very young women fresh from college, probably about 24-25, who have 0 interest in me which totally fair. At their age I wouldn’t probably have wanted to be friends with a 33 year old married lady. And one older lady in her 50s who is kind of mean.

How do you make friends outside of work or school or some other circumstance where you are forced together! I tried Bumble BFF but just got invited to 3 somes.. How do you meet people in the wild! Please give me ideas I am sad. It feels like LA is so much harder than other places.

I mean actually hate each other. None of the following:

- “omg he’s so bad/mean/evil but how HANDSOME AND SEXY”

- constant mentions of how attractive he is while not actually demonstrating any evil or bad behavior for this man who is supposed to be her enemy

- main male character secretly being in love or obsessed with her all along which the reader clearly knows because of agressive flirting

- not actually enemies or rivals at all based on the plot

- dude is not actually bad or evil or an enemy just and it’s all just some deception or misunderstanding which is revealed immediately

I would also love a real slow burn that takes many many hours of reading or multiple books to get there. Maybe it does not exist and I’ll just rant and be sad. Traditional fantasy books with a good romance plot, urband fantasy and sci fi are all good too!

Driving between Florence and Pisa, both ways, also stopping in San Miniato. Wondering if anyone has any winery recommendations that are somewhat off the main highway FI-PI-LI. Thanks!

So my Aunt (60), her husband (65), son (33), daughter in law (31) and daughter (20) have been terminal chronic offenders of dress codes and wedding etiquette. Its usually kind of minor, like no ties on the men at cocktail or formal requested. And sometimes kind of egregious like the youngest, at the time 18 wearing a short kind of casual cotton tank mini dress and flip flops to my own wedding, which was cocktail attire. My aunt also has a habit of dressing very young and is super proud of the fact she’s in good shape and can wear all her youngest daughters clothes. So at my sisters wedding she was wearing a light blue sort of lingerie looking short dress that caused literally every one who saw her to raise eyebrows and of course, photographed white in every photo she is in the background of and family photos. I don’t know really how to phrase this but it’s one thing to be in good shape as a 60 year old lady and to be able to wear a mini dress, and it’s another to basically wear stuff 20 year olds would wear clubbing to every event. The baby, the 20 year old, was homeschooled and honestly I don’t think she understands how to dress for a more formal event just from every family wedding in the past few years. She both wears the randomness kind of skimpy clothes and is kind of sheltered. Same for my cousins wife, always seems to be dressed 1-2 levels under the dress code, and defaults to short somewhay skimpy dresses. The men in the family just seem to be allergic to wearing a tie or a jacket.

So my current deliemma is my brothers wedding. Its black tie, my future sister in laws family is wealthy, formal and definitely sticklers for rules and etiquette. Her mom is a big time southern belle, hosts galas, debutante, ect ect. My mom and I are trying to figure out how to gently remind my aunt & co of the dress code. While also knowing everyone in that family gets offended easily …. Has anyone dealt with something similar?