An article in the Baton Rouge paper last week about friends who formed a social club in the 1940s with organized dances and home cooked dinners in each other's home (emphasis on the home cooked dinners, as the article stated, a caterer was not allowed.)
The article said, "Membership was open only to married couples, who according to the preamble to the club’s constitution, were “seeking refuge from the routine of life” by banding “ourselves together into this organization” with the “purpose to pursue this endeavor by sponsoring social entertainment for our mutual enjoyment. . . .”
Who wants to band together and seek refuge from the routine of life? (I do!)
The club now made news because of its demise. The few original members said the younger generation just wasn't interested in the social aspects of the club and membership had dwindled to nothing.
I know why.
Because we are all too busy running around doing every other things that friendship is the very last on our list (if its on our list at all).
You can read the article here
How did our friendships go from the being the most important thing in our life (when we were in school) to not even being on the list of things to do?!
Friends can provide us with somthing that you can get no where else. Its important to spent time with people who are on your side, understand where your at in life and just want to talk to you! Since we can't actually "make time" for friendship, we have to be creative with the time we have.
Some creative ways I've managed to keep relationships going:
- Three hour Saturday morning breakfast date at 6:00a. (My husband does this every Saturday morning with a large group of friends. I do this only occasionally)
- Quick breakfast date on a workday morning
- Lunch, of course!
- Saturday morning yard sales together, which typically goes like this.... One of us will see a yard sale advertised in the paper and call the the other one late Friday night to hatch a plan to meet there Saturday morning.
- Double date with husbands.
- "Laid Back Friday". What we have labled for pizza and a movie at another couple's house.
- A "free day" once a week. (My best friend has what she calls a free day once a week when her mother in law keeps her children and her and her husband are "free". Sometimes that means an evening at the Mall food court with me!)
- Meeting at the grocery store to shop together.
- Once a year Women's Bible study weekend at the beach.
- Very early dinner. I've been known to leave work at 3:30p.m., to meet my friend for dinner at 4:00p.m. so we can both be done and on our way home at 5:00p.m.
- Go to church 15 minutes early to sit and visit.
- Talk (on the speaker phone) in traffic.
- Possibly the most creative way to visit with friends.... when we were engaged, my husband had "pre-martial counseling" every Friday night with the preacher in a fishing boat on the river.
- Pick a lunch spot and send a blast e-mail where you'll be for an hour with an invitation to join you and visit with anyone who can show up (my friends and I do this often and it works really well).
- Walk the dog and talk on the phone.
- There is a Subway restaurant in my office building which makes it very easy to say.... can you meet me at Subway for a 20 minute lunch?
- Women's ministry meetings or women's bible studies.
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