SWF seeks...

I think it’s kind of funny when my friends (and in this case, family), "set me up," so to speak, not with a date, but with a possible new best friend. A few years ago, my employer’s wife felt a special urgency to have me meet her neighbor. As some of us know, that blossomed into a fine friendship, even if I was a little stricken with her at first. But it seems like the one who started it knew that was going to happen, because she wasn’t at all surprised when it did.

Recently we had a new couple move into the ward. They’re newly married and don’t have any children yet. The wife is shameless about asking for new friends, and the ward has responded favorably. I like her. She’s daring and transparent and she has red hair. But for some reason, my sister has made a point to illustrate to me how much we have in common. As if she’s trying to get us to be good friends. I wonder at her motives and her thought process. Here are two lonely women in need of a best friend...perhaps they will hit it off with each other? If she’s not going to try very hard to date guys, here’s someone she can at least hang out with and enjoy? As wary as she was about my close friendship with MJ, does she feel a little sad that I don’t have a best friend anymore? And if that is what's behind it, I have to feel somewhat gratified that certain members of my family would place my happiness and comfort over what they would want for me, unlike my mother, who when flirting chatting with the local missionaries, loves to mention that she has a daughter who is still single, even though I’m old enough to have given birth to either of them.

But don't fret, dear readers (or rejoice, depending on your position), I do not think I have a new best friend in the works.