Really.

• I don’t pick up hitchhikers wearing tank tops.
• Anyone who employs the preemptive caveat “I hate to be a buzz kill, but…” is a goddamn liar.
• “Like a Prayer” just came on the radio. Please excuse me for five minutes while I try like Hell to remember the kneeling-for-prayer-emerges-into-jumping-and-spastic-jazzhands dance my cousin and I choreographed for this song when we were 6 and 5 years old, respectively.
• Listen to “Thunder Road” and tell me that wouldn’t make an amazing hardcore song, especially thanks to those last two super triumphant swells at the end.
• Brian Krakow was the David Foster Wallace of angsty, early-to-mid-90s teen melodramas.
• The “Endless Love” / in vitro fertilization montage from Baby Mama is genius.
• Unless they’re racist or abusive or whatevs, I’m not into judging celebrities who act a little crazy. I’m not one who is in a position to pass judgment on someone like Lindsay Lohan. If I had all of that money and access, I’d probably be a little Lohan myself.
• How To Not Be a Total Idiot When Driving Through a Rotary should be a required course in Maine schools.
• Having never been involved in a convoluted, sound-effects-heavy mishap, no, I have never felt the need to try Powdermilk Biscuits.
• Yo yo yo, 13-year-old me: DON’T WORRY. In the future, everyone is a nerd (sort of) and they do NERDY COMPUTER THINGS ALL DAY.
• No, it’s TRUE. Shit gets SO EFFING NERDY that they release scientific studies on how sitting in chairs all day will kill you and they talk about that shit on NPR. That’s how nerdy everyone becomes.
• I hope that “Adventures in Babysitting” fan fiction in which Chris and Joe Gipp have the hot sex they were clearly meant to have is out there somewhere. I don’t want to read it; I just want to know that it exists. (Of course, I’d just as easily settle for a Chris / Dawson quickie at the garage.)
• Supermarket employees who oversee the self checkout stations are just preemptively sucking up to Skynet.

I remember thinking in my mid-20s—right when it seemed as though there were 6-7 weddings per summer and I felt like I couldn’t get my shit together—that weddings were these small, impermanent nations of crazy. That their people rally around couples instead of flags.

Every attendee—every single one—seemed insane. The couple is driven to mental/emotional instability by the planning and execution of the event and every person there has his/her own reason to be a little nuts, conditions which are heightened by the collectivization of dark energies. (And booze.)

The attendee scrolls through their own patchwork of an internal monologue about the pageantry, the drinks, the dancing, the food, the anxiety, their partner or their lack thereof, work, the surrounding attendees, the drinks again, the music, the game, the love, whether or not another drink is one too many… Then proceeds to look for someone to dance with and/or fight with and/or engage in other eff-word behaviors.

Going to a wedding felt a bit like what I imagine spending a couple of hours in Dennis Hopper’s psyche might have been like, sans all that blow (depending on the wedding), plus bad dancing.

Note: I wrote this last year, but not for this venue. I was reminded of it by all of the graduation photos I am seeing in my various social media feeds.

Learn new languages in the places where they were born; drink all night with international strangers; kiss girls or boys from other countries; eat strange foods; see this world. Burn into your mind images of how other people live; provide for yourself context for your opinions and ideas. See enough to realize that you are tiny, that you don’t know anything, and that this is a beautiful and oddly assuring fact.

Take whatever money you make while working as a line cook this summer, save it, and spend it on a trip throughout Autumn. Buy some books, learn everything you can about some place foreign to you, and go there immediately. If you withdraw from your classes now, you will be off the hook for the Fall Semester, and you will be all the better for skipping it. People who lack confidence in their own abilities will tell you that if you put off school now, you will never go back, but you know that you are capable of doing whatever you are Hell-bent on doing. Traveling will make you a better student anyway and all the cool positions will be filled by curious, well-traveled applicants over done-in-4-years college graduates anyway. Doing this will open your eyes in a way that they have not yet been opened, and it will offer to your study some context that you can’t find anywhere else. You have all the time in the world to do this, you think, but doing so as soon as possible and hitting the road right now will ensure that you actually get around to it, and it will do you a lot of good.

You will eventually get around to traveling, thankfully for me, but not until long after you make and squander thousands of dollars on over-priced coffees and other unmemorable crap. You’re 18-years-old; you’re more or less invincible; go out into the world and get to know where you live.

Sure, your jobs at the restaurant and mall are fun and everything, but after a while, there is only so much retail experience you really need when you are young and have access to nearly infinite resources at your fingertips. In a handful of years you will find yourself seeing how people in the Balkans, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories live and your eyes will be opened to the immensity of the world. You will meet smiling children and weathered adults; you will see houses riddled with bullet holes; you will share time with beautiful strangers. Even though you were told that everyone hates Americans these days and that you should lie and tell those you encounter that you are Canadian, a Palestinian cabdriver will tell you, “Everyone thinks we hate Americans and we don’t. We all know what it is like to be held captive by a government uninterested in its citizens’ best interests.” Your mind will be blown and while we both know that you are not a person who puts a lot of emotional energy into regret, you will definitely wonder what you were waiting for those past handful of years and why slinging coffee, making nachos, or selling t-shirts stood between you, adventure, and better understanding this giant, beautiful rock. It is something of a cliche, but only because it is true: No one will ever look at their time spent at menial jobs during their youth and wish they have done more of that; most will look at that time and wish that they had occupied more of their youth exploring the world and themselves.

On a somewhat related note, stop wasting so much time with people who have finite aspirations and love in their hearts. This isn’t to suggest some ambitions are lesser than others—in time you will meet some full time moms with more fire in their bellies than the worldliest of travelers, janitors with more gumption than the most powerful of players—but try to assess who you give your time to on the basis of the amount of love, passion, and care they put into living out their days. Not only are these people substantially less emotionally draining than those who don’t, you will progress with each other, support each other, be there for each other. They will encourage you to do the things that will make you grow, and out of concern for you, they will challenge you when you pursue sloppy, wasteful endeavors. They won’t naysay your plans when you share with them your dreams, where you plan on going, what you hope to be. They will exchange your stories for their own and you will revel in them and grow together. You will write them letters and share and you will cheer each other on.

So what are you waiting for, kid? Buy the ticket, take the ride.

About a week after my 13th birthday, I accidentally set an abandoned building on fire. I can’t speak to the experiences of the two 12-year-old boys in Lewiston, who, in seemingly unrelated cases, set devastating fires to buildings that people lived in, but I can speak to my own.

Two friends of mine—one just about to enter the military and another only a year older than me—and I started spending time in a building that contained what were once the offices and supply rooms of a lumber yard. We broke into it a couple times and decided that it would be cool to clean it up and to use it as a place to go and get away when we wanted to, largely because we were bored and raised on movies like Stand By Me and The Goonies.

On the third or fourth time we entered the building, my two friends were downstairs when I had stumbled upon a room that was filled with various chemicals and acids, containers of which were literally stacked several feet high in a corner. I took one of the containers of acetone off of the stack and I filled a spray paint cap about an eighth of the way up with it and lit it on fire just to watch it burn.  I had long been fascinated by fire, particularly its powerful and forbidding nature, and I can’t underscore enough that my reasoning was as shallow as I just indicated: I did it simply to watch it burn.

Before I began to feel comfortable in my incredibly lanky teenaged body, I was very clumsy. This manifested itself when I stood to pick up the cap and move it to a nearby table and, in doing so, knocked over the can of acetone. The container spilled and immediately ignited upon coming into contact with the fire. It propelled the canister across the floor, spreading a small lake of fire everywhere. My pants also ignited and as I frantically put them out, I yelled to my friends for help.

There was an old mattress lying around which we tried to throw onto the fire to smother it, but it did little to stop the blaze. The fire quickly began to spread toward the collection of chemicals stacked in the corner, so we ran out of the building, got onto our bikes and fled. One of my friends stopped at a store and told a cashier to call 911. I would later find out that thanks to the quick-thinking of that friend, the volunteer fire department arrived quickly and stopped the blaze. I got home in the early afternoon, said nothing to my father, and hoped that everything would somehow blow over

I waited.

There isn’t a lot that I remember about the conversation with the police, but they arrived while we were eating dinner. I do recall them being very nice though despite their friendliness, I remember them telling me, “Depending on how this turns out, whether charges are pressed, you might be taken out of your home and put into state custody.” And while that never happened, and while charges were never pressed, I remember half-expecting to be suddenly taken from my home at any given moment for the following three or four years. Terrified, I continued to wait for the other shoe to drop.

That this incident occurred—let alone the fact that the arrival of the police was the first my father heard of it—made me nervous for my dad’s response. Surprisingly, upon the departure of the police he was the calmest I had ever seen him. He told me that he was happy that I was okay, and asked me how scared I was about all of this, and suggested that said fear would be punishment enough. While it felt like I was getting away with murder at the time, in retrospect I feel as though this was one of his few parenting victories. Throughout the remainder of my teenage, I never again tempted the fire gods.

This is not to make one suggestion or another about how I think the boys in Lewiston should be penalized. Again, I can speak only to my situation, in which I did monumentally stupid thing. I was fortunate to not be responsible for the loss of people’s homes and to walk away without being charged.

The variables regarding how my situation occurred are many. For one, I was a young boy and young boys can be, for whatever reason, possessed by the seductive nature of fire. And young people have little context for wrapping their heads around consequence, let alone the physiological capacity to do so.

Further, I was one of many kids who had little oversight at home. My parents separated when I was 12 and my mother went to go live in a suburb of Boston. I went to go live with her. While she was substantially more invested as a parent, my experience as a country boy in the city left a lot to be desired, and I persuaded her to let me live with my father. I do not doubt that he loved me very much, but my dad was relatively hands-off when I was a kid to the point where I do not remember much about him before having moved back to Maine. It fast became clear that he knew little about parenting, and for much of my teenage our relationship was that of two roommates more than it was about the guidance and authority facilitated by a family structure. By no means am I wagging a finger at singe parent households, but in mine, the single parent didn’t really understand the parenting part very well.

Boredom was also a factor. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in my town, particularly for young people who weren’t focused on athletics. A lot of kids were faced with situations in which they had to fend for themselves. Really, the only thing that kept me out of trouble as a kid was work, and to do so as much as I did, I certainly violated a number of child labor laws. This came at the detriment of my schooling, and when I got into the groove of working, I felt less inclined to participate in more constructive extracurricular activities as I got older. It is also worth noting that the jobs available to young people are largely based in the service economy, and in my experience, service jobs put one in proximity of a monumental amount of drugs, alcohol, and a number of people with more than a small handful of personality disorders. These environments aren’t particularly positive ones for kids to grow up in, but working in kitchens kept me out of abandoned buildings, so six-in-one, I guess.

Finally, as I entered high school, I observed a total disintegration of leadership on all levels throughout my teenage. The Impeachment hearings were going down, suburban kids were starting to ramp up the devastating art of mass destruction known as the school shooting, teachers were having trouble keeping their hands off students both locally and nationally, and the sins of the Catholic church were coming to light at long last. While I never set anything on fire again, and while I was working all of the time, I certainly did a number of other monumentally stupid things throughout my teenage and I did so thanks in no small part to feeling as though it’s not like anyone is actually in charge of this mess.

And so while the past week of fires has stoked the anxieties of people living in Lewiston, it has made me look into a window into my past. In truth, I have no idea how these young suspected arsonists should be handled as, in retrospect, I am unsure of how my very different situation could have been handled more constructively. I am reminded that once in a great while, or even more frequently than that, a number of factors come together to create a perfect storm of coincidence and unfortunate circumstances. Looking back at it all, I feel incredibly lucky to have made it out of my youth relatively unscathed.

I try not hawk my own wares here, but my company [Knack Factory] just launched its new website, part of which is a podcast series I:

… talk with artists, activists, politicians and professionals about their work, their passion, and their lives online.

I was fortunate to chat with Heidi Moore [podcast] of The Guardian US and Johanna Fateman [podcast] of the band Le Tigre. These are some of my favorite quotes.

Moore:

The whole way that newsrooms work, I feel, has been changed by the way the Internet works right now. Before you would go into the newsroom and if it was a relatively prestigious place, it was very ivory tower. There were editors who were all knowing, and every day they would have a morning meeting on which they would inscribe the stone tablets that they would hand down to the reporters and the people about what was going to be the most important news that day. Now you don’t need the editor as the reader proxy. You have readers right in front of you if you can access them, if you know how to talk with them like on Twitter or commenters on your website. All of a sudden you have this unfiltered firehouse of what questions people are really asking. That has been uncomfortable for a lot of people who are used to the old, very rigid, almost authoritarian regimes of now newsrooms used to work, and it can be exciting if you are good at engaging with people and it can be tortured if you’re not.

By the way, every single social media thing I have done ever, I have been incredibly skeptical about and almost hateful about from the beginning.

Fateman:

Weirdly, Twitter is a good form for me. I like the limited characters. I like the ADD format of it. I feel like I can be absurdist, I can say something important, I can link to something I am doing and somehow it all feels okay to mix it up in Twitter. I don’t have to stick to one voice or one purpose. Sometimes I do the Twitter for my old band Le Tigre and I feel like it’s necessary for doing anything right now to periodically link to how to buy my DVD, how to download my song, how to read my essay. You kind of have to do that, I think that people expect that from you if they’re putting out your DVD. I feel like part of it is a job, part of it is really fun.

…

I do think I thought it was weird at first. Because previously, at least with Le Tigre when we had promoted something, we were relatively inaccessible. We had a band email account, but there wasn’t even MySpace when we were active as a band. We were touring, but it’s not like we were active in a dialogue with people except for at shows. The idea of dealing with people’s comments continuously was like, Oh, wow. This is a more porous reality. You can’t pretend you don’t know people’s reactions. you can’t pretend that your fans aren’t there.

…

There is a recklessness about it for sure. I am certainly not innocent, first of all because I was totally that 19-year-old who if I had that access to social media I would have been blocked by everyone in the world. I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but I do have an aversion to it probably because I see the potentials of my young self let loose on Twitter or Tumblr.

Please check out the whole episodes here.

When I realized that today was MCA Day—Beastie Boy Adam Yauch died a year ago today—I verged on tears. When I saw this bit about Palmetto Playground being renamed Adam Yauch Park, I went full-bore. More than almost any other figure in popular culture, Yauch meant the world to me, even when the Beastie Boys did not. I wrote the following on the day that he passed:

It would be an understatement to suggest that I was saddened by the news of Adam Yauch’s passing. For someone who is as cause-oriented as I am while also maintaining an appreciation for the absurd and creating art, he was a towering giant. Yauch [and the Beastie Boys] made exceptional music and his video work was essential in getting me to pay attention to and become involved with the medium. And, an advocate for the liberation of Tibet and the popularization of that cause throughout the 90s, he showed his fans that it was possible to simultaneously care about big things while also maintaining a sense of humor.

I won’t go on and on because I was less a super-fan than someone who was touched and changed by Yauch’s life, but I remember seeing the Beastie Boys about 7 or 8 years ago. We got to the show really early and there were only a couple hundred people in the center. Yauch rode a longboard into the audience, digital video camera in hand, and he shot the crowd for a couple of minutes before hopping off to chat with fans. What struck me was that here he was, just about 40 at the time, still quietly, though powerfully making passion, art, and graciousness look good.

I have touched on his involvement with video production a couple of times now and it is important to underscore Yauch’s often-overlooked contribution to film. Oscilloscope Laboratories, his production company, provided for a marriage of his obvious passion for social change. The Other F Word, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Howl, William S. Burroughs: a Man Within Exit Through the Giftshop, The Messenger, Burma VJ and No Impact Man are some of my favorites among its dozens of releases. Videos that have the Oscilloscope Laboratories name stamped on them are almost certainly worth the investment of your attention.

While I haven’t shined a particularly new light on him, I feel it important to posthumously thank Yauch. Thanks for the music and inspiration; thanks for making caring cool, especially during a time the popularization of ramped-up cynicism and sardonic irony; thanks for sharing all of the things he shared. I am not one for celebrity worship, but I got choked up when I heard that you were no longer with us. This is a rare impact for today’s modern celebrity to impart, but I truly believe that I am a better person for his having lived, having created.

Thank you, MCA. May you rest in peace.

IMAGE CREDIT: Steve Appleford

Discouraged in New Jersey asks:

My kids say they are embarrassed by my activism. What’s a repressed revolutionary to do? I think this falls under the ‘anything mom does is embarrassing’ because I’ve been taking them to protests since FOREVER. They used to love this stuff, it was all street theatre, but now I have… preteens.

While I can imagine how painful this is for you right now (I fear the arrival of this day myself), your kids, I think, are going to get through this phase. From what you have described, it is likely that they are simply going through their preteens and so they want to establish their own identities. Some of that process might look like a rebellious rejection of your practices, and while it can be heart-breaking for now, but I can envision them getting through their desire to distance themselves from your activism. It is likely that they will eventually embrace and appreciate your passion and lessons regarding how best to channel it.

I went through this as a young adult, and I experimented with a good deal of identities, strains of which I still carry with me today. And while I was put off by some of my parent’s approaches at the time, it is doubtless that I came out of my teenage with an appreciation for them and all of the ideas and tools they handed off to me when I was young.

Further—and this is something I only realize in retrospect of my own childhood—it is helpful to remember that while your children might not fancy association with your methods right now, it is possible that their personal explorations will be tempered by much of what you have taught them to this point. Looking back at my own teenage, and at the circles and expressions I gravitated towards, my parents’ influence is overwhelmingly evident. I was drawn to punk and queer communities and zine culture, both extremely emblematic of my father’s anti-authoritarian, eff-you attitude. I was drawn to the community organizing elements within those circles, undoubtedly due to the influence of my mother as she was involved in every sort of organization and committee when I was a kid. None of this was evident to me at the time.

And when life stopped going a million miles per hour, as it does when you are a teenager, I was able to see the significant imprint of my parents impact on my life, and to share with them my appreciation for that.

Note: My friend Amy Bradstreet, a mom and prolific activist, read this piece and added:

Our kids have been counter-culture since the get-go and still are (they are 14 and 16 and have never attended school, for instance), but they each have gone through a stage where they were good with being left alone with their own thoughts and wills regarding any personal activism, probably starting at about age 10. As with unschooling, our approach with our kids has been to go about doing our thing and invite their interest and participation, and this has also been the case regarding activism. Yes, there was a time when my two were very little and were along for the Kucinich campaign, but they never seemed to mind. Otherwise, we have just lived our activism and we’ve always discussed it and have welcomed dissent at our table. Today, I have two teens who are passionate about social justice and who really, really know their stuff.

Thanks for your contribution, Amy!

SUBMIT A QUANDARY/QUERY by emailing me at alexsteed [at] gmail [dot] com. In case you are cautiously interested, I will be keeping the identities of those in search of answers quiet in the column.

I know women in my social circles who feel obligated to endure sexual harassment because they are positive that employers within their industries won’t hire women who take action. Between this truth, realities about unfair, uneven compensation, and the fact that there is an uncomfortably strong chance that a young woman will be sexually molested by her eighteenth birthday, I was eager to bring my step daughter to participate in the Take Back the Night last week.

Take Back the Night is an annual march and event intended to empower victims of sexual violence by welcoming them to come forward, seek help and to share stories, and for allies within community to come together with them and stand up against this horrifying aggression. In Portland, it is organized by Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine and it is co-sponsored by the Portland Police Department
Strides have been made on the fronts of gender equality to be sure, but the aforementioned hardships and more remain. Despite this, anyone who is not a gendered male is still encouraged to be pleasant, to smile and deal with it. Those who do not will be written off as bitches, as frigid, as humorless. We know if we tell a man to put a smile on his face while enduring an everyday cold we risk getting barked at. And yet women—and people who do not identify with rigid gender assignment—are faced with the grotesque hurdles touched upon above and most will continue to suggest going on and smiling because not doing so would be unbecoming. I took my daughter to Take Back the Night as a means of getting her acquainted with a community of people who see through the insanity of this expectation.

Of course she is not yet in Kindergarten, and a lot of the context for the event was lost on her. I sold her on participation with promises of marching and chanting, two things she loved engaging it. She was enamored with the process of walking through the streets and belting out slogans along with the crowd. She loved seeing the police officers, who are partners in the event’s production, and she was excited to dance to the music. We left before victims of sexual violence shared their experiences—she is still too young to wrap her head around some of the content and language—but on the way out she asked, “Why were those people marching?” I explained that “Some of the people there have been hurt, and everyone was getting together to show that we are stronger when we stand together.”

“Oh,” she responded, before asking if we could march again soon.

Beyond this being my first full year as a father, participation in the march felt important due to the tenor of the past 12 months. Until rape and sexual violence are eradicated, and until consent is the de facto law of the land, participation in Take Back the Night is appropriate every year, but this one felt even more overbearing than usual. Between the crass, intolerable comments made by politicians and the defense of rapists by cable news networks, it has felt as though any practical progress has been overshadowed by an ever-loudening rape culture. This is not the world I want to raise my daughter in, and if this is what it looks like for now, I want her to become familiar communities that stand up to it, that fight it, that demand it change.

This said, while I was heartened to see men here and there throughout the occasion, and while Brandon Baldwin gave a hell of a speech, I was disappointed to be one of relatively few men at the event. Sexual violence, manipulation, exploitation, harassment—these things happen to our mothers, our sisters, and daughters. It threatens them daily, tempers the way that they engage in this world, and this should enrage every man to the point of action. I ran into a 9-year-old who I interviewed last month for an unrelated story and he told me, “I think rape is one of the worst crimes there is. It is almost like murder. It is as much robbery as it is an assault. You take from that person their sense of security.” I wish I could have encountered more men like him there expressing their outrage and demonstrating their solidarity.

I kept looking at my daughter and thinking, “If this were a problem that directly afflicted men as it did everybody else, this street would be flooded. I thought of the Eve Ensler quotation: “I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?”

I wonder if this is because what ultimately helps to reduce sexual violence is changing the culture that fosters it, and that sort of abstraction is still lost on most men. Nearly any argument about gun rights I have ever engaged in has seen the expression of the following hypothetical: “Let’s say you’re about to get raped…” Or “Let’s say your daughter is about to get raped…” and then a number of Dirty Harry style scenarios come to the fore to illustrate valiant gun ownership really is. In fact, in the past I have been one to employ said hypothetical. And when the right to have the gun that could stop the rape is up for debate, millions of men flood streets throughout this country to make sure their voices are heard, that their right is defended. When we rally to address the social conditions, to change a culture of slut-shaming and double standards regarding gender, to fix the machine, few men are to be found. We can shoot rapists here and there, yes, but it does little to stop the creation of them. If men flocked to teach their sons about consent with the same vigor they employ in their vigilante fantasies, I would feel less frustrated, confused, and disappointed.

And so until that happens, I will be bringing our daughter to Take Back the Night because there is a mountain of work that needs to be done, and everyone needs to be brought to the table. She needs to march for herself, and claim her space, and demand a safe environment, and she needs to work double-time because the amount of good men who are coming to the table is less than desirable. I hope that this past year was a fluke, and that the next won’t be dominated by aloof politicians, and sympathizers for rapists, but I am not holding my breath. The reality of the world my daughter is growing up in is one that is hostile toward her no matter how well Hillary does in 2016, or how many glass ceilings are shattered. In the face of that reality, I want to make sure she familiarizes herself with a genuine feeling of involvement with a community that comes together in the face of this, and insists upon staking a claim to the security and stability they rightfully deserve.

Hi there Alex!

What are the best ways for post-college young adults to make friends in a new city? I moved to Portland about 3 years ago for a job. I’ve joined some clubs, tried online dating, taken a few classes, and attended just about any event that has piqued my interest since I moved here.Still, I am struggling to find a friend I can call up on a random Tuesday night and meet up for dinner or drinks. It’s incredibly frustrating. I know part of it is because at this point in my life (late 20s) people are pairing up at an incredible rate and focusing on starting families, however I can not be the only single person in my age group in this city. As pessimistic as it sounds, it feels like everyone has their group of friends set already and inviting a new person into that group isn’t a priority. Where are all the late-20/early-30-year-olds who want new friends hanging out?

I cannot be the only person in this city who is in this position! What do I do? I feel like I’ve tried everything! I’m beginning to feel desperate!

Thanks!
Lonely in Portland

This is such a great question, thank you. You not the only person in this position; as you will see, this is an issue that many have struggled with and put a plenitude of thought into. Thinking on this has made me consider my own approaches to meeting people and making and maintaining friendships for the first time in a very long time and so I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to do so. Because of this, I was equally curious to see how others would approach this conundrum and so I posted an iteration of the question to my Facebook wall to get insight from the community there. Over 40 people offered their experiences, ideas, methods and insights.

It sounds like you are pretty good at getting in front of people. This is a great start. I used to be incredibly good at this, but as I have gotten older, it has been more difficult for a number of reasons. Before any event, I go through the following nerve-racking exercise:

•    Before the event: I EFFING HATE THAT I SAID I WOULD GO TO THIS OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO DIE I HATE EVERYBODY.
•    In the first half hour: Profuse sweating. Nervous belly. Hide in bathroom to get a grip on hyperventilation.
•    After I come down: Oh, this is actually pretty cool. This person is great. Oh! So and so is up to this! Neat! Why don’t I talk to these people / come to this place more often?
•    After the event: THAT WAS EASILY THE BEST EVENT I HAVE EVER ATTENDED, I AM TOTALLY GOING TO BE WAY MORE SOCIAL FROM NOW ON.

Beyond my emergent social anxiety, I have had a lot of luck with meeting folks through going to events and helping to organize them as well. My most recent solid friendship came from a board position I had with Portland Greendrinks, and it took said friend and I a couple of years of knowing each other before we turned a passive friendship into something more by collectively putting forth more effort. The part of friendship I tend to be bad at is follow-through. I am great at meeting and engaging people a couple of times, but I can be disorganized and aloof and so being sure to reach out as much as I expect to be reached out to—or being as inviting as I would like people to be to me—has proven to be a hurdle in the past. I have gotten better at this over time, and have certainly sparked new friendships as a result. I have also revitalized some friendships that had, for one reason or another, become anemic over the past handful of years.

Further, in approaching friendship cultivation, it is important to be honest with yourself about what you are looking for in a friend, and about what you are able to bring to the table. Understanding what you are looking for and what you have to offer can make easier the process of deciding upon which acquaintances you are willing to turn into friendships. As my wife has said of making friends, “If you are looking for someone to text back and forth with, I am not your girl. If you are looking for someone who would bail you out of jail at two in the morning, let’s hang out.” This knowledge has helped her to better understand who to pursue as friends and who to continue considering friendly acquaintances.

It is also worth mentioning that, coupled or single, it can just be difficult to make friends these days. We are all incredibly busy, and expectations to be working all the time—even when we are not at the work place—are certainly intensifying. Further, and maybe because of this in part, there has been a rise of passive acquaintanceship due to ambient social media familiarity. In other words, we think we know someone, or have an idea of what is going on in the lives of those in our networks, but we don’t necessarily proceed with taking these connections to the next level.

Finally, the following responses address the question more generally, and while they might not be helpful for your particular conundrum, they could be helpful for onlookers. They are largely about meeting people, but there are also a good deal of insights on pursuing and maintaining friendships. This sort of crowd-sourced raw data dump is not one I will frequently employ, but I found it appropriate to answer this question as thoroughly as possible by way reaching out to a community of friends (and friends of friends).

Enjoy.

Note: SO MANY THANKS to everyone who weighed in!

INSIGHTS

Kate: I don’t think it’s because of pairing up, it’s because we’re all just so damn busy trying to keep up.

Jenny: Few aspects to this, forgive the paragraphs. Sounds like this person wants to break into a ‘group’ of friends. Busting into a clique is hard, and maintaining that dynamic once in is harder. Maybe they should focus on cultivating a few (or several) individual friendships instead, and accept that the intensity of friendships changes in adulthood. Everyone is juggling families, jobs (or trying to find jobs), and we all have to be a lot more flexible with scheduling. Who I get to hang out with now morphs and I just roll with it. That said, they need to initiate and follow through to make a connection happen. If you meet someone cool, and you say, we should do coffee, then follow up and make coffee happen. S/he should evaluate if they’re an introvert or an extrovert. Introverts do better with one-on-one friendship activities (coffee, a film) vs. parties, pot lucks, athletics. If they are an introvert & are forcing themselves to go to parties and networking that way, they may not be their best self in those situations, impeding their intent to make friends. More thoughts, based on, “Still, I am struggling to find a friend I can call up on a random Tuesday night and meet up for dinner or drinks.” This being Portland, where many are struggling w/cash flow, meeting up for dinner/drinks becomes a bit tricky. (I can’t afford to go out to dinner.) It’s hard for close friends to admit times are tough, much less to a new person. That said, plenty of foodies are navigating these times; maybe join a foodie group? Or pitch a lower-cost activity to new acquaintances, in case it’s the money thing in the way: for example, The Nick has $5 films on Tuesdays. Voila, Tuesday fun, without the awkward money talk. More: venture outside your peer group. Welcome younger & older acquaintances.

Elise: It is also important to remember that meaningful friendships take time and effort. One cannot assume they will just be absorbed into the group. Ask for her number, find him on Facebook. Ask if the person wants to go see this movie. You have to be willing to work for it. You know, without being an overbearing stalker.

Emer: As someone in a similar position, I can attest to how challenging it is to make friends in a new place—let alone Maine. I grew up in NY state, where people are initially hostile, but warm up and invite you into their circle within minute—whereas in Maine, people are really nice initially, but it takes years to get invited to inner circle events.

Marya: I’m not single, but since my husband and I moved here we’ve both made friends. Some haven’t “stuck” but it is always worth a try. You do have to put some efforts in and roll the dice a bit. Sometimes you’ll hang out with someone a few times, or even longer, and it just won’t end up working, but then sometimes the opposite will occur.

Thomas: Strangely enough, I sorta feel like the large influx of (mostly young-ish) people “from away” to Portland over the last decade (which is GREAT) may contribute to this wariness to the extent it actually exists. Maybe people think everyone here is a die-hahd Mainah and is less likely to interact as a result. One thing about being involved with Greendrinks I’ve realized is there are a LOT of young people in Portland who are not local by birth who are out there trying to meet people and trying to make it work from a career perspective at the same time.

Jessie: I’m 30 and friends I made in my 20s when I moved here have sorta moved away leaving me to fend for myself, I am horrifically introverted with a strong desire to be social with low-maintenance besties. I met a couple like-minded individuals through events, stalking on Facebook and twitter, and friends of friends. Drinking helps, for both being social and the loneliness. Meeting people is easy. Maintaining friendships when you have weeks and weeks of anti-social fall-off-the-earth probably-haven’t-showered-in-days bout…

Michael: It seems to come down to different strokes, for different folks. Everyone has their own unique scale of sociability, life experiences, and frankly wants and desires. How to build relationships that are, for lack of a better term, mutually beneficial is tricky. It’s hard to find a tailor made fit, in an off the rack world In essence who we get along with and what might be a fulfilling friendship is quite finite. (Yeah you can have a host of “drinkin buddies” and/or acquaintances that for most of us turn out to be a bit of fun but ultimately fickle, and shallow) I’m lucky, it’s been easy for me in Portland built primarily around the music scene and some great new friends in that space and the “network” just kinda grew with off shoots in the media and professional world, business owners and the movers and shakers in this kooky town. Being a Boston transplant the biggest takeaway is Portland kinda requires a more gentle, organic pace if you will. Most folks have no effs to give regarding what you did, or who you did or how many trophies you have from “away”. Which is kinda cool. But it’s been a pretty consistent growth of friends but that’s over almost six years. Maybe Portlanders are a bit wary? Lastly I think most people are looking for that special someone or to couple up if you will. If you’re fortunate you find that someone, and then other challenges come up with how to enjoy a new relationship to the fullest while still nurturing and cultivating friends — who are also coupled up or looking to do so. Advice? Take it easy. Drag your ass out, and explore something new every week. HELP OUT! There’s a TON of events and groups and goings on that are always looking for new energy and help.

METHODS

Esther: I joined meetup.com in my new city! I went to one event, it was really great! Gotta get to another one.

Jenny: Way back in the day, I placed an ad for friends in the Casco Bay Weekly, and made one of my life friends that way. Never hurts to ask for what you want.

Nikki: Join an event that requires you to talk and share some personal information. This will help get the ball rolling and break the ice. Ive been to a few events where someone has said one thing that’s stuck and lead to a great conversation.

Scott: Start issuing invitations instead of waiting for them. Dinner parties are great because you can throw together people who don’t know each other already and then everyone is in the position of getting to know each other. When I lived in Portland I did a dinner party every Friday evening for years. There were a handful of regulars and then I’d invite any interesting people I met along the way in life, usually at my favorite coffee shop (Green Mountain) or other places where I’d run into new people. Several of my favorite people in the world went from coffee shop acquaintances to close friends by this method.

Bernadette: I struggled with this big time when I moved to Nashville. Finally, I found a running club that goes to the bar (and is generally social with one another outside of running) that is where I found the bulk of my close friends. Seems kind of silly, I know, but I kind of can’t imagine what would have happened had I not headed out one day…or without my Wednesday 2-for-1 beers.

Seren: Talk to strangers. I made friends with my chiropractor’s receptionist because I thought her jewelry was awesome! now Shane is one of my good friends!

Diana: Be friendly with the restaurant workers, bartenders, and baristas you meet! Frequent the local music scene, go to events solo, and don’t be a wallflower! Join one of the many yoga studios in town! Portland is the friendliest town I know, I make new friends here on a weekly basis, and I’m well into my 30s. Just be open to experiences and conversations, and it will all fall into place! Also: if you’re shy, but bold enough to reach out, maybe a re-channeling of that moment of boldness would help! Deep breath. “Hello, how’s your day? Heyyyy, I just moved here, what’s fun this week?”

Emer: I’ve found success in finding something you’re passionate about, becoming a regular at the places that host your passion, and engaging in friendly light-hearted banter. Also useful: find that one friend who can introduce you to their friends and let it snowball from there. Mario seconds this method: I’d point out this really important sociological paper (hear me out) called “The Strength of Weak Ties” by Mark Granovetter. He laid out the evidence for why “weak” connections with people are in some ways more beneficial to the subject than “strong” connections. His paper was about career opportunities, but it extrapolates to personal relationships too. Basically, the idea is that the best way to meet new people and find yourself in new situations is to look to people who aren’t your close friends, but acquaintances. Since these are people who aren’t totally integrated into your life, they’ll provide more opportunities to meet new folks who may become your new friends. It’s worked for me really well since moving into a city where I didn’t know many people or have any really close friends.

Emer again: Oddly enough (or not), I’ve made a fair number of friends of off OKCupid when I was dating—but also looking for cool people to have conversations with. But mostly—you need to have the chutzpah to strike up a conversation with random strangers.

Elise: I’ve made several friends through eating dinner alone at my neighborhood pub and not being afraid to chat up the strangers around me. Knitting in public also helps to draw people to you. Maybe you don’t knit; maybe you yo-yo, or do card tricks. Bring your joy out into the world and people will be drawn to it, especially in this town.

Susan: ASK! Everybody needs more love & we ALL “deserve it” — remember that there are so many people who would love to be with you. Invite them into your life.

Stephen: I think part of it is initiative. You can attend as many events as you like, but it takes wedging yourself into a conversation and finding a way to connect. I think the early days of Greendrinks, it was easier to do this.

PLACES / EVENTS / GROUPS

Diana: The Public market house offers lots of interaction, and might I also suggest Newbury Comics or Bull Moose.

Sarah: I used to go sit at a bar after work to read the newspaper and do the crossword. Easy to engage other people and worst case scenario — a glass of wine and a newspaper are never a bad thing

Ashley: Slam poetry, art classes, political activism in groups you believe in, writing groups? Places where you meet people don’t have to be forced—just do things you like and enjoy the like minded people you meet along the way.

Michael half-jokes: AA… the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. Half this town is in recovery, and the other half outta be.

Sarah: Tandem Coffee Roasters is good because No WIFI, small cafe space, and strangers actually talk to one another and the baristas instead of reading/working. One of my friends met her new boyfriend there!

Susan: A lot of powerful love & friendship connections came out of the League of Pissed Off Voters, Green Party activism, queer activism, immigration activism, Lucid Stage, Portland Lesbian Coffee House meetup… Common purpose, values, playful soul-satisfying fun, all of that will lead you to deep & fabulous connections. For some it could be rod ‘n’ gun club, knitting group, yoga, disc golf… “Life’s a banquet & most poor suckers are starving to death!” — Auntie Mame

Lauren [from Washington, DC]: I don’t know if Portland has gone through the kickball phase the way DC has, but I would venture to say that is the number one way people in their early 20′s meet in DC. There’s something about playing a childhood game, followed immediately by day drinking that gets people friendly with one another. I was on a team for one season about 6 years ago, and I still talk to a lot of the people I met on that team. To which Elise responds: Dodgeball is big here! (Actually, lots of fun sports through Casco Bay Sports) And, if anyone would like to join a Tuesday night dodgeball team, send me a PM … The Jolly Dodgers need a couple of folks for this season. Stephen: Speaking of kickball, PortSports Social Club is a great place to meet people (and partly responsible for my marriage). Megan, Stephen’s wife, seconds Stephen: PortSports is AWESOME for making new friends – not just sports, either, lots of fun events like camping and dancing and drinking! And Carlin adds: I second the idea of the social sports scene! Even if you aren’t particularly athletic, the competition isn’t rigorous and there are fringe perks (excuses to drink). PortSports does pub crawls, trips to concerts and pro games. Also Bayside Bowl will mingle you with Greater Portland’s finest, and Portland Ultimate Summer League is 500 amazing people playing the best game on the planet.