Tonight, I met up with my friend who is visiting from Seattle for work, and we caught up over patacons (Venezuelan plantain sandwiches) and Morgenstern’s ice cream in the Lower East Side. We spent about three hours together, yet it didn’t feel like enough time. I only really get to see her once or twice a year when she’s in town visiting family or coming for work.

While we talked about everything from my wedding in March to her potentially staying in Seattle to our dysfunctional families, I realized that even though I’ve known her for only a relatively short time, somehow, we probably get along and understand each other better than some of my long time friends. Why would this be the case? Maybe it’s because with friends you’ve had for a long time, they have a perception of what you were when you were really close and in proximity, and they want to hold onto those perceptions even after you’ve evolved over time and changed a lot. Sometimes, we don’t always accept change as much as we think we will; it’s just part of humans being creatures of habit.

I suppose the other aspect is that maybe we should accept that we may not always be able to understand those we once considered closest to us, and that they may not be able or even want to understand us and why we live our lives the way we do. We use excuses like not enough time, distance, but part of that is also just lack of desire. That is just life constantly moving and willing to leave you behind.

Tonight, we went to see a show at Theatre Row called Di & Viv & Rose, a play about three women who were roommates in college in England and remained friends through adulthood. All three are very different in terms of their life outlooks and personalities, and throughout the play, we witness a lot of arguments over many misunderstandings, assumptions, and gaps in knowledge that each has about the other. In the final argument between the two remaining living women, I realized how real the argument they were having was. I think the majority of all the arguments I’ve ever had with my female friends have been around some misunderstanding, assumption, or misinterpretation stemming from a conversation, e-mail, text message, or some other form of communication, and it really made me think… geez, are we women so complicated and convoluted.

One yells at the other for never calling on the anniversary of her rape. The other says, I had no idea you wanted me to call, but I thought about calling you. The first replies, It doesn’t count that you just thought about calling me because you never actually called in the end; you should have known to call me! Well, why didn’t she just communicate that to her, then? Sure, it’s easy as someone looking in to make a statement like that, but I know I’ve had similar situations where I’ve gotten mad at my friends over assumptions I’ve made, and they’ve done the same with me. We want our friends and lovers and family to be mind readers, to know what we want, even if we haven’t explicitly communicated it to them. Then, when they don’t do what we want which we never voiced, we get angry at them for never doing said action.

I don’t know how we became this way.

We spent the day today in Dunellen, New Jersey, visiting Chris’s friend and her husband, who gave birth to a baby boy just four days after our wedding. They also invited a few other friends and neighbors over who also had recently given birth in the last year, so we were literally surrounded by babies for our time in the suburbs. And with that came lots of teasing for us about when we were planning to have children and “start preparing.” Lots of parenting and bottle “nipple” advice ensued.

Yes, this is what I’ve been waiting for, to get inundated by questions of when I will soon be a baby-making machine instead of an independent, working, but married woman. It doesn’t matter how much society “progresses” because these expectations will still be there, especially when people find out I’m 30 — that is to say, “not that young anymore.”

Last night, I went out to dinner at a Peruvian chicken restaurant with two of my friends who shared a room for the two nights of my wedding. They had only met once before at a meal with me, and so they really didn’t know much about each other. Well, clearly they made an impression on each other; my guy friend asked how stable my female friend’s relationship was with her fiance and asked why she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring on her left hand (the “right” hand), and my female friend… said that my guy friend was easy and fun to terrorize and completely frustrating. It’s always interesting how my friends get along with each other once they meet.

She told me that she found him frustrating, then said as I was thinking this that it must be a prerequisite for being friends with me: the person must be frustrating to some degree. I realized how true it was. I guess I just like people who drive me crazy. It keeps my wheels turning, I suppose, and therefore, I’ll never get bored. Because as we all know, being bored is one of the worst feelings ever.