Do you have a lot of couple friends?
Not just friends that you wave to in passing but that you truly enjoy getting together with?
Everywhere we’ve lived, we’ve had good couple friends.
- As newlyweds, we lived down the street from Rick and Melissa. Since neither of us had kids, we both had a dog and we’d do play dates with the dogs (as pathetically newlywedish as that sounds). They’d stop by and hang out or we’d be over there for the afternoon.
- When we moved to California, David and Carol were it. We had kids the same age who liked the same things. Many Sundays we’d talk in the hall at church and do a quick refrigerator tally to see if, together, we could come up with the ingredients for a meal. They were awesome spur of the moment friends. Very easy going and accepting friends. We miss them.
- In Utah we lived a few streets from Dave and Stacy. One New Year’s Eve Stacy was nine months pregnant and Dave had just had knee surgery so they came over and lounged on our couch all night. We love friends who feel comfortable enough to make themselves at home.
But couple friends are hard to come by. It’s hard enough to find one person who you can be yourself with, let alone four people who click at the same time.
Since moving here almost a year ago, we’ve slowly been searching out compatible couple friends. It typically goes a little something like this. I find a compatible girlfriend and we make a date to go out together with our husbands. We usually do dinner at a restaurant or at home or a game night. We don’t do movies until we’re officially “couple friends”. Not enough “get-to-know-you” opportunities while watching a movie. After said date there’s sure to be an analysis session by both parties:
Did you like him? Did you like her?
Did they “get” your jokes?
Were the moments of silence uncomfortable for you too?
Did he dominate the conversation?
Was there too much talk about wild hog hunting and macrame?
Do you think they’ll judge when they find out about our penchant for belting out “Copacabana” while washing the cars?
You know you’ve hit it off if a second date is requested and accepted by either party. If not, chalk it up to couple incompatibility, be happy you at least gave it a try, and cordially smile and wave in passing. But, you and said girlfriend can and should continue your friendship. Because you never know, if her wild hog hunting husband ever becomes her wild hog hunting ex-husband, and she assumes an ironman triathlon loving new husband, couple compatibility may still be possible.
Our quest for couple friends continues. We’ve already had some successful initial couple dates and our prospects look promising. Keep your fingers crossed. And even if nothing pans out, I don’t think we’ll ever be desperate enough to resort to this:
It’s an online dating service aimed specifically at finding couple friends for couples. How crazy is that?!! Tell, me, are there people out there pathetic enough to have to pay someone to find them couple friends? Are they so busy that they don’t have time to call another couple up and do the inital “get-to-know-you” dinner? Must they save time and only go out with couples who have been prescreened? I guess I’m old fashioned enough to do my own prescreening. And I kind of enjoy the incompatible couples we meet. Where else would I learn about wild hog hunting and macrame?
What do you think? Crazy or efficient?
Happy Monday!
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Thanks to Paige for inspiring this post with her own Couples Friends post awhile back.
My husband doesn’t really have friends, and doesn’t really care about making them, but as long as we all get along, it’s fine.
We also just moved into our town less than a year ago and in search of couple friends. Sometimes, I think it’s easier to make girlfriends than couple friends. I met this one woman who wanted to double date right away. The husbands didn’t clique and I actually thought her husband was arrogant and selfish.
I like her and still go to lunch with her once a while, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that they didn’t hit it off, but she still wants to double date and I continue to make excuses.
I’m back again to visit your blog.
Great post. I love the stuff about “too much wild hog hunting and macrame” — it’s true, some couples are just way different than others (and, incompatible), and that’s OK, too, right?
On a couple date, my talk would be this: kids, books, movies, libraries, writing, chocolate, clothes, life musings
My husband’s talk would be this: computers, guns, pop culture, more guns and computers, etc, etc.
Believe it or not, we’ve found quite a few compatible couples over the years, and thankfully, many are in our current ward.
Were you serious about the wild hog and macrame topics being discussed? It must be 4Xas hard to find couples friends as just a friend. I guess I should be satisfied I’m only trying to find girlfriends. It was an interesting subject for your post. You always go out of the box and find unique ideas. That’s one of the things I like about you–along with the 5,000 other things! Love you.
VERY intriguing question! We have a good “couple” here, but they live kinda far away (is 40 mins far?) So, we only get together once a month if we are lucky, but we love them… you know, in the couple kinda way.
Couple friends ARE hard to come by! We have moved so much and had so many kids all at once that we have missed out on really making and keeping good couple friends.
The few we do have are as busy as we are, so we never see them!
Yup, couple friends are harder than dating!
You forgot to mention how pathetic we were lounging on your couch all night. Oh…the memories! LOL!!
Was it Maddy that kept serving us food and drink?
What a weird service. But I am sure there are people who need it?
XOXO
Jen
Definately a challenge! The older we get the more difficult they are to find, or maybe the truth is the older we get the less we try? Could we be getting lazy or just more picky? hmmm. Truth is… we are so strange that only the most remarkable people could be couple friends with us, and even those amazing people will never see me breaking into song when I get a wooden spoon in my hand. Good thoughts! Thanks for sharing.
I hear ya about the couple friends! Luckily, I got to keep all our couple friends in the divorce….but it’s not quite the same. I think you’re wonderful, and your husband is Austrian–so he has to be wonderful too—and I”m sure you guys will have no problem finding the right two people for you without resorting to Kupple.
What’s wrong with wild hog hunting? I think you would be more likely than Ralf to do it. What really binds two couples is when the husbands have something to do together and the wives complain that “they are soooo childish”.
Interesting …
I wish my husband and I had couple friends here. We have a few, but rarely meet up … they aren’t neighbors. Seems like TIME (or lack of) is our issue. It’s a shame how complicated people’s lives are today that they hardly have time to devote to people. Schedules always seem to be conflicting. I find that happens with us a lot. It does make me sad.
[...] David and Carol even though they might very much dislike me for it. As I’ve said before, it’s hard to find couple friends that you thoroughly enjoy and feel completely at home with. David and Carol are just those kinds [...]