On official friends

I have a list on my computer of how to hang out with people and initiate social activities.

I have a tendency of telling my friends, "I like you/I like hanging out with you" because I can't tell if other people want to be my friend, so I figure its nice for them to know. (Apparently this isn't normal behavior either.)

When I went to college, I knew I was going to have to make new friends and that would be difficult. And I was going to a co-ed school, after years of being at an all girls-school and only really having female cousins and stuff, so I was going to have to learn to talk to boys. My goal was to make some male casual acquaintances freshman year, maybe talk about school with them. And then maybe sophomore year I could make an actual friend (quantified by being able to initiate communication with them).

So early freshman year, I had made a group of potential friends. I went to some social activities with one of the boys and even a hockey game.  I couldn't tell the difference between him and one of the other boys in the group, but it seemed to be pretty ok, since I am used to that and he generally recognized me (since you know, normal people seem to have this facial recognition thing going on). And after we hung out and went to a movie on campus and did a couple of other things that weekend. So I was pretty sure that I was on my way to making a friend (maybe two, but it was probably just the one). One night he walked me back to my dorm after we had been hanging out. He talked a bit about how much fun we had been having hanging out that weekend. And then he asked if I wanted to make it official.

I was pretty excited. My first official friend!
And a boy, too! I was ahead of schedule with that.

Later, I was informed by a facebook relationship request (and a high school friend interpretting the meaning) that I actually had obtained a boyfriend. Several years later I was informed that people don't make official friends after kindergarten much.

Anyway, that is how I met boyfriend and started dating him.

And 4 years and a bit later, it is still pretty awesome–actually a lot more awesome–and we have much better communication skills now.