October 26, 2009 
by Jacey Eckhart
I run out of local friends the way I run out of eggs. I think I’ve got plenty until I’m making a cake/having a crisis/wanna go to lunch at a place with a waitress. Then I discover that my usual friends have moved or aged-out of the bus stop or made a deployment buddy I cannot budge.
So when I catch an idea about how to make more friends I’m on it. I was really interested in an entry on World of Psychoogy contributor Therese Borchard ‘s
“10 Ways to Make Friends” as well as John Grohol’s follow up piece
“10 More Ways To make Friends". They offered some good suggestions: take up bowling, go to church, learn something new, get a dog, talk to strangers.
Click ‘em, apply ‘em, make ‘em your own. But know that those suggestions aren’t really ways to make friends. Those are ways to make acquaintances who eventually might turn into good friends.
I think this is a distinction we military folks often miss. We think we’re supposed to go out into the world and make instant best friends, bosom buddies, kindred spirits so in tune with our needs that they will wipe our brow while we’re in labor—even if we plan never to be in labor again.
So is it any wonder that when we meet someone our own age that we do the instant military download: how old are your kids? Where are you from? We lived in Texas three duty stations ago. Oh, you’re military too? My mother-in-law showed up at Thanksgiving without any panties. Blah, blah, blah. The longer you’ve been a military spouse, the faster you can download 36 relevant items about your life and the closer you are to being best friends, right?
I just don’t know. On one hand, I’ve made some very intense, fabulous friendships exactly that way without other spouses. On the other hand, I’ve been so keen on making close friends that I suffer the epic fail when it comes to making acquaintances. Ask anyone at my son’s bus stop.
Until recently, I think I’ve made the mistake that the word “friend” only that mucho close meaning. Instead, I’ve found that when researchers urge us to make friends as part of our informal support network, they don’t just mean best friends. Instead they are including this group of friends who are friends really in the Facebook sense.
They are egg friends. We know their names. We recognize their kids. We would sit next to them at a soccer game or in the staff room if they happened to be there. We meet them as exercise buddies or at Bible study or at the unit picnic. We’d lend them an egg if asked.
But that’s not why I think of them as egg friends. Instead, I collect this kind of friend because they are an absolute necessity—like bread and milk. If you want to feel settled in a particular duty station, you have to know people and be known. Even if you are an introvert who hates to meet people and would be just fine at home all by yourself, you still need to keep stocked up on this kind of friend. Because there is no substitute.
So pull a napkin over to yourself and make a list of a dozen people who are this kind of friend. Don’t have enough to fill a Styrofoam container? Make more. All it takes is a nod and hello.
Jacey Eckhart is a military/life consultant based in Washington DC. She is the author of The Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman’s Guide to Raising a Military Family" and the voice behind “These Boots.” Check out more columns and her speaking schedule at www.jaceyeckhart.com.