baseball girlfriends.

I'm fascinated by social groups formed by the significant others of people who hang out together. I can't say that I've ever been in a group like that. My friend Amy was in the group of baseball players' girlfriends in high school. They would all sit together and chat during games, because there was nothing else to do. Some of these girls were people that I knew she did not like. And yet she spent several hours a week talking to them. The really weird thing was that once the connection was severed, so was the relationship. Once baseball season was over, she didn't hang out with those girls anymore. And if one of the players broke up with his girl, then she was no longer part of the group. I suppose I should be in some sort of band girlfriend group. I should be hanging out with the drummer's girlfriend at shows, but I hang out by myself instead. As a result, I don't even know the girl's last name, despite us having boyfriends in the same band for over a year. I guess that's just what it's like to be me.

It's not that I don't understand about temporary relationships. I have had many. Someone I sat next to in a class one semester, an old roommate that I never bonded with, an coworker who left for another job. We had exactly one thing in common, and when that thing was done, so was our relationship, even if I talked to them often or liked them. That person is gone from my life, probably forever, and it doesn't bother me at all. Sometimes I might hang on to a relationship if I felt there was a connection with the person which went beyond whatever caused us to meet in the first place. But the ratio of people I kept to the people who have basically fallen off the face of the earth is very small.

And this baseball girlfriend thing, it's like that, except the thing you have in common is even more removed. The relationship is even more tenuous than hanging out with your boyfriend's friends. It's like letting someone else pick your friends. Two people who have a class together might have at least one interest in common. Having boyfriends that play the same sport seems even less likely to yield a connection.

Seeing my sisters-in-law over Thanksgiving made me realize that I might someday be part of a group like theirs - the members of a family who were not born into it. Then Josh and I went to a party with his step-brother and his girlfriend. I started looking at the girlfriend in a new light, realizing that if the stars aligned properly, I could be hanging out with her for the next fifty years. I could be invited to the birthday parties of her children. We might comfort each other at the death of an extended family member. It would be like we were sisters, but always with the possibility of having that tie severed. If either of our relationships ended, I would probably never see her again. We are baseball girlfriends in a neverending season.

I like the girl. I admit I am trying harder than I normally do to talk to her, because I know we might be bumping into each other at family gatherings for years. Of course, my normal social anxiety is not helped by this analysis of the situation, but that's what it's like to be me. Seriously, does anyone else in the world ever think about this stuff?

As I talk to her, I try to figure out how our relationship will develop. Will we be close, or will we just be extended family? Will we be limited to small talk at Christmas, or will we call each other up for parenting advice? How likely are two men who grew up in the same house to pick spouses that will bond with each other?

Of course, I have no answers and no foresight. I doubt you expected any, and frankly, you're surprised to find that anyone really thinks about this stuff. That's just what it's like to be me.