Starter friends

How does one rid oneself of starter friends?

Much like I hear about a starter marriage, I have a feeling that in London I have made a few starter friends. These are people I befriended in a time of desperation (and wow, what a long period of desperation that was) and with whom I kept in touch in order not to completely lose my mind as a stay-at-home mom. In retrospect, I can name my starter friends from prior periods in my life: college (Heather, Trisha, for example) and high school (wow, if only I had christened Anna merely a starter friend, what misery I would have been saved down the road); Karrie was such a long-term starter friend you'd think I'd have figured it out before I did. Maybe that's from whence all this anxiety over ridding them from my life stems. Hmm ...

What's really awkward is that for the first time in years, I am picking and dismissing my friends, rather than the tables being turned (whereupon I was often dissed, true). It was hard enough to politely, or eventually just tacitly, get rid of that bigoted, stereotyping German woman. I keep encountering more and more of these situations though. Currently I'm working on phasing out a woman who complains about her two children constantly, even though she has a constant stream of babysitters and maids and launderers in her house. Her husband is such an asshole that I fault her for putting up with him more than I do him for being the ass. There are others whom I'd rather label acquaintances than friends but what do you do? I'll tell you what: you leave the country.

But surely this will happen every time I move, no? I'll need friends, make them quickly and then possibly move on to "better" friends. Is that gross? Is this snobbery? God, I can't tell. All I know is that when people bring me down continually and offer no positive angles to a friendship I try to rid myself of them. And damn I'm good at it ... better than I'd like to be at times, seeing as how I am apt to forget the positive angles offered. It's almost like I need a wing man to help me discern the negative from the only-currently-sad. I'm losing perspective here.

Whoever said that 30 is old or that as you get older life is less fun was an idiot. I am constantly discovering new and sometimes disturbing parts of my personality or behavior that require lots of thought. Life is just beginning really.