Making friends is hard to do

As I get older, I realize that it gets harder and harder to make good friends.  I have loads of acquaintances, and I have a handful of amazing friends that started a decade or more ago, but the really good friends I have discovered in the last few years are few and far between.  This has been a challenge for me because most of my really amazing friends don't live nearby (although I have been blessed in having one of my dearest friends move only twenty minutes or so away in the last few years).  I want, and need, more of a circle of friends where I live and have been working on helping to make that happen in the past few years.

In the last six months or so I've met someone new through stuff that I do with Bean who I really enjoy chatting with, and today she and her daughter came to our house.  It was so nice!  We clearly have things in common and had lots of things to talk about.  Our little ones hit it off and didn't want the play time to end.  I had such a nice time and all of the hard work that I did to make our house look like it isn't a cluttered mess most of the time really felt like it was worth it.

As soon as they left, I fed Bean lunch and then she went down for her nap.  So my first inclination was to write this person an email and tell them what a good time we had, how nice it is to find people you have things in common with, that we should do it again soon, etc.  Then all of the sudden I felt like I had just been on a first date.  If I say all that too soon am I going to look desperate?  Like I haven't a friend in the world and want so badly to have this one?  Why is it that all of the sudden, when I've actually found someone that I like, I feel nervous about saying so?

I have no idea really, but I stopped myself from writing the email, even though if it was the other way around I would be thrilled to get an email like that after such a morning.  So now I'm stuck.  Is there a window for friendly encounters like there is for dating?  When do I get past the point of looking desperate?  Do I really care if I look desperate?  Which of course I do because I like this person and I want to be friends with them.  But if I want to be friends with them, real friends and not acquaintance friends, would I still want to be if they were put off by such an email?  Seriously, why does this seem so hard???  I can't tell if I'm making it hard or if it's just gotten harder and I'm not prepared.

Anyway, my crazy self is off to write that stinking email, because you know what, that's what my instinct told me to do and if being a mama has taught me anything, it's to trust my instincts.  Wish me luck!