New Friend

     There’s someone new in my life. I’ve known her for about a year now, but she’s kind of skipped in and out of my life like a stone across the water. We’ve decided to be friends, and have had at least four failed attempts to hang out. We primarily text. But we text a lot. Things are promising. Her name is Taylor.

     I find making new friends difficult. Not the making of friends, but navigating the beginning stages of my job. I’m not one to live in the closet, and I don’t do well with secrets or lying. Aside from family (none of them know) everyone in my personal life knows what I do for a living. But there are always new people. I told Taylor my cover story when we first met, and it has never been discussed since. Part of me wonders if our mutual friend told her. Like I say, my job has never been discussed since. Not even for scheduling/figuring out hang out time. Almost like it’s been avoided. But, assuming she doesn’t know, when we start hanging out trust will have to be built before I come clean, and until then it will be lies, or avoidance. I feel bad about that. That’s not who I am. I think that this is the part of my job I get most frustrated about. 

    I was out with the girls tonight, and there were five of us. Three of the people there knew and the fourth didn’t, simply because I haven’t built any kind of personal relationship with her yet. But they talked about my job like everyone knew. They just assumed. Well, I guess she knows now. Oh well. And in their defense, she is the +1 of the other girl there, so she probably already knew. 

     I know my friends are not going to have an issue with my job. That’s why they’re my friends. Whether or not I’ve told them, I choose who I hang out with, and they’re cool people. But still, I get frustrated every time I’m outted. I know I need to get past it. I think if I friends-offed everyone who outted me I’d have no friends left. I know they don’t have any ill-intent by it, I just find it disrespectful.