One is silver, the other gold

College: the pinnacle of your social life. Yay for Girls Nights!

Many recent studies show having supportive friends and spending quality time with them (in-person) on a regular basis can improve your chance of living longer by 50 percent, keeps your brain sharper for longer, doubles your odds of surviving cancer, reduces your chance of catching colds, and reduces your stress level (thus lessening the ill effects of stress on your health). Not having close friends can be as detrimental to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day!

But as many other young couples out there know, finding fellow parent friends can be tricky. I read a blog post once that said making playdate friends was harder than finding a husband. I’d tend to agree. As someone who makes friends slowly anyway, adding a kid into the mix makes it nearly impossible. When my son was a few months old, and I was lonely, bored, and depressed sitting at home with him. I had just finished college - that amazing time of life when friends seem to be waiting around every corner, a time when I bonded with many strong female friends who have played key roles in my life. But now, all of a sudden, I only had one friend who also had a kid. My old friends just couldn't really relate to what I was going through, and I didn't really have time to hang out anymore.

In my new role as mom, I tried to reach out and make connections by attending a weekly women's morning church group. But every week, the ladies in the nursery had to come get me before the class was even halfway through because my son was screaming so much. I occasionally hung out with my one friend who had also a baby. I went back to work at the florist on an occasional basis and met another new friend there. The friends I’ve made through my most recent job are great, kids or no kids, and in moving we’ve been able to hang our with some college friends more often (but since they don’t have kids, it’s not as often as it could be). What is it that drives us to keep up with the friends we once had? Are old friends really better or is it just that hard to make new ones? Has social networking caused us to want to reconnect with old friends more than be out in the world actively seeking new connections?