We've had a hard time making friends here, on the whole.

My dearest mate and I come from the same farflung tribe of friends and lovers who shared similar worldviews, values, and life experiences, which can be summed up by: live weird, die weird, and leave a weird looking corpse, or maybe by the question "how many ex lovers CAN you fit in a hot tub?"

We're a fiercely loyal bunch, all either raised or educated in the same hothouse college town back when sex and drugs were still pretty fun and innocent. Now, against all odds, most of us have survived and many of us are thriving professional family people, some with kids we're trying to raise to question cultural assumptions and think for themselves. Some of us have moved to other countries to pursue their freedoms and challenges. Others of us have ended up living underneath the buckle of the bible belt, trying to cruise under the radar without giving up too much of what makes us proudly different from the suppressive and judgmental cultural norms.

So, when we moved here to what is really a fairly large city, we thought it wouldn't be too hard to find people who weren't overly socially conservative to make friends with. We had a baby who was nearly a year old and that can be a powerful calling card. We tried to find playgroups, but even the so-called "pagan playgroup" turned out to be a little too orthodox for us - though that's another story for a different post (or several).

When the kid was old enough for pre-school, things opened up a little. The Presbyterian-run pre-school we selected turned out to have a very diverse and open minded parent population, and we made friends there based on mutual values that went deeper then where (or if) we worshipped or how many tattoos we had. Only one family, as it turned out, became lasting friends, but it was enough to stave off the loneliness. Fast forward to the start of elementary school.

We were so excited to find, even before the first day, at an orientation meeting, a family whose child was in the same class as ours who seemed to have just everything in common with us. I'll call them George and Didi.

We understood the same movie references, had many of the same books on our similarly overloaded shelves, had values and interests that meshed and all genuinely liked each other. We laughed a lot and played cards and board games. Our kids played together so well it was almost spooky. Soon we were having family dinner together at least a couple of times a week. The kids were begging to have sleepovers. Didi started coming to my knitting group with me. George and my husband began hanging out a lot on weekends. It was....perfect.

Then one night, driving home from the knitting group, Didi turned to me. I was driving. She said, "So...you've read Heinlein, right?"

"Of course," I laughed. "Stranger in a Strange Land changed my whole outlook on life when I read it in junior high."

"So, you know the concept of Line Marriage?"

"Yeah....?"

"Do you think you guys could ever do that with us?"

"......"

I concentrated on staying in my lane, surprised to silence. Polyamory, group marriage - not foreign concepts but not something my darling and I were actively considering at this point in our lives. We are firmly connected and committed to each other, and though we deliberately left "forsaking all others" out of the wedding vows, we'd seen no need or reason to upset the equilibrium, and frankly, it was far from my mind that George and Didi would be candidates for a fling, much less building a life together.

But we liked them so much.

Cautiously, I finally said, "Well...I like to say that life is wide, and full of many possibilities, but gosh, it's early days, don't you think?"

She seemed to sparkle with contained excitement as she smiled mysteriously and let the subject go.

I dropped her off a few minutes later and went home to my mate with a lot to tell him, and a lot on my mind.

To be continued.....