This weekend we headed out to Horton Vineyards for their barrel tasting. Horton is one of my favorite wineries here, and the barrel tasting events are fun. We went with one of PB’s co-workers and a few of her friends; PB doesn’t drink wine*, meaning we didn’t have to worry.

We had also invited one of PB’s other friends to come along. She declined, saying her husband had to work; they have two boys. A few days after we were told this, PB was talking to her husband and he mentioned that he wasn’t working this weekend. It came out that she had declined because she is wary of becoming close friends with women. (She does not have a lot of female friends, and ever since PB and I started dating her husband has been pushing us to do “girlfriend” things together.)

I felt weird about this, and it took me a while to put my finger on why. I resented the implication that this was some ploy of mine to get us to be BFFs. She’d mentioned that we should all go on a wine tasting tour, and thus when I found out about this I thought it would be something she enjoyed. Clearly it was not just an event for close friends; I didn’t know two of the people we went up with, and we met another group of people there that I didn’t know either.

Yes, I understand that she’s wary because she’s had some friendships go bad, and while I agree that women can be bad for this (hey, I just recently lost a large group of so-called friends), to turn down an invitation for that reason? That’s a little sad to me. I suppose there is a chance you could get hurt, but there is a much better chance that you’ll have a really enjoyable afternoon. Which is exactly what it turned out to be. (Also, PB was able to drive all of us, if she had come we would have had to take two cars. So, it was quite possibly for the best.)

Not that it really comes into play here. The fact of the matter is, I’m not really interested in being anything more than “couple friends” with this person. She’s a perfectly lovely person, but not someone I really see myself hanging out with on a one on one basis. Her interests are her family, World of Warcraft, and well, I don’t know what else. And I’m ok with that. I have fun when we all hang out, but anything more? I don’t see it.

Unfortunately, I’m hoping that this won’t put a damper on things the next time we get together. I’ll be worried about giving the impression that I want to be her girlfriend, and I don’t want to do that. In fact, I’d prefer to make it perfectly clear that I don’t. Which will be difficult to do without making it seem like I don’t like her.**

*This is both good and bad. Good, because I can go to things like this and not worry about driving. Bad, because, hey, maybe I would like to drink some good wine with my honey on occasion.
**Once, I was talking about a friend of mine with the same name as hers. I referred to her as “my friend (name).” She said, “I thought I was your friend (name).” So, also, maybe I’m confused about what you want there.