A blog about Ages & Stages, Parenting and Family Life, and Personal Journals.
Real Name: Becky Colaw Member Since: April 13, 2008 Last Signed In: September 10, 2008 Profile Views: 181 Blog Views: 337 They're off! Summer's Over Blues It may kill me, but . . . Overwhelmed! Loss of words . . . I've Been Fired! Making Friends in Bakersfield Speech Therapy and Kindergarten - Oh my! Graffiti - Why? April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 October 08 November 08 December 08 
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Making Friends in Bakersfield
We moved here last May from a small town in Oklahoma, where my husband had lived since he was 7 years old and where I had lived since I was 18. Between college, jobs, church, and neighborhoods, we knew, or at least recognized, lots and lots of people. We had never really had to think about making new friends, and especially how to do that from scratch.We moved here to start a new church, so it wasn't like we were going to establish relationships in a church that we joined. Because we were not working traditional jobs, we were not going to meet people in the work force. There are three churches who invited us to come, so we knew we would connect with some people through those churches, and we do have some very close relationships with people from those churches now, but that was not going to be the main place for us to build relationships. When you plant a church, hopefully you are connected to a coach, who helps you along. We were, and we were told that we each needed to establish six "groups" that we would be involved with on a weekly or every other week basis, which is a great idea, but where do those six groups come from? Plus, six groups for each of us is really a lot when you also have children to attend to. We did not establish all twelve groups, but it did cause us to look high and low to figure out how to find ways to meet new people, and we have been able to do that.One group I found was on Meetup.com. I joined a stay at home mom's meetup group. It took me several months to attend things regularly, but now I have made a lot of friends and acquaintances, who I hope to develop friendships with, through the group and would highly recommend you check out meetup.com. They have groups for all sorts of different people or interests. Our group has a fabulous organizer who plans a lot of different things for us to be involved it. Some of the other women blogging on Raising Bakersfield belong to this group also. I just wanted to give it a plug because if you are struggling to meet new people, this is a great place to begin this process. And I don't know that I ever would have found it without the coach that told us we had to look for groups. And probably most of you do not have this person pushing you! 6 comments from 6 users
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posted by
kevinmorrison
on Apr 17, 2008 at 02:25 PM
Jill and I moved here from Downey (southeast L.A.) and knew nobody. Luckily we found a church and during our second visit, someone grabbed us by the ear and said "you need to come to our small group." Without that, we may have stumbled around for a long time looking for the relationships we need to keep our sanity. The greatest thing we did was to look for a church FIRST thing, making that effort to find a group and make those relationships. And then there was this crazy family from Oklahoma.... posted by
Christina
on Apr 17, 2008 at 03:08 PM
The SAHM meetup has been wonderful for me also! I have met wonderful friends :) It's difficult to move to a new place without knowing anyone or anything.... especially when you've lived in one central area your entire life (like me). All the friends I have in Bakersfield now are either from parents groups, parents of my kids schoolmates and one of my very closest friends I met at Greenacres Park 2 years ago! posted by
Jason
on Apr 17, 2008 at 03:43 PM
We've been very lucky. We moved here not knowing anyone, but we randomly picked up friends here and there--the owners of a coffee house we frequented, new transplants who knew mutual friends in LA, a couple who stopped me when I was walking our weird-looking dog in our neighborhood--picked up some via my wife's work, then I met a few more when I started taking The Pumpkin to storytimes and MyGym. We sort of have always been group-forming magnets, starting in college--so here, we started introducing all these disparate new friends to each other and voila, five years later, we're not lonely anymore! posted by
TheAvonLady
on Apr 17, 2008 at 05:58 PM
Welcome to Bakersfield! posted by
pelly
on Apr 19, 2008 at 06:48 PM
It's been crazy for us as well. You know what's cool, though? We've gotten connected with SO many extremely thoughtful people who realize what it may have been like with a move across the county. They check in & want to know how we're doing. I think meeting the right people is key. And I think you're right, Becky, sometimes you have to just throw yourself out there to start meeting people. When we first moved to town, we spent a lot of time at Borders at their events because - other than matt's job- we had nothing else to do! It's getting better ALL the time. And Bakersfield is getting mor eand mroe familiar and less and less strange. It is also encouraging to become the type of person who looks out for new people & befriends them. It's tough to be the new person! posted by
Sheeky
on Apr 26, 2008 at 12:22 PM
there are some great people here. Its great to have resources like that website as well.
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