#i think she mmmmay have vagued about me on a new tumblr blog (she remade periodically; i never have lol)

[mmmthornton]

i lost my best friend when my radfem beliefs became a problem with her sister who's in a relationship with someone who calls herself nonbinary. it hurt so bad to be thrown away. but its been about 9 months since it happened and it's probably for the best but damn i had not that many friends to begin with and its lonely. any ideas on how to make new friends?

Ahh, I'm so sorry. I mean what I said in the post, but I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing how much heartbreak can come out of friend breakups regardless of the reasons. I had a real 'cis'ter in terfery* at one point, and when we parted ways it involved a radical shift in my personal, living situation, and home lives all at once! I feel for you a lot because of this.

First step I would recommend is to give yourself a chance to grieve if you haven't already. Whatever you feel about the relationship ending, give yourself room to feel those emotions in a safe and/or private way. Not really like, hiding them from others, just using a journal or some creative outlet. The main thing is to not be ashamed of those feelings because it'll make the next steps harder than they have to be. Nine months out, you may already have a handle on that part but if not here's your reminder to do that.

The next and really only other step that I suggest is to go out of your way to say "yes" to things. Thats one of those things you read on a tea bag and its so much simpler to say than to just, immediately apply to your life, but when you break it down and start making a habit of applying it to your behavior it gets a lot easier to stick to. You didn't give specifics about your age or where you life or what your situation is, so I'm going to keep on the general side but I still want to get across what I mean as something you can practically do. A normal person in a normal routine walks around turning stuff down pretty constantly and passively when we don't need or want to introduce a change in our day-to-day. What you're trying to do here is deliberately change up your routine to something that brings the kind of people we want in our lives, and you might not know exactly WHAT that looks like yet.

Opportunities to say yes to things might look completely different depending on who you are or where you're at, but I'm going to give you a super helpful little phrase to say to yourself when you start to see these: "I could try that."

Someone in your work Slack channels suggests starting a book club for a book that's on the bestseller list, but is from a genre you don't read? Yeah, I could try that.

Your school is looking for volunteers to help set up a student orientation event? Sure I could give it a shot.

You come home one day to a gift left by a mysterious rugby angel that includes a pair of cleats in your size, a tournament-regulation rugby ball, and a coupon for a mouth guard? Okay I could try this.

I think a lot of advice is like "Go to movie screenings where people you like might be hanging out!" and I think, while well-intentioned, its kind of missing a key part in why that would be a good plan lol. It doesn't matter so much the thing you say yes (or even a begrudging "i'll try") to, and its not like you're making a list of qualities in a future friend to check off. You're giving yourself the flexibility to branch out, learning more about what you benefit from and who you want to keep in your life. Maybe you'll go to three rugby practices and not get anything else from it but some cool bruises, or maybe you'll play D&D one day because the boyfriend of a friend of a friend has been DYING to try DM'ing so you humor him, and then ten years later you don't talk to almost anyone from that original campaign but you're a part of several different groups of friends who play and they're all from different circles, and you would never have that connection with this number of people today if you weren't willing to say "I could be this other person who plays tabletop games even if I haven't been that person yet. I'm open to the opportunity."

I hope this is helpful; you're already being honest about who you are and that is a wonderful place to start from. You got this, anon!