Bruni in the City: Friends Until the End…or Until Next Tuesday?

A Column by Christina Bruni
Breaking Up with Buddies is Hard to Do Too

Caroline was a daisy in my life—like a springtime flower that brought joy. She suddenly disappeared after a few years in the early 2000s under mysterious circumstances. Yes—I let her go without trying to get her back.

Carny was the college buddy whose friendship I chronicled in my memoir, Left of the Dial. We drifted apart after I was shunted into “the system” and didn’t get back together after that.

Margot—the mental health buddy also of Left of the Dial fame is still in my life though from afar. She lives in year-round sunshine and sends me postcards from her kitchen table.

Y. was the true-blue friend I bonded with for a number of years until, through my own doing, the friendship came undone. It’s possible that I failed to call her back when she invited me to dinner for my birthday. How’s that for a friend? 

I tell you loyal readers: no matter what’s going on in your life, reach out to a person who reaches out to you. Make the effort instead of thinking of yourself. Don’t send them a cheery refrigerator magnet in the mail one year later and think that suffices.

My friendship with Y. ended in January 2007 because of my own actions. As if my antics before then weren’t enough, she, like all my friends from the taupe 1990s is gone.

My friend DJ is a forever-friend even though I haven’t seen him in years. He was my Best. Friend. Ever. Still is. He moved to Atlantic City.

My “five friends theory” goes like this: you can count on one hand the number of good friends most people have. I have three friends hovering in my life now.

We should all run far away from negative people who tend to bring us down. I call them energy vampires.

DJ and I once sat in a Vietnamese restaurant in Bay Ridge. He told me: “You and I see things differently. We think differently.” 
Break bread with people. I’m able to relate to people from different walks of life. I don’t care about age or race or income. In this way, a person’s status in society doesn’t matter to me. I’ve had friends of all stripes and I will continue to have friends of all stripes. You have to see beyond appearance and listen to people and understand them. We’re all human beings doing the best we can with what we’re given. On the inside, where it counts, a lot of us are hurting. See what you can do to lighten another person’s load.
Envy serves no purpose except to make you miserable and keep you stuck. Other people have been turned off when I tell them I’m a librarian and own a co-op. As soon as I say this, they refuse to meet me.

C’mon, it’s 2017. We should be honoring and embracing each other’s individuality. It matters only whether a person is kind and caring, not whether they have something that you don’t have. Focus on going after what you can do and be and have in your life.
Truly, I’m most happy hanging out with other creative people, whether it’s hosting a dinner party in my apartment or meeting others at a poetry reading.

My artist’s statement is written thus: I act as a Chief Joy Officer to create things of beauty to share with others to make them feel good.
The more you can spread good vibes, the better you’ll be able to attract great friends into your life. You deserve to have a life of meaning.

In the end, each of us has to be a good friend to ourselves even when other people aren’t kind to us. It comes down to having self-compassion so that we can have compassion for other people.
What matters most is that each of us has the grace of kindness to shower the people we meet with love. Love is all you need—it’s so true. And it’s what the world needs now more than ever.

We should love our friends and be happy they’re in our lives. For as long as our friends are here we should be grateful. We should let them go when they’re supposed to leave.

Bruni in the City: The Perfect Macaroons

Bruni in the City: The Perfect Macaroons

A Column by Christina Bruni

Stay True to Yourself and You'll Find the Right One

I've drowned myself in macaroons, courtesy of Cream, a new coffee bar in Bay Ridge on Third Avenue at 72nd Street in Brooklyn. My favorite is the wedding almond. I buy two and a hot chocolate with whipped cream, no marshmallows.

Cream has free wi-fi and a quartet of tables in the back, plus a restroom. I prefer going here to the Starbucks down the street. Donuts are also on offer, like the hibiscus or the chocolate with cocoa nibs. A standard variety of coffee, too.

The winter is not my favorite season. Late summer into early fall is when I have the most energy. Thus I decided to try to find a guy in the early spring or thereabouts. I bombed out on the Internet matchmaking services. Earlier this year, I decided I would never again be untrue to myself by trying to get other people's approval.

The guys online left a lot to be desired. That is, I wasn't willing to settle for one of those average guys. For a number of years, I've bristled at how sick people are praised because they hide behind a cloak of normalcy. You can be rude to customers. You can fail to do your share of the work at a job. You can be outright hostile. And you'll be celebrated because you don't have a mental illness.

The guys online were crackers. I was open-minded, so I sent a message to a vegan, and he didn't respond because I eat chicken and fish. I also sent a message to a psychiatric worker who specified he wanted to meet a "sexy" woman. No response here either.

Not only were the guys a few bricks short of a house, I realized I couldn't compete in these traditional dating arenas because 95 percent of the guys are only interested in finding out if a woman is "fuckable." If you're an intelligent, hip, socially savvy woman, you're expected to be grateful for the crumbs on the table that these guys deign to give you. You're supposed to overlook that they're unmedicated yet not normal.

As my efforts derailed, one after the other, over the last two years, I decided that I hadn't failed; it was my approach that failed me. I took myself off the market to focus on publishing my memoir, Left of the Dial, which went on sale on Amazon this past December 2014. After the book came out, I kick-started marketing it and selling it via my new website and my blogs and other channels.

The more I thought about things, the more I realized that changing myself to fit a mold of what other people in society deem acceptable is a no-win game. The self-doubt was replaced by a new confidence because it suddenly hit me: Do I really want to date a shallow guy who seeks a tarted-up, tatted-up woman? No, no, no.

Two real-life experiences cemented the truth in my mind that settling for any old guy who expresses an interest in me is not the way to live. I hold two truths to be self-evident. First, I have a best friend I'll call Josh. He has a female companion who collects SSI. He takes her to lunch. He takes her to dinner. She doesn't wear stilettos and a cleavage-baring, leopard-print dress.

This cheered me because I realized I might be able to find a great guy like Josh who doesn't immediately want to get under my skirt. I am not a bimbo. My great worry has always been that I would have to stuff down my personality and change myself to be in a relationship with a guy.

Have no fear. A free spirited woman I know wears cowboy boots with a skirt. She is always nattily attired in jeans and a t-shirt. She pulls it off with her own joie-de-vivre. And no, she doesn't wear stilettos on a date either or slit-up-to-there skirts.

That's how I realized there was hope for me. A psychiatric worker only wanted a sexy woman, and a narrow-minded vegan was critical of a woman's food and fashion choices. Since I couldn't compete online in this arena, I realized I would have to live my life and see who I met in person at a book talk I gave.

I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I didn't have to get tarted-up or tatted-up to snare a guy. The equation is simple: Only by acting true to yourself can you find your true match. I'm convinced there's a guy out there for me. Right now, the macaroons sure are delish.