Fuck yes I will RSVP to your party

One of my friends from gay soccer just e-mailed us. He is having a party, with cake, to celebrate the anniversary of adopting his cat, and we're all invited. It's like everything I love -- soccer, gays, cats, drinking, cake -- combined in one event.

You know how sometimes you meet people and it's like "You are the friends I've been looking for! Where have you been for the past four years?"

That's how I feel about my soccer team. I've played soccer for years, but this is the first time I feel like I'm making awesome friends. They are soccer friends, but also drinking friends, clubbing friends, and cat owner friends.

Meeting people is easy, but meeting friends who are perfect for you is just random luck. Joining clubs and trying activities increases the probability that you will find people that you really click with -- but it doesn't guarantee that it will happen.

It took me years of effort to reach this place where I have an awesome social life outside of grad school. Now, I have friends for everything -- lunch friends, drinking friends, academic friends, gay friends, soccer friends, local band groupie friends, clubbing friends. I have friends in my department, but my social life doesn't depend on them anymore. I actually have a life.

And in one or two years, I'm expected to drop everything and move to whatever distant university will hire me. But let's not think about that right now.