Pocketful of Joules

Tomorrow we’re going to go and look at houses again and I’m a little apprehensive. We went and looked at 5 houses last weekend and I totally fell in love with one of them (as mentioned in the TMI post). A few days after we looked at it, I found out that it went under contract and I was totally crushed.

My husband was obsessed with another of the houses that we had seen (mostly due to the 4 car garage) and was overjoyed that it might make our ‘final list’ since the one I liked was no longer available. Then this morning we found out that it also just went under contract. What makes it super weird is that this house has been on and off the market since 2007 and hadn’t gotten a contract until we looked at it. Boo! Hiss!

I guess the good news is that the market is finally on the rebound with people buying houses again. Of course, it’d be a lot better news if someone would buy OUR house!

The lady who was/is interested in our house came and saw it for a third time last Sunday, but still no contract. According to her agent, she still likes our house but is “dragging her feet because she doesn’t feel the need to rush”.

Um, yeah. I guess I’M feeing the need for her to rush!

Anyways, if we do receive a contract from her or anyone in the next few weeks we feel like it would be a good idea to have narrowed down our list to one or two favorites. Of course, there are no guarantees that someone else might snap them up before we can.

And yes, I know we could put a contract on a house contingent on us selling our house, but those contracts aren’t as attractive to a seller. We’d prefer to have our house under contract so we can just put our purchase contingent on our settlement.

So I’m a bit nervous about going to look at the last 5 houses on our list. Even though I go into it telling myself to hold back and not get too involved with a house by picking out new furniture and making our imaginary child best friends with the neighbor’s kids, I just can’t help it. I guess I’m just a house slut.

I’m going to work super hard to keep my house sluttyness contained tomorrow, but I can’t make any promises.

I recently met up with a fabulously awesome friend of mine and we got on the subject of how tricky it can be to make the leap from networking with someone to building a one-on-one relationship.

It seems silly, but once you get out of college it’s not that easy to make new friends. At least, it wasn’t that easy for me. I’m not an unfriendly person, but getting over that hump from casual conversation to actual friend was pretty darn scary.

I guess it’s just that fear of rejection, or of people thinking that I’m a dork. But that doesn’t make sense either, because I kind of AM a dork. I’m not shy about my love of Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, random pop culture trivia or my dorktastic dance moves. So why am I too shy to tell someone I want to hang out with them?

I don’t know what I expect to happen; maybe they turn to me and laugh saying “No, I would NEVER want to hang out with you. You have a stupid face and smell like cheese!* Why would someone like me EVER want to be seen with someone like you?” Yeah, that’s probably not that likely outside of my bizarre daydream world.

Anyways, how many times have you met someone at a networking event that you think “this person is really nice, I like them” and then nothing ever comes out of it? So, about a year ago I finally decided to do something about it. I joined a really great program with Business Volunteers Unlimited called GIVE. In fact, I was one of the lucky members of the GIVE Class of 2010.

When I joined that program, I made myself a promise that I would make some new friends. So I went to the first couple of meetings and when I spoke to someone who seemed nice and funny, I jotted their name down. A couple days later, I’d send them an email saying that it was really nice to talk to them and would they like to meet up for lunch sometime.

Most of the time, they said yes and we’d make lunch plans. Once I was in a situation of talking to them one-on-one, it was great! We usually had lots in common and by the end of the lunch felt so much more comfortable with each other. Then, the next time I’d see them at a GIVE event; I could walk up and talk to them without feeling like an idiot.

Lunches with new contacts turned into Happy Hours where everyone was able to cut loose and really start getting to know each other. Now that it’s been over a year I really feel like I’ve got some really great friends, including the fabulously awesome chick that sparked the idea for this post.

So, if you want to grow your business network or just get through a networking meeting that you’re boss forced you to attend, just think of it like you’re going out there to make a new friend. Starting up a conversation with someone is scary, but most of the time they’re just as intimidated as you are.

*At this point anyone who was a girl scout is singing, “one is silver and the other gold”. Which is actually pretty mean when you’re categorizing your friendships.

**Yeah, I’m totally eating Doritos right now while writing this. So maybe I do smell like cheese…

Have you ever walked up to someone and just verbally exploded all over them? You know, when you’re not really paying attention to how much you’re actually talking and the moment you walk away you get that flush of shame realizing that the conversation was definitely 95% you and 5% them?

Yeah, that totally just happened to me. I know my obsession with this house selling/buying process is pretty bad. I mean, I talk about it with my husband, my friends, my parents, on my blog, etc. on a pretty regular basis. I actually would love to NOT think about it for a while because it’s totally stressing me out.

However, without my brain’s consent, my mouth detonated a verbal ninja which jumped out and beat the crap out of an acquaintance. Within the space of about 10 minutes, I had told him about my experiences trying to sell our townhouse, what we’re looking for in a new house, the prices of houses in the area’s we’re looking, how much cheaper the taxes are in different counties, what the neighborhood was like at my favorite house (so far), and how I already decorated the house in my head and have made friends with the neighbors. Oh yeah, and I might have said something about how in my head my imaginary child is best friends with the neighbors kids.

Oh my god. Mortified doesn’t cover it!

Okay, I know I’m full of crazy but I typically don’t let that crazy out on unsuspecting people! I’m pretty sure that this super nice guy didn’t give a crap about my rambling conversation, but he was kind enough to smile and nod. He didn’t even turn around and run for the hills the second I shut my mouth, so he deserves an award for that.

Why do we do this? And come on, I know it’s not just me…right?

I guess my point is that even though we may ‘know better’ about something, everyone makes mistakes. Of course, I like to laugh at my mistakes and share them with strangers so they can laugh at me to. So, there’s that.

Anyways, if you have a story about when you trapped someone with your verbal diarrhea please share!