New and old friends.

I just got an e-mail from the woman who I will be working with at Penn State. I had a few questions that she was answering, and she signed the e-mail with her first name only. Up until now her e-mails have been signed with her full name, and she wrote very informally this time. It is a really small sign, but a sign none the less, that I am going to have a lot to do with this woman. She seems very nice, and I am not worried about anything like that. It's just that I am going to have to start building a social network all over again. I am going to have to meet her and a bunch of other faculty, along with my colleagues in the department and roommates and friends. I am sure a I will make friends, but I also realize that it will be a long time before I get to really live around anyone I know right now. Everyone that is in my life right now will have very little to do with anything I am involved with in for the next 5 years, and the people that I meet in the next 5 years probably won't have anything to do with me after that time is over. It isn't depressing necessarily, but I do feel a little sad. I think I feel that way, because, as far as I can tell, I don't seem to leave a big impression on anybody. I am friendly, and I think a lot of people like me, but I know for sure that I am no one's best friend right now. All of my friends have deeper friendships with other people. I am sure that everyone feels this way a little, and I am over-reacting, but it bothers me just the same. I am sure many of you know that I compare myself to my father a lot, and I think that in some ways we are very alike. After he died I realized that he made everyone he met feel like they were his best friend. People he worked with, clients of his, old neighbors, family and college buddies. His best friend was really a guy he saw less than once a month (although I know that he was one of those guys who also thought of his wife and kids as his best friends). I am happy that people like me, and that I make a good first impression like my dad did, but I am not exactly like my dad. I am afraid of 'growing up' and not having close friends that I see often. There are so many people who thought they knew my father, but even the blinders that I had, because I was so young, let me see that he wasn't who they thought he was. I feel sometimes like I do the same thing. I have an 'on' personality that is old fashioned, charming, polite, sarcastic and outgoing, but I also have a different personality that I am not sure everyone knows is there. Even now there are times when I hear a story about my dad and then I look over to my sister or mother and we know that whoever it is doesn't realize that they are talking about the Mark Schneider they saw, not the one that we knew. I guess I just haven't been 'off' in a long time, and I am starting to get worried that I will get stuck with the 'on' version. I miss my middle of the day movies with Pat, or building something/solving something with Matt, or Suzi noticing my little ticks and knowing my secrets. It is times like those when I am really me. I miss that.