A Friend

Having moaned excessively here about having difficulty making proper friends at work due to all the moving around different jobs, I have now managed to make a friend after 9 days in my new job, and I feel that she will be a good one. She's the only other female SHO, she grew up in India, she is married with a little daughter, but lives apart from her husband during the week, so is effectively a single parent doing a full-time medical job in terms of her workload. Somehow we seemed to like each other straight away - kind of had to, being the only 2 girls, but today it well and truly leapfrogged the colleague-friend barrier due to a discussion about faith. I won't go into our whole discussion here, as it was a private one. Briefly, she is a Muslim, but with a lot of interest in Christianity and we found lots of things in common to talk about. Also chatted about recipes and skincare (which overlap each other a lot more in Indian culture than in ours - think I would like to try the crushed almonds and milk face treatment) and other girly issues. Am invited to go to her house soon and meet her daughter etc. Feel hugely encouraged about this - I know I sound a bit pathetic being so excited to make a friend, but it did feel special. Maybe partly because it wasn't some diffident British affair where we both gradually come to understand we are friends by little gestures and invitations and understandings. She just came right out and said she was happy to have met me and she has been praying for someone at work to talk to about her faith. After my general whining previously about friendships not ever going beyond the end of the six-month job, I propose to make sure that this one is different.