Do I HAVE "15 friends who can drink for free"?

An amusing/interesting/pathetic thing just happened. I decided to log off (yes, I have dial-up) for the first time in about 34 hours and check my voicemail...and for the first time in ages, there was actually a worthwhile message. Seems I won a free hour of drinking at Porky's NYC this weekend and I can invite 15 of my friends to join me. YAY, right? Well, yes. I NEVER win anything (the lone Big Exception being when I won Springsteen tickets from WPLJ after calling for hours at work), and a free hour of drinking in NYC is particularly welcome. However, I instantaneously wondered who the FUCK would join me. Scraping together FIVE local friends is difficult, let alone fifteen. Three people popped immediately to mind, but one of them is only in NYC on Fridays after work. Then she's off to Lily White Land, otherwise known as Fairfield County. So she doesn't count for Saturdays. That leaves two people. And all 3 are women. I have NO close guy friends locally. Zero. Nada. Zilch. WHERE the bloody fuck is MY "Entourage"?!?!?!?!? I mean, there's others locally, even my brother, but the whole thing is such a fucking production, for merely one hour of free drinks, no matter who I wrangled. Certainly, I don't have 15 people of the SAME clique to invite. Does anyone, though? It's all just another huge slap in the face that 1) I need new friends because 2) most of mine are scattered...3) the ones who haven't drifted off into Awkward Aquaintance to begin with. What do I do? Join a church group? Volunteer work? REALLY get into making friends online to meet in the Real World? Do other men feel this void or is it only me? The better question, maybe, is if other men HAVE this void? Or do their work friends or brother-in-law become their drinking buddy/forced confidant? If they still drink, of course...the babies at home and all. Not that I'm some raging drunk. But just to go out to a bar or club. Hell, a night of bowling. Hey, there you go...I can join a bowling league! I think my problem is that i've always put such value in longtime friends. The shared history, knowing their parents and siblings, having been in their house, going to school with them. HOW can I be friends with someone whose mother i've never met?! I guess I kinda feel like new friends just won't measure up. And they won't...by the old rules. You can't replicate history. So I guess I'm just always leery of new people...guarded, cautious, aloof to a degree. And good, LOL. Because as much as I think new friends are good, I can't fucking stand people who have New Best Friends after one week of knowing someone. It's fake. And this all morphs nicely into my ongoing California dreaming. Why have I been so tethered to NYC? Media jobs, family, friends...that's why. But I can ax that last one off my excuses to stay local. I mean, I don't even LIKE other humans around me very often. It's not like i'm needy. So what the FUCK has been my excuse?! If I moved ANYwhere, i'd be gloriously alone, lol. My dream!! I'm exaggerating slightly...but maybe not by much. I've always been someone who likes to do what I want, when I want, with whom I want, withOUT explaining myself to another living soul. Come and go as I please. Go down that intriguing lonely road. Dammit, I should've gone west 10 years ago. I kept waiting for a companion...who was never to arrive. I should've had the balls to do it alone. I comfort myself with the fact I've driven to northern Maine and North Carolina by myself. Better than nothing. For now.