In the spring when L was 15 months old, we moved to a new town. Knowing nobody, I began my adventures in mommy-dating. I hated mommy-dating but it had to be done. Without a job to go to, I had no other way of meeting new people. If you’ve never had to mommy-date, consider yourself lucky.
Mommy-dating is just like real-dating, except the scene unfolds at the playground, (or supermarket, library, museum etc,) instead of a bar. I paid a little more attention to my own appearance, and L’s, making sure we were both at least mostly clean. I’d scan the park for “attractive” moms. What makes a potential mom-friend attractive? Her kid needs to be approximately the same age as L. No matter how cool a mom of a 6 month old seems, there’s no way she’d want a playdate with my wild toddler. She needs to look kind of like me – I’m not going to be bffs with a fancy mom. So, with my sights set on new mom friends, I hit the “singles” scene.
Just like real-dating, I had to put myself out there: I made eye contact; I was approachable; I was friendly; I visited the same places again and again, so I could see the same moms again and again; I made idle conversation with everyone; I introduced myself; I asked for phone numbers. All of this sucked. All of this was entirely against my inherent unfriendly nature. And, worse, I had an unreliable wing-man. L could be entirely disarming, or he could throw sand in your kid’s eyes.
In many ways, I think real-dating is less awkward than mom-dating. With real-dating, the whole pick-up process is sort of expected and normal. Between moms at the playground, it’s odd. It’s weird to go from chatting idly about the kids in the sandbox to, “So, maybe I can get your number so we can do this again sometime…” It’s truly awful. I’d come home from the park depressed because there was a really cool mom and I just didn’t pluck up the courage to get her number, and she didn’t ask for mine. I’d go weeks hoping to run into her again.
My first summer here I met a lot of moms and was able to set up a second date with a number of them. The second date is where you see if there is any chemistry. I found that these other moms mostly fell in one of two camps: those who thought I was funny, and those who thought I was horrible. I had a lot of very uncomfortable second dates! I never really did the whole real-dating thing, so I was unsure how to navigate these second dates. At what point in a potential new relationship, do you show your real self? Not the charming one who picked-up this mom, but the real one who dreads going into public places with her then 17-month-old? The one whose first thought upon her son’s waking up is, “damn”? How do you release your real personality? All at once? Or slowly, over time?
I decided to ease it out. I’d start with something light and benign to gauge my audience. I’d do something like call my son a “maniac.” For most people, this would go by unnoticed. There were a few moms, however, who immediately sought to correct me and explain that my son was developmentally appropriate blah blah blah. These moms were entirely too precious for me, and some excuse would be made for the playdate to end.
Next, I’d try something a little more colorful. I’d tell the story about how my son swears fairly regularly. (History of Speech) This would either be met with laughter and an equally charming story (the desired response), or shock and “Oh no! What did you do??” The latter set were dismissed.
Through my process of picking-up, follow-up dating, and personality slow release, I have been able to build a new circle of friends. My mom friends. These are women whose children drive them crazy. These are women whose children have been known to bite, scream, disrupt etc. These are women who know L and can appreciate all of his charms despite all of his foibles. Without these women I’d still be in the lonely trenches as a “single mom.”
I need a date, stat. I end up going all tourettes saying random things at inappropriate times. It’s a wonder I have any friends at all… now if I could just find some in our new neighborhood/town/STATE I’d be all set.
Now that it’s summer you’ll find some. Try my method of slow personality release. Not that your personality isn’t wonderful…
Allison I love this last blog. A suggestrion from an old mother–start a little support group so the moms can both support, bitch and make contributions to one another. I ran such a gorup for a good year or so an d we got a lot of help from it. Also the kids slook forward to it. xo Evy
I’m so glad you like the blog, Evy!! We do have a group like that here. A friend of mine started it (a mommy friend who I courted last summer). I got some meals delivered to me when S was born out of it, and I’ve brought meals to other new mamas. It’s a great system!
omg- i SO get this mommy-dating. I had to do the same thing when i first transplanted myself from north jersey to south jersey…. seems like they’d be the same state but trust me, they are not. Thank goodness i have friends now, but then i moved and now i have to make stupid new friends in my new town… with my Kindergartener’s friend’s Moms. Im so not into it. But at THIS point, its all “drop off playdates” anyway, so little mom interactions.
Anyway, I read the entire page of posts and was lmao! this blog is hilarious
. I can completely relate (sahm with unused doctorate degree, mother of 4 girls: 14, 5, 4, and 2). have a happy mothers day !!!
Good luck with your upcoming mommy-dating. Glad that the playdates are drop off, maybe you can date a little without a little wingman! Thanks for visiting the blog and I’m so happy you like it! Mom of 4, wow. You are seriously awesome. Happy Mother’s Day!
LoL – I think this is why I don’t have mommy friends. I’m too anti-social…& perhaps a little inappropriate (really, I have *no* idea where my son learned to say G**damn…). I’m a working mommy, tho, so that probably has something to do with it too.
Oh so true — and that “unreliable wingman” is a doozy.
I was laughing so hard I started crying!!! When you said you think “damn” when your kid wakes up! And seriously, the whole article is hilarious, being an inadequate mom is hard… The other day I called them ‘monsters’ in front of the ‘moms’ and they almost called protective services and quickly said kids are not monsters…
Blah!
Probably ours will grow to be more ‘normal’ human beings. As in normal I mean Little Miss Sunshine normal, if you know what I mean…
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Oh my gosh where do you come from? I haven’t laughed this hard in a LONG TIME!
Why don’t you still live in Maine! I need real girl friends, my daughters friends mothers are all stuck up!
I just can’t do the mommy dating thing, people hate me!
im in the middle of mom-dating over here. i live in holland too, so imagine having to do all of this in ANOTHER language. i just started blogging.. like seriously infant blog. check it out?
As a stay at home mom who has moved several times, I’ve mommy-dated waaay too much. My worst story is from the dark days when I was wrangling my seriously crazy 2 year old, 8 months pregnant, and suddenly having to live with my in-laws in my husband’s home town. I felt low. At my parents’ insistence, I tried to meet some friends. At the library one day, as I was wrapping up a conversation with a mom I had chatted with two or three other times, I said “it’s been fun chatting with you; would you be up for getting together sometime?” She looked at me for a minute, then said, “no thanks”. No excuse, no lies, just “no thanks” and walked away. It took me months to recover from that horrible moment.
Oh no! That is awful. I’m laughing because a) I could totally see that happening to me, and b) I totally would love to say that to someone. Only to say that I was just joking a couple of seconds later of course.
This post was definitely hilarious! But also sad, because it reminds me of how much I suck at any sort of dating scene. Which probably explains why I am a “single single” mom. Single as in, not married or in a relationship, and single as in, almost completely mom friend-less! Only 2 mom friends that I regularly communicate with. Part of this might be because I had my daughter at age 20, and everyone that I DID know was partying and acting foolish, while I entered the most wonderful, most responsible stage of life… lol. But part of it is plain old, I suck at “dating”! And I hate being alone. *Insert rude raspberry noise here*
Oh, where have you been all my maternal life?! Ya know, I STILL have not mastered the mommy~dating scene and my kids are 16 and 12 now! You have me ignoring laundry and dishes and laughing the whole evening! Love, love, love this blog and I certainly ‘like’ you on FB! Keep it coming girl! …now for another glass of wine!