What to wear, what to wear? No, that top is too dressy, don't want to look like I'm trying to hard. That top is too frumpy. That one shows sweat stains so absolutely not. Ah, this one is perfect. Now what about makeup? A little concealer to deal with the ever-present under eye circles and some blush to make me look like I got more that six hours of sleep. Hair? Pfft. Lost cause, but let me at least wash just my bangs* and blow them out so I actually look like a person who showers regularly. Now I'm ready to go.
When I arrive I try to score a good vantage to scope out the talent. A place with heavy foot traffic, just outside the center of activity, is best. You get to see the new blood, and the regulars are attracted there as well. I get settled in, take a pull of my drink, and start trying to make eye contact. Nothing too much, no long, lingering stares, that's too obvious - and creepy. I see someone who's just my type. We make eyes at each other for a few minutes before I venture closer. After a few shy glances, I try out one of my usual pick-up lines. Yada, yada, yada, I leave with digits and a possible date.
A playdate.
Never fear dear readers, Mean Mommy is not looking for any extra-marital activity, I'm too tired anyway (just kidding, H!). All of the preparations described above are the actual steps I have taken when frequenting a park, pool or playspace in our new town. The drink was coffee, obviously. And while I have little actual dating experience, and have certainly never picked anyone up in a bar, I feel I now know, intimately, the pressures and insecurities experienced by twenty-something guys in bars worldwide on a Saturday night, as I try to make new friends.
Think about it. As a stay at home mom, I have no official way to meet my new work colleagues (which is what I consider other SAHM's until they cross the bridge into "friend"), so these epicenters of childhood recreation are like my bars, and coffee shops - hotbeds of social activity where I am trolling for sandbox action. Since moving, I review every aspect of my appearance before leaving and I head out each morning with the high hopes that my pick-up lines such as, "How old is your son?" - who had better be a boy and not a bald-headed girl - and "She is so cute!", will do the trick and start a conversation that will result in the possible planning of a playdate or an exchange of email addresses at the very least.
I have not worked this hard to befriend women I don't know since Sorority Rush 1992, and thank God this time I don't have a bad case of stress-induced acne, the freshman fifteen, and a poufy Carrot Top 'fro, complete with hairspray-shellacked bangs, in a room full of Connecticut WASPs with their silky, golden locks and coltish thighs. And, MY GOD, if I only had half of the conversation skills I do know I would have been bid by every house. Anyone who thinks you lose jobs skills staying home with your kids has never seen a mom new to town work a room at Back to School Night. I see a career in diplomacy in my future! Well, not really. I think the temper and the love of the F-word might cause an international incident. Sales might be for me though.
But finding a fellow mom to hang out with is truly like dating. Not only the manner in which you meet, which is frighteningly similar, but in all the stages that lead to the "marriage" of SAHMdom - a real friendship. After the initial "pick-up", you have your first date. And sometimes the woman who may have seemed so attractive, and like you, in the library's toddler class, while her son was absorbed with the puppet show, in the harsh light of the town pool, she is an inattentive mother who almost lets her son drown in between his bouts of stealing other children's toys. A "good on paper" mom, one who dresses sort of like you, talks sort of like you and seems to have similar interests, can be a totally different parent than you thought she was upon first glance, and you have to stop returning her calls. The same goes if the kid is a nightmare. The saving grace here though, is if you really, really like the mom you can still hang out with her under the guise of "needing a break from the kids" and only get together for coffee on weekends when the husbands can tend to the offending offspring, successfully preventing her daughter from ripping the hair out of every Barbie in your house and toturing your kids.
Beautiful and rare is the mother who not only has a similar parenting style as you, but is also funny and smart, and her kids are friendly and well behaved. In addition to all of those traits, my own personal litmus test is if she can say whisper the word "shit" in a conversation with you while your kids play in the other room. You all know how I feel about moms who don't curse. I guess if I were to make a dating analogy, those moms are the type who will never put out.
And while I have been blessed with several mom pals, and one extraordinary dad pal, who have made the cut and we consider ourselves true friends - complete with nights out without the kids and with husbands** - there are those times when you did not have the foresight to end it quickly and you find yourself saddled with a mother who you just need to cut loose. This is the part where it gets ugly. Breaking up with a fellow SAHM is like trying to break up with a coworker you've been dating. Basically, you are screwed. You are going to run into each other all the time, school, the park and the grocery store. And, sadly, there's no clean way to do it. There's no "I'm just not that into you" discussion that you can have where you don't come across looking like a giant bitch. So you don't return her call promptly enough to meet up at the park and you are "too swamped!" to amke it to her little hellion's birthday party, and hopefully the friendship goes quietly into that good night.
So the lesson here is, to be careful. Just as in dating, looks can be deceiving. And while I am knocking myself out glad-handing the ladies of the town, I will be letting very few into the Mean Mommy Circle of Trust. At least until I know if they can drop and F-bomb.
*shut up, like you've never done that
**H calls these "Grown Man Playdates", ala Chris Rock. "He likes baseball, you like baseball..." Please Youtube immediately if you are unfamiliar.
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