PooGrin | Work at home mom blog – WAHM blog

Playdating is…

Posted on 04. May, 2010 by Deb Plunkett in The balancing act

for turds.

When you walk down the aisle and pledge yourself to the love of your life, your dating days are supposed to be over, right? Phew. I was never a fan of the awkwardness of it all. Pining for the call from someone you’re interested in or dodging the calls from someone you’re not. Rules about how long to wait before calling; who calls next; emotional rollercoasters. Bleh.

I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that BS anymore! Oh wait. I’m a mom now! I left my job (a.k.a. my substitute for a social life) and decided to work from home. Well, it’s getting a little lonely over here in my WAHM bubble. Sooo, I’m now “dating” again – only this time it’s moms and kids I’m courting… and who knew that was going to suck even more than dating?!

And seriously, seeking out good mom friends is no easy task.  Not only do you have to like each other and want to hang out, but your kids have to be at least relatively close to the same age or playdates just don’t work well. It also helps if you have similar parenting styles, groundrules and values; AND you really need to find gals that live near you in order to be able to get together regularly.  That’s a tiny laundry list of prerequisites, no? How hard could it be? Ha!

I live in what I always thought was a very family-friendly place so why is it so hard to find friends around here? Some days when I drag my kid to the park, I have to admit, I do it because I’m secretly hoping my new BFF just might be there looking for me, too. More often than not, when I do see other moms, they’re already surrounded by friends and don’t appear to have room for one more. Even though we have nice conversation, I start to get the “she’s just not that into you” feeling (maybe my desperation is showing?).  Or, sometimes I just don’t feel it for them. Either way, woe is me.

Yes, I have my best girlfriends that go back to way before we all had offspring and I love them dearly. But I am locationally challenged in respect to hanging out with them (Arizona to Maine doesn’t exactly allow for getting together very often). Even my buds that technically live in the same metro area as me are clear on the other side of the Valley; therefore, get-togethers require major planning and one or both of us racking up major miles and time to make it happen.

What I’m dying for is a friend – or two but I should refrain from getting greedy – that is right around the corner. Someone I can go for impromptu walks with or just have a quick coffee while our kiddos frolic. Is that too much to ask?

But then it happened. I met someone at the park a few weeks ago.  A wonderful mom who I could instantly relate to – and she had a daughter only a couple of months older than mine! Kismet! We chatted for a bit while our kids played together like the little cherubs that they are (okay, so they just looked at each other and went about their own business in that typical toddler way but I can visualize them playing together angelically, anyway).

I actually worked up the cajones to awkwardly ask for her number then walked home with that giddy, optimistic “I hope she calls me” excitement.  How lame am I, huh?  We had a couple of fun get togethers but the last few times we’ve tried to plan something, one or the other of us has managed to hit a roadblock and the playdate is off. Argh! We’re shooting for another attempt later this week but after a while so much planning and canceling gets weird. Friendships take work to cultivate, I know. I just wish it wasn’t quite SO hard to get there.

What else can I do to make new mommy friends? Do you rely on the people you knew before kids or have you forged solid relationships with new friends? How did you meet them?