Recently (well, who am I kidding? It’s longer than “recent” because I can’t remember not feeling this way) I’ve been lonely. I’ve never been one to make friends quickly or easily, but I’m finding it harder to do in this season of life. Yes, I have kids and husband to talk with, but it’s damned hard to find time to go out and meet people when you add in working full-time + freelance clients + remodeling the house + chickens and cats and a dog + school for kiddo #1. Oh, and living in the middle of nowhere. Don’t get me wrong – I love living here. But when your friends are all 45 minutes+ away and the nearest “town” is 5 miles down the road, it makes it harder to casually meet people for coffee.
So all of my recent friendship attempts come with a new sort of hell – the Playdate Blind Date. Have you experienced these? Your kid wants to play with a new friend from school, so you get to spend several hours awkwardly making conversation with that child’s mother, hoping to find you have something in common. It’s like all the worst parts of dating, but without the undercurrent of sexual tension to make it interesting.
There’s the initial small talk: How long have you lived here? Do you have pets?
The attempt to find common ground: Do you like to read? Do you have any hobbies?
Next comes either an awkward silence where I wonder how much longer we have to stay at the playground & the other mom pulls out her smartphone to text a real friend or a sense of relief as we discover we actually have things to talk about.
And so it goes. Out of 3 of these get-togethers, two have gone fairly well. I like the moms and we actually have real conversations when we get together. Sure they’re still surfacy-conversations, but I think that may change with time. The other mom? Well, she seemed pleasant enough, but I don’t think it has potential to turn into a LTF (long-term friendship). I also don’t like some of the school stories about her kid that I’ve been hearing from kid#1, so I’ve been avoiding more playdates with them.
Maybe someday some of these moms will turn into real friends. In the meantime, I ache with jealousy when I hear old friends talking on onine about doing things together & I cry when one of them Facebook-chats with me for 5 minutes.