Coupling
Now, I know that I’ve already talked about how difficult it has been for me to make friends. It’s just not been something that I’ve done well. However, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a couple who might just be working their way into that new friend category. They are the parents of a little boy on Elijah’s soccer team. And, Jose and I went to their house for dinner a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t get one “I’m ready to leave look from my husband” Which as you wives know is an amazing feat. And t hen Elijah and I had a play date yesterday, which turned into an almost all nighter. This leads me to this blog.
Now, in my youth – when I stalked people I wanted to get to know better, I always felt that there was some mystical bond between myself and a prospective friend. Of course at the time, those “friends” were always male and I was desperate for any type of bond I could find. Hell I’d have looked for an umbilical cord to snatch onto if I could have. And I didn’t have very many women friends. Or actually girl friends. There’s a big difference between the two. Girlfriends – well they care about boys, what they look like, if their ass is big in a pair of jeans, shopping, nail polish, soap operas, blah blah blah – mostly stuff that I didn’t bother too much about. Women friends, who are really women with children friends, they just don’t give a damn about any of that. We are all united in the quest for enough money to pay for a maid and a day to ourselves which will most likely be squandered reading trashy romance novels, giving ourselves a facial, watching a romantic comedy on television and taking a long nap (I’d say bath but they aren’t my favorite.)
So anyway, the dilemma. In my youth, surrounded and cuddled by the belief that I, and the new person that I met must have known each other in a previous life, I thought that spending every waking moment with them was wonderful. However, like most cancer born people, such idealistic beliefs would only last for a short while. That person would show themselves to be imperfect and god-forbid human in some way and come crashing off their pedestal and that would be the end of it. Last night, while I was having a really good time with Ashlee, my new soccer mom friend, as the evening wore on, I kept waiting for her to tell me it was time for me to go. I had no idea if I was outstaying my welcome. Sure the boys were still playing on high steam (with some minor arguments about which toy was whose) but Ashlee and I were having a grand conversation in the kitchen. So finally, I decided it was time to leave, and there was a relatively smooth exit to the car (including a few minutes of bribing my son so that he wouldn’t take Grayson’s toy). And as I was leaving, I thought -- they must have been waiting for me to leave and I missed the cue – social ineptness at work. The last time I really did any socializing was w hen I was in college and if you weren’t puking it wasn’t really time for you to go home yet. The other part that I worry about is over-inviting. Like my son, I am usually so happy to find someone to do stuff with (i.e. someone who has a child about Elijah’s age and doesn’t hate babies) that I immediately begin to plan all sorts of things that we could do. And then I begin to hurl suggestions lat them like an auctioneer (wecangoswimming, do I have swimming, what about the circus, circus here, circus there, no no no no, park park is good, park is fun, park is free, going once, going twice, sold” And the part of me that still cares what other people think (and it’s very small) goes ‘’ you idiot – they are going to think you are a desperate boob who has no friends – at which point the rest of me goes – yeah, and it’s the truth. So, any of my friends who are reading this, if I’m at your house and you know you want to be by yourself with your family at 7:30 – please tell me when I get there – and I’ll make sure that I comply – because I don’t have the skills to pick up on small clues (like sweetie will you run my bath.” Because, like my father, my grandfather and I’m sure his father – t here is little that I like more than telling my stories to someone who hasn’t heard them before (and you wonder why I have a blog) – and I can do it for a long time. So, I would rather be told to leave than be talked about when I finally do --
