Please note: the names of the characters in this story have been changed so that I can talk about them freely. They are, however, real people that I did meet.
I was at the playground today trying to “pick up” some moms. For those if you that don’t know what that means, it means I was trying to make new mom friends, which is a process that is much harder than actual dating.
I met this one mom, we’ll call her Angela. Angela had a two year old girl named Wendy and a baby named Grayson. Remember fake names. The minute I saw Angela, I thought “Here’s a lady who I could relate to. She has a two year old and a baby who it turned out was five months.
I tried folks. I tried to relate to Angela. But she wanted nothing to do with me. She gave me monosyllabic answers to all the questions I asked her. In fact, the only time she chose to speak to me was when I was engaged in full on conversation with another mom of a two year old girl. Her name was Delia, and she had recently moved to NYC from the south due to her husband’s job. She mentioned that she was looking for a two’s program for her daughter, Olivia. I told Delia I couldn’t afford such a program for Ari.
Immediately, Angela piped in:
“You know, those programs are very competitive. You need to sign up like a year in advance.”
Delia was shocked.
“Oh really. Okay.” She said looking rather anxious.
Delia and I exchanged emails before she left the playground.
Soon after Delia left, Angela’s friend Naomi showed up. Angela could not have been chattier. I managed to intercept the conversation long enough to ascertain that Naomi was from Israel and was moving back there with her sons Ben and Abe. Ben was two and Abe was three months old. Angela and Naomi kept chatting away and it was clear that they had more in common between the two of them than I had with either one of them.
I made the mistake of asking if their babies were the same age. Angela shot me a nasty look like I was the biggest idiot alive and told me that Abe was three months and her baby, Grayson, was five months. Obviously there is a vast difference and I should have recognized it.
I asked these two love birds how they met. This is the best part of the story. They met on none other than Park Slope Parents. Well, I immediately told them about my fabulous experience with PSP. If you don’t already know about that and are curious to find out, click here.
They also mentioned that they had joined the mom’s group that I tried out and hated because it was filled with women like them. For more on that, click here.
After being ostracized for approximately 45 minutes, I’d had enough. Plus, I needed to move the car– alternate side parking was calling.
This is just another example of how difficult it is to find mom friends.
