Thursday, September 15, 2011
Im a mom who wants to raise her kids but still have a social life and a part time job for mental stimulation on an adult level.
There in lies the problem.
I'm not exactly an outgoing person. As a child I was painfully shy, I don't know why I just was. It's taken me into my late 20's & early 30's to break out of my shell.
Some people are lucky and seem to be a magnet for friends and the centre of any situation.
Regardless I've notice as we get older, have children, possibly leaving the workforce your social circle dwindles. That is my case, in need of a wider circle of friends( I have a few really close friends who live very far) I wonder:
What's a woman to do to build those much needed support groups of like minded women?
The Internet of course!
I recently had the opportunity to meet a mom via a forum I belong to and after exchanging a few messages back and forth we agreed to meet up with our kids in tow and make it a "date", a "blind date" at that!
So we agreed to meet at a public place.
Rule number one when going on a blind date.
We also agreed to a mid- day activity so there was no awkward after date question of "Your place or mine?"
After about 2 hours things seemed to go really well so we decided to take things to the "next level" and agreed to get together again in a more "intimate setting" with out the kids and have a drink and lots of mom talk.
After that get together the inevitable happened. You know the awkward questions that follow any date:
Did she like me? I really liked here.
Should I call her first? If so, when?
Perhaps I should email instead or better yet just message her on the forum.
Well being new to this whole "dating" game I'm a little fuzzy on the rules of who makes the next move. All the friends I have I've either met as a kid or at work so this trying to become friends with a total stranger things was a big challenge.
Heck I wasn't good at it when I was actually dating what makes me think I can do it with a mom?
What happened next was comical and then, ultimately like most blind dates, very sad.
I really liked "Lori" and our kids got a long really well. I decided to go for it and call her! What did i have to lose? We had a connection after all! Right?& Voicemail! Do I leave a message or hang up? She's bound to have caller ID & if I hang up now I'll look like a nerd, so I leave a message. Hmmmm now what? I know! If I don't hear from her later tonight I'll send her a message on the forum because I realize I don't have her email and she did say she doesn't always check her phone.
So I message her and no sooner do I hit send I realize her email is on her profile. CRAP! Ok I will wait. last thing I want to do is seem needy right?
Well maybe she won't be on the forum for a while & my son would really like to have a playmate tomorrow so I better email in the morning.
Done & done. Yup now I officially look like a stalker.
Gosh why is making a new friend so hard? I don't remember k. I ' jib xdfgZsz having any trouble before kids. Of course the last really good friend I made wore acid wash and jelly shoes and we bonded over which New Kid On The block was cuter.
Well Lori called back and we had a good laugh about how hard it is to make new friends and no she didn't think I was a stalker.
We met up several more times over the next 4 months and the kids got along well BUT with all good relationships if you two aren't work towards the same goal it must end.
That's what happened with Lori and I. I had had my two children and was ready to get back out in the world as me, Shauna. I wanted to take the mom hat off from time to time and do things without my kids. Have conversations that were not based on Treehouse and what I found in the diaper this morning.
Lori was going in a different direction. She was on the path towards expanding her family, she worked full time where as I'm a stay at home mom so the last thing she wanted to do was go out away from her family. That and the fact that we lived nearly an hour apart sealed this relationships fate.
So I guess I can check "online dating" off my list. Maybe I'll try the produce department of the supermarket. I hear there's a lot of good people to meet between the melons and lettuce!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment