The below, about the difficult process that is trying to forge new friendships as an adult, is an excerpt from Ramshackle Glam.
(Read the full book on your Kindle here.)
Making friends as a grown-up is a tough business – I personally spend approximately 90 percent of my first conversation with a new person trying to figure out exactly how much of my personality I can reveal while not freaking them out – and making friends as a new mom can be even tougher.
Sure, it’s easier in some ways—you have built-in reasons called “children” to get together, and can use playdate time to figure out whether you have anything in common other than the fact that you have both recently procreated—but adding things like kids who may or may not whack each other in the face and widely variable attitudes toward child-rearing can also throw a major curveball of anxiety into each and every encounter. The point of friendship is theoretically to enjoy each other’s company and help each other get through the hard stuff, and being a parent is nothing if not hard . . . but still: navigating those early conversations with another parent can feel like tip-toeing through a minefield of Possible Ways To Offend.
So what do you talk about with a New Mom Friend? You talk about your children, of course (because really, at this point having children is the one thing you know you have in common). You also want to seem “cool” and not talk constantly about your children . . . but then worry that if you don’t talk constantly about your children you will appear to be a terrible mother. Then you say something vaguely opinionated (aka “interesting”) and worry that you’ve just made a statement that will stand in total opposition to the value system of the other mom present and cause a grievous and potential-friendship-ending offense . . . but of course you also want to show that you’re not offended by anything she might say, so you get all self-deprecating and weird and forget it: now you’ve alienated her completely, having cycled through about twenty-six different personalities in the time it takes to drink a single cup of coffee.
It’s like dating, except there’s a baby present and a decent chance that you’re too tired to form full sentences.
Starting from scratch in a brand-new town with a brand-new child, a brand-new home, and a brand-new life, I was a big old ball of anxiety, and could barely gather the courage to say hi to the mom in line next to me at the grocery store—forget about trying to set up a playdate. But then, as time went on, all those nerves started to wear on me . . . and then started to wear right out, as I realized that not only was the vast majority of the judgment all in my head (just as it had been on that beach in second grade) . . . the part of it that was real? Didn’t matter.
When it comes to making for-real new friends as an adult and as a parent, the first thing to remember is this: everyone is just as worried about how they measure up as you are. In fact, it’s more than likely that all the other moms you meet are so nervous that you’ll deem their parenting skills appalling because they’re handing over Chef Boyardee rather than sectioning a fresh avocado that they’re not paying any attention to what you’re doing at all.
And if they are? If you meet someone with a seemingly perfectly pulled-together life and it turns out that you’re right: she is totally judging you and thinking that you’re a disgrace because you chose not to sleep-train/still let your son use a pacifier/don’t always get a comb through your daughter’s hair/wear mismatched socks? You do not want to be friends with that person.
Neither do I.
And I don’t have to be friends with them. Neither do you. Isn’t that a relief?
It’s a choice, and nowadays I choose to opt out of the who’s-a-better-parent merry-go-round: I just want to put caffeine in my body and get to know a person, and so that’s what I try to do. It’s so easy to get caught up in the web of judgment . . . but frankly, it’s a huge waste of time, and chances are you don’t have a ton of extra time lying around to waste. And as it turns out, the people that you make the effort to connect with are more often than not wonderful and interesting and comforting and empathetic and thoughtful and kind and human.
Choosing to be positive, to seek out interaction, to keep trying to forge relationships in a world where true friendship can sometimes feel in short supply . . . it’s not only worth the work, it actually takes far less energy than wading through all that loneliness and worry.
More to the point, though: it’s a hell of a lot more fun.
{Ramshackle Glam is available on Amazon.com}
