M is for Making Mom Friends: Matchmaking Mixers - Part 1 of Online Dating

Find your tribe! all my yogi and mom Instagrams proudly proclaim. Girl, I am not even looking for a whole tribe, just a mom who will talk poop with me. I am sorry to say that. It sounds so cliche, but it is true. My life revolves around the health of my baby, which is directly related to his poop.

I recently attended a neighborhood wine night to meet other moms. I did not think I would be at a blind date mixer as a married, thirty-something mother. I have seen Patti work her magic on Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker so I kinda have an idea of how these situations work. I have zero experience with dating IRL though. I went on a kind of first date my last year of high school when a friend told me his friend thought I was pretty. I was seventeen, with a full privileges driver license, and he was a junior who lived at boarding school. I picked him up from the dorms after he signed out for the evening and we drove to an Italian restaurant that already knew my order by heart. My dad didn’t know about this date, but my math teacher did. That’s #boardingschool for ya.

Fast forward, I fell for my husband at the wise old age of 18. We were best friends for months, talked on the phone every night, saw each other every morning for crew practice, and by the time we went on a “date” we were already in love. That dinner was more of a last-date-ever, and hardly qualifies as a “first” date.

So like any singleton, I went online. I found a Facebook group for my ‘hood, requested to join, and when a post said there would be a wine night at a nearby cafe I clicked “going” and may have even added an emoji to the comments but immediately regretted seeming too eager. I almost didn’t go to the wine night because walking was still difficult for me, but driving down the block seemed a bit over the top. I wanted this to be my excuse, but my sister kindly showed up at my house after I had put the baby down, and promised she would fully support me coming home after 20 minutes, but I needed to leave. She may have gone to so far as to say I could sit in my car outside the house, but either way, I needed to leave the house.

This isn’t just peer pressure from my sister. It is from everyone. Everyone tells me I need to get out, and particularly that I need to get out and meet other moms. Not that my current friend group hasn’t been really supportive of me being a new mom, both my cancellations to social events starting around the time of conception followed by conversations dominated by my pregnancy or postpartum symptoms, but it is important to talk with another mom about the last five books I read about the eat/nap schedule of newborns with the same fervor I once devoted to my sociology small group at university about the media and Hollywood representations of Black Hawk Down and subsequent shifting American sentiment to struggles on the African continent.

Walking into the bar I wondered if I would even know who I was meeting. Don’t blind dates like wear a certain color or bring a yellow rose? Yes, my dating references are completely based in cinema. Luckily, this is the only wine bar in our neighborhood, and it was a Thursday, so the table full of women was clearly where I was headed.

“Hey, are y’all the Talmadge Mamas?”

Duh.

Ughhhh, why did I say that?

I should have just introduced myself. When I get nervous, I go full out Southern, but now these women are going to be confused when return to a flat accent with the occasional Canadian flair thrown in. (My two best friends growing up were Canadian and Southern. Yes, that was twenty years ago. No, I don’t know why I still talk like this.) The moms smiled and nodded and then went back to their conversations, leaving me to do the awkward lean in and laugh, hoping I will catch someone’s eye and be brought into the conversation.

Things got off to a rocky start, but one mom mentioned a Mommy and Me class she went to and I jumped on it. I’ve heard you are supposed to ask questions on dates, not just talk about yourself, so I inquired about the class, how she liked it, how she found out about it, and she told me exactly what I wanted to hear. She explained that some Mommy and Me classes are great experiences for the kids, and some are really just to get you out meeting other moms. The mom next to her chimed in and said she took her baby to a hiking “class” because she really needed to make friends for herself, not her baby.

“I keep finding yoga classes and I have never been! Now he is crawling and it is too late to take him! I’ve promised my husband I will get out and do stuff,” I explained. “He is always asking if I have gone out with the baby.” I saved my “I am an accidental stay at home mom because school started back and I still couldn’t walk across my house without debilitating pain” for after my first wine flight.

I mentioned that my friend told me about a nature class and my baby would be so happy to get outside and do things, to which the mom said she saw a woman with a six month old at one of the classes and thought that was crazy.

Now I felt the need to backpedal. My baby is six months old. I am feeling really bad for not going to Mommy and Me @ the Barre and playdates for social-emotional growth, but is six months silly for a class? This is when I threw in my SAHM story, my family’s consistent worry that I wasn’t getting out, and my concerns for not doing more with my son beyond circling through various tummy time playmats.

This is when she said it. I imagine on any date there is a key moment, that tipping point, when the other person says something, references something, or just does something, that either breaks the date or makes you think this could really be something. An unintentional gesture, phrase, or just a way of telling a story, that shifts the initial meeting.

“Oh. No. I didn’t leave my house for the first nine months,” she said. Just like that. So matter of fact. No exaggeration.

And then the mom next to her chimed in.

“Oh! I didn’t leave my house for the first year with my first little one.”

“Really?” I squeaked out. I could have cried. Dear, I maybe did shed a tear.

I thanked them, explained how my husband worried about me, and about how I judged myself. These two moms were just so cool. Cool, calm, and collected about not leaving one’s house and venturing into the real world. The conversation shifted to where we grew up, if we had family nearby, and then it shifted to nanny-share vs. preschool and I had to bow out, knowing nothing of that right now.

I turned to talk to a mom who had just joined us. She was bubbly and nice and shared her brie and strawberry plate with me.

When a mom across the table got up to leave, I realized I had been gone for AN HOUR AND HALF. I panicked, then realized that baby had already been fed and gone down for the night, meaning both my mind, and my boobs, would be ok.

I said my thank yous, nice to meet yous, and can’t wait till we do this again and left.

When I got home I thanked my sister for helping me get out and told her about my new mom friends. My new mom friends, who have no names. I didn’t get phone numbers or even an Instagram profile to contact them by. Insert palm to the face emoji.

When leaving a first date, who initiates if this happens again? Who asks for someone’s number or links up on Facebook? Is that even a thing? Where is Patti? Does the woman who posted this wine night on Facebook act as matchmaker? I could say this wine night was a bit of a failure because I did not make a second date with anyone, but hearing those words were magic: I didn’t leave the house for a year.

I am normal, or at least kind of? Or maybe not at all, I have no reference to normal anymore, but I know I am not the only one struggling. It doesn’t matter that hundreds of millions of women are also raising children in this very moment, it is hard to shake the feeling that I am the only one who isn’t doing this right. The potential to mess up is infinite, and getting this baby safely out of the house, without packing up the entire contents of one’s house, and not disrupting the eat-play-nap schedule, seems impossible. I will sign up for a class (and blog about it.) I will go to the beach, and the zoo, and the park and post photos of baby bliss on Instagram. I will continue to pursue mom friends and go on awkward first dates. But for right now, you can find me at home, at least until the next neighborhood wine night. And I’m not the only one.

#makingfriends