Now that little Z is 8 months old, we’ve reached the stage where she has her own little calendar of social and extracurricular activities. On a weekly basis I find myself romping round a church hall singing repetitive songs, overacting excitement at story time, clamouring over miniature gymnastics equipment like some sort of uncoordinated giant, splashing about chasing rubber toys in a pool and generally doing things that without a child in tow would make me look like a complete tit. I mean, I still look like a twat but I’m in good company surrounded by other parents who are also behaving in an equally ridiculous manner because apparently, this is what good parents do, so we’re not judging each other on that basis. It’s easy to play the fool when you have your child as an excuse, the hard part of these engagements is how to act around the grown ups. As a relatively new mum in a new city I’ve been slowly accumulating similarly placed friends, but it’s been quite a gradual process played out like a very awkward kind of dating scene that goes a bit like this:
Identify a fellow parent who looks like someone you could strike up a conversation with, attempt to make eye contact, offer a hesitant half smile, appraise reception of your offering and, if it seems warm, sidle up shyly and pitch a nervous parental pickup line. This often takes the form of some sort of compliment on how adorable/ energetic/ advanced/ genius like the fellow parent’s offspring is and with the goal being to flatter and open the lines for ongoing dialogue, it doesn’t necessarily have to be true. I know this from personal experience having been on the receiving end of such well-intentioned fibbery (yes, fibbery is a word, I’m going with it). It happened to be on the day that Zara was battling a heavy cold leaving her with gunky eyes, thick green snot streaming from her nose and a face only a mother could find beautiful, so when someone said what a gorgeous little girl she was I knew they were lying. But I was happy to disregard the rather generous untruth because it wasn’t actually about whether my child was beautiful or not, it was an opening to a friendship offering from another Mum.
As a gym instructor people often assume I’m all confidence and self-assurance, but that person isn’t me, she’s an exaggerated character I can use hide my insecurities. In reality, I’m as much of a self-doubting, fumbling, bumbling mess as the next person, although I pretend like I don’t give a shit, I really, really do. That’s what makes this mummy dating thing tough; when I’m cheerfully striking up a conversation, I’m battling the same butterflies as in the early stages of a silly crush. While I’m trying to appear calm and chatty my mind is scrabbling madly, searching for conversation topics and witticisms, all the while silently pleading ‘like me, like me, please like me’. I want to be an appealing, fun mum who they might want to play date, and all going well, wine date.
And just like real dating, once we’ve moved past the initial ice-breaking, there’s a getting to know you phase. This is the part where I act like a more polite and refined version of myself, curbing my trucker-esque language and moderating the subject matter until I can gauge where they sit on the spectrum of general filth and profanity that is my usual modus operandi. It’s much the same approach I adopted when first dating husband, who was of course then known as interesting and rather attractive new man in town. Apparently I was a little too convincing though; by date number six when I’d played all my seduction cards including the mini skirt and tight top still no advances had been made, so I quite reasonably decided he was gay and looking for a girlfriend of a different variety to what I had in mind. Meanwhile he’d come to the (massive) misunderstanding that I was devoutly religious; hence the lack of any attempted action. Anyone who has met me will appreciate that this assumption couldn’t be much further from reality, so when we finally cleared up the confusion over dinner one evening a palpable sense of relief descended upon the table. He filled both our wine glasses to the brim and settled in for the night – by the morning he was farting in my bed and the rest is our history. Oh the romance.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that making friends as a grown up is hard, but having used my child as a pawn in the game to some extent, I’ve managed to accumulate a little network of smart, funny, likeminded women who may not use the word Fuck quite as liberally as me, but also won’t flinch or judge me when I do – and they’re the type of friends I love! Of course as Murphy’s Law would have it, this all happens just as our year in Adelaide nears its end. In a few weeks we head to Melbourne but this time I come prepared, I know how this parental dating gig works and I’m ready to turn on my clumsy charm offensive. That’s right Melburnian Mums, prepare to be swept off your feet, or at least sweet-talked into drinking wine with me!
High Heels to High Chair 