So, as a continuation of this weekend's misadventures of a single mom, I was reminded of just how hard it is to make single parent friends, especially those of the opposite sex. In both my professional and personal life, it is super hard to find single parent friends. The majority of my friends are A) Married w/ or w/o kids or B) Single w/o kids. And, if they are married w/ kids they are typically not suffering through the teen years. While great friends, they often do not want to hear (understandably so), or understand (completely), the travails of single parenting. So, when I find a member of the "tribe" it's like winning the monthly child support lottery, which by the way, I won this morning. This means that the spawn is really getting her Playstation 4 this weekend and I do not have to come up with yet another excuse.
I digress though. Anyway I know a friend through a friend, that happens to be divorced and single parenting and lives in the same town. Again, I am like, "OMG, I found one!!!!!" Let's be friends! Now comes the part where my Ph.D. with a focus in critical discourse analysis (aka language and power) is supposed to come into good use. All I have to do is message said friend with the caveat/headline of THIS IS NOT A SLEAZY PICK-UP, reveal myself as a member of "the tribe," and make the offer of a drink to offer support in our shared positions as single parents. I write the message, read it a few times to ensure that I am being crystal clear about my intent here, and hit send. Then I wait and soon learn that apparently, my papers are not worth a the money and the time I invested in them.....
His response, "You are a sweet young lady and I certainly did not read it as a pick up. Yes, I am divorced and doing the parenting thing. So the rest I am not sure how to answer. You have me speechless."
So, I wake up to the message and immediately, go into WTF mode. Now we have even more in common because now I am speechless too! Throughout the rest of the morning these really awkward back and forth exchanges occur including details about significant others (his end) and me reinforcing that I do not date, and that I really am just offering mutual single parenting commiseration. Takeaway here, it takes nine messages for me to establish my intent and also, I probably should not have been awarded that Ph.D. after all.
This story has a good ending though because we finally did talk the next day and it was worth the effort. Not only did I get to chat with someone from "the tribe," I really won the jackpot with this one because their single parenting shit-show matches and in some areas exceeds my own.
So, to summarize what I have learned from this misadventure:
1) Making friends as an adult is an ordeal
2) Dating is still more difficult that making friends as an adult (so this really experience was not that painful, more comical than anything)
3) There is more than one shit-show this town
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Saturday, June 9, 2018
I Just Want to Watch the Band
So the blog is officially back by popular demand! For those of you who are not aware, after an 8-year run with Specimen #2, things ultimately did not work out....SHOCKER! If interested in why said relationship did not suceed, might I recommend you read my blog posts from 2011 and 2012. The overarching (and longstanding) themes here are commitment issues and disappearing acts. Anyway, the silver lining here is that the blog is back and everyone gets a front-row seat to the 2018 edition of the Adventures of a Single Mom dating shit-show that has (un)officially gotten underway. I say unofficially because this single mom dating thing is super exhausting. These past few months have been a super deja vu of which the undergirding question is, do I really have to do this act again?
But I digress, on to the story.....
Last night, because all the girlfriends were out of town or sick and my brother was too busy night-fishing (not sure this was his activity but pretty sure it was), I reluctantly made the decision to go solo to see my friends' band at a local bar. This is one of those sketchy dive-like bars, I had not been there in 8+ years, and, at that point, it was called something else. Actually, the last time I was there I had the unfortunate luck of running into my daughter's biological father. On an aside, my daughter and I are still anxiously waiting to see if we are going to win what we call "The Child Support Lottery" this month. I am now convinced the place is cursed, but hell, after the demanding work week I just endured my judgement was clouded. An Audiobook and wine was not going to cut it, hence I turned the key in my ignition.
I arrived a little early, grabbed a gin and tonic and said "hi" to the members of the band, and sat down at my table to begin what I knew was going to be an epic show (not only the band, but also the audience). I should add uncomfortably sat down, because given the locale, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before some random guy disturbed my tranquility. Salvation was at hand, however, when one of the band members asked if his wife and her friend could sit with me. I leaped at that opportunity with an enthusiasm that is only matched when I check my bank account and realize that daughter and I have won the monthly child support lottery sweepstakes. Things were great, we were a table of 3, the critical mass of women that is often necessary to ward off any unwanted male attention. Then came the moment I was dreading, the joint girlfriend bathroom run.
I remained for the bathroom run at the table, and like a good (un)social scientist I knew that it was time to be an unwilling independent variable in the uncontrolled experiment of getting hit on in the bar. No matter how hard one stares at her drink and tries to avoid interactions, the vultures start circling. Within a matter of seconds, the dependent variable landed in my personal space:
"Hi, I am X. What's your name? You're pretty...that bartender over there is my friend and noticed you immediately when you walked in, he is shy though and would never talk to you, you should go say hi to him....where do you live, do you come here often?"
I responded with a fake name, and the classic lean-away, and then the litany of "no" responses to the all the questions. He finally went away and my friends returned from the bathroom run. The show had not even started. At one point, one of the band members even suggested I just say that I am dating someone from the band. This does not work for two reasons, 1) why lie? cause you always get caught and 2) if I said I was dating someone from the band that typically does not work and just begins the whole hegemonic masculinity competition thing. "Which one?," Is there here?, etc.... Anyway, after my friends returned from the bathroom, I decided to go get a drink from the bar outside before the show and ran into him again and two other guys. He did not even notice a second fake name I concocted. Again, the place is cursed. I created three fake names in total.
After set 1, much to my dismay, my critical mass went home and I was once again solo at the table. Luckily no more vultures. The band was fantastic but the side show was equally entertaining. Between the drunken dancing, hook-ups on the dance floor, broken glass and spilled drink and shattered glass on the dance floor (clean-up a la aisle 5), and the wedding party, I got some pretty good returns for my $5 cover. By the way, if I ever get married, which is a long shot at this point; if the groom offers to take me to Twains for the after party, we are going straight back to Annapolis for an annulment. Just saying, key takeaway here is that I just want to watch the band.
But I digress, on to the story.....
Last night, because all the girlfriends were out of town or sick and my brother was too busy night-fishing (not sure this was his activity but pretty sure it was), I reluctantly made the decision to go solo to see my friends' band at a local bar. This is one of those sketchy dive-like bars, I had not been there in 8+ years, and, at that point, it was called something else. Actually, the last time I was there I had the unfortunate luck of running into my daughter's biological father. On an aside, my daughter and I are still anxiously waiting to see if we are going to win what we call "The Child Support Lottery" this month. I am now convinced the place is cursed, but hell, after the demanding work week I just endured my judgement was clouded. An Audiobook and wine was not going to cut it, hence I turned the key in my ignition.
I arrived a little early, grabbed a gin and tonic and said "hi" to the members of the band, and sat down at my table to begin what I knew was going to be an epic show (not only the band, but also the audience). I should add uncomfortably sat down, because given the locale, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before some random guy disturbed my tranquility. Salvation was at hand, however, when one of the band members asked if his wife and her friend could sit with me. I leaped at that opportunity with an enthusiasm that is only matched when I check my bank account and realize that daughter and I have won the monthly child support lottery sweepstakes. Things were great, we were a table of 3, the critical mass of women that is often necessary to ward off any unwanted male attention. Then came the moment I was dreading, the joint girlfriend bathroom run.
I remained for the bathroom run at the table, and like a good (un)social scientist I knew that it was time to be an unwilling independent variable in the uncontrolled experiment of getting hit on in the bar. No matter how hard one stares at her drink and tries to avoid interactions, the vultures start circling. Within a matter of seconds, the dependent variable landed in my personal space:
"Hi, I am X. What's your name? You're pretty...that bartender over there is my friend and noticed you immediately when you walked in, he is shy though and would never talk to you, you should go say hi to him....where do you live, do you come here often?"
I responded with a fake name, and the classic lean-away, and then the litany of "no" responses to the all the questions. He finally went away and my friends returned from the bathroom run. The show had not even started. At one point, one of the band members even suggested I just say that I am dating someone from the band. This does not work for two reasons, 1) why lie? cause you always get caught and 2) if I said I was dating someone from the band that typically does not work and just begins the whole hegemonic masculinity competition thing. "Which one?," Is there here?, etc.... Anyway, after my friends returned from the bathroom, I decided to go get a drink from the bar outside before the show and ran into him again and two other guys. He did not even notice a second fake name I concocted. Again, the place is cursed. I created three fake names in total.
After set 1, much to my dismay, my critical mass went home and I was once again solo at the table. Luckily no more vultures. The band was fantastic but the side show was equally entertaining. Between the drunken dancing, hook-ups on the dance floor, broken glass and spilled drink and shattered glass on the dance floor (clean-up a la aisle 5), and the wedding party, I got some pretty good returns for my $5 cover. By the way, if I ever get married, which is a long shot at this point; if the groom offers to take me to Twains for the after party, we are going straight back to Annapolis for an annulment. Just saying, key takeaway here is that I just want to watch the band.
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