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
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