Rules of Engagement

Witness the dating ritual of the suburban mother. There is the list of hopeful potentials. The first, awkward, giddy phonecall. The well-rehearsed invitation. Relief at acceptance or forced flippancy in the face of the polite decline--you wonder if their excuse is valid or they don't really feel the same way about you that you do about them. The first group date. Later one of the polite declines calls you back, asks you out this time. You wonder, is this one for real? Is this burgeoning relationship going to grow into something that will stand the test of time?

I'm actually talking about something far more trepidatious than just romance, though it gets a lot less ink in women's media: the making of friends among married women with children, especially those of us who have opted out of immediate careers in order to be our kids' primary caregivers. When I worked, most of my friends came from my job. If your personalities are at all compatible, it's a lot easier to become friends with someone you're forced to be around day in and day out. There are no awkward introductions, no wondering when it's an appropriate time to duck out of a get together. Plus, you always have something to talk about: work. Many years now of moving around and restarting the new friend dance has made me a veteran. I don't know that that means I'm terribly good at it, but at least I know the moves. Church seems to be the easiest way to ingratiate yourself with potential friends. Here are three hours a week where you get a mini-work environment--a chance to chat with people who just might share some common interests and with whom you're expected to socialize. Once you've appeared on the scene and scoped out potential friends, the best thing you can do is casually remark how you ought to get the kids together to play. This is, of course, a front, but it's well-established and the underlying meaning doesn't get lost. If you're pretty gutsy, you can go ahead and try to acquire their phone number or email address on the spot. If you are the newbie and they already belong to a group of friends, you can hope that they will make the first move and invite you along to their next gathering. If that works, you should host the next event to more firmly entrench yourself in their posse.

This is the stage I've reached with a group of women from my ward. I had one false start where a woman gave me a general invite to her playgroup, then told me she would call or email the next time they met and I never heard from her again. Further attempts to chat her up or find a time to get together have pretty much failed. I'd like to think this isn't because she suddenly decided I wasn't her type, but just because sometimes these things fall through. You're too established in your life to make the outreach past the first Christian fellowship moment. The window closes for making the connection permanent and you're left with awkward church run-ins--the newbie's face going from eager and friendly to guarded and polite.

I am that newbie. Today I hosted a little pool party for Thomas's new friends--and by extension, maybe mine. I had gotten pretty comfortable in New York with my group of friends. Thomas had a regular gang of three to five year-olds (including his best pal, the affable and ineffable Desmond P. Jones) that he loved to run around with and their mothers were my really close friends. We hung out several times a week. I had friends to confide in and friends to talk books and movies with and friends who were just good humor company. Now that I've moved, I find myself relying more on distant friends, email and phone friends, to stay connected. But I started the suburban "dating" dance here, too. Virtual friends will do for only so long. Eventually you need someone of flesh and blood or you start to feel unreal.

Sometimes I wish I still worked a 9 to 5 job so I could get all my socialization in automatically and not have to "work the scene". Making and keeping a friend you have to actively engage over and over again in order to stay connected takes so much more effort.

At least, though, if things don't work out, you don't have to performance review that person later.