It is very hard to make new friends with people your own age when you are childless.
My husband met a couple close to our age. He started to hang out with the guy. They hit it off. They had a couple of outings and finally decided it was time to meet the wives. We made dinner plans with them 6 weeks ago.
Today was the big event. I cleaned my house all day. We literally spent all day cleaning and preparing food etc. Since this was our first meeting we had to get rid of all the piles and other things. Like all of my medications that usually sit out on the table. My giant pill box. My syringes and sharps container etc. I think you get the picture. I felt like a squirrel since we had to hide stuff. Who knows if I will find everything.
They showed up with their small child. Who is about 1-2 years old. OMG. We had no idea they were bringing her. I guess we are stupid IF people but I assumed they would have gotten a babysitter. So even though the child was mostly well behaved she was still very young and constantly on the move. Since our house is not set up for that it led to constant interruptions.
She ran around grabbing things off the table. OMG so they kept getting up and running after her. Then they had to move my stuff all over the place. This made conversation very hard to keep going. Her attention (I mean the mother) was like 2 seconds.
I am a very shy person in general. It was very hard for me to get into this because I was not very comfortable around the baby and I have never met this woman before so I had a hard time getting to know her. Oh and then she breast fed in front of me, I was not sure where to look. OMG
Then we went outside and the baby kept running off. My yard is not fenced in. My DH was barbecuing and the baby kept running over to it. OMG.
They only stayed for 2.5 hours and then had to leave bc the baby was tired and screaming. It was a huge disappointment after waiting all that time and cleaning my house.
So after they left my dh and I had a talk about it. They were very nice and we seemed to get along, but it is so distracting to have a baby around. It is like when you are talking to someone and they are texting someone else. Yes you are there with them but their attention is elsewhere.
I know a lot of you reading this have kids and I don't want to offend you. It is just hard when you are an IF couple who wants to hang out with other adults and they bring a baby. You are not used to the constant interruptions and talk about baby stuff. Today is also CD1 so I may just be a little grouchy but it was really annoying.
Oh I totally understand!! quite a few people we don't hang out with or get to know, because of it.
ReplyDeleteI hear you! It is especially hard with new people because it's difficult to start building a relationship under such interrupted circumstances, especially if you are shy or introverted. I also just dislike hanging out with any of my old friends when their kids are around due to the attention span issue. I like the way you compared it to texting someone else, that was perfect!
ReplyDeleteA really good friend of mine decided to bring her 2 young boys to our Christmas cocktail party several years ago. Then that led to my other friend bringing their slightly older 3 kids. The entire time was spent moving/getting rid of things they shouldn't touch or were afraid of... Including the candles I had bought specifically for the party and MY DOGS!! I was beyond ticked off. If I went to their child's birthday party I would expect things to be a certain way and I wouldn't take out my alcohol and sharp objects to make myself more comfortable! (and, yes, I always travel with those things, you never know when you might need them.)
ReplyDeleteI just deleted a very long, uncharitable quote regarding people bringing kids to our house. I will just say this: I feel your pain and I'm so sorry you had to deal with this!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe they wouldn't say something like ... "Is it OK if we bring our daughter?" Surely in the conversation between your DH and the other guy, it would have come up about the whole "who has kids" thing ... and maybe they would have asked if it was an adult get-together or not. I would ask about what type of meal/evening was planned to plan appropriately ... whether I had children or not.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there won't be another dinner together for awhile. I'd be with you on that! I hate it that it didn't work out better. Good friends are SO hard to find!
I have actually had friends tell me my house is "not very childproof". To top it off this was when they came to visit me last year right after my laparotomy. Really? My house isn't childproof? Why the heck would it be?!
ReplyDeleteI just don't really have people over because it seems they all have kids and I really don't want to put all my stuff away for them.