Mammy No Mates

I don’t make friends easily. I never have, on reflection. At least with girls – I always had more boy friends than girl ones. I’m a weird uber-opinionated introvert – I have lots to say, but am only really comfortable doing so in trusted company. And then you can’t get me to shut up. I’m not shy, per se, but unless I can spot some obvious common ground in a room full of strangers (cool shoes and tour t-shirts are the best kinds of giveaways) the incline of my tendencies is most certainly more ‘wallflower’ than ‘social butterfly’. Sober, at least.

When I was pregnant with Ben (this was 2004) I felt more than usually isolated; I didn’t know anyone else in my immediate proximity that was also pregnant. I mean, I knew a few people… I was friendly with a few people, but my bestest best girl-friends were all an ocean away. Don’t get me wrong; they were great – they were all really excited, but I had no one to shop for tiny socks with. And I really, really wanted someone to shop for tiny socks with.

I decided that time was right for me to get some “Mum Friends”. For most of my life, I heard tell of friends that my own Mum made while she was pregnant with me – dynamic and affectionate women in baby clinics with whom she immediately bonded. And 30-something years later, she still counts them amongst her closest friends. So discomfort be damned: I was going to find some, too.

So, fuelled by occasionally distressing thoughts of a lonely winter maternity leave with no one to talk to while my husband was occupied with the business of being sole breadwinner, I went to a couple of baby-related workshops and mama-groups – well hello there, boundaries of my comfort zone – to see what, and more specifically who, was on offer. But soft – what hope through yonder stretch marks break? There was one girl at the breastfeeding workshop – for the purposes of this story I’ll call her Mary – who, to my surprise, I struck up a conversation with, and at the end of the session we exchanged numbers. We were due within weeks of one another with our first kids; as good a common ground to start from as any, I figured.

We did see each other once or twice – she had her daughter as scheduled a few weeks before I had Ben; I remember going round to her house to see the baby, and spent an hour or so catching up, getting to know one another. I went round again just before Ben was born, and recall a bit of an odd blip in the conversation in which she seemed really uncomfortable when I didn’t reply in the affirmative to her line of questioning surrounding our plans to have our baby christened. I wouldn’t say I felt ill at ease exactly, but it was a palpable bump, nonetheless. She plainly gave rise to her intentions and her faith and I thought it pointless and a little futile to get into “the whole thing” with her and I steered the conversation elsewhere.

I guess this would be a useful opportunity to state my case on the matter. No need to steel yourself for paragraph after paragraph of religious deliberation, please don’t click away. My spirituality and/or faith is a fairly basic premise: I feel very spiritual, but I’m not a Christian. I don’t worship anything (save chocolate and a wall of Marshall stacks) but I don’t ram this fact down everyone’s throat. Reciprocally, I don’t expect it to be rammed down mine. I don’t claim to be an expert in these things, but I’d say that’s a fair exchange by anyone’s measure. I can’t prove what I believe and neither can you, and neither of us is going to convince the other of anything different, so let us agree to talk about something else – in this instance there was indeed plenty going on; dilating cervixes, swollen ankles, Braxton Hickses, what have you.

So – back to Mary. I called her a few times in the subsequent months, but we never saw each other again.  I tried to initiate another connection with her, but nothing ever materialised.

I’m not completely ignorant of the fact that maybe we both realised that we didn’t really have a lot in common other than our swollen bellies. Maybe she took pity on me and my foreigner-in-England-with-no-mates sob story and thought she’d see if I had anything interesting to say. And maybe I didn’t. But, in earnest, there has always been a part of me that wondered if she took one look at my rusted, busted Christ-o-meter and thought better of striking a closer acquaintance, lest my long and distinguished vocation as a godless, practicing heathen taint her by association. Or maybe it was Christmas and she was busy and then lost my number, etc. etc. etc.

Who knows?

But I was reminded of it all this weekend, when I bumped into her - kind of.

I went for a swim at the local baths this Sunday morning, and walked into the leisure centre at the exact same time as her, her two absolutely adorable daughters, and her husband. I recognised her straight away – I am shit with names but I never forget a face – but if I was familiar to her she gave nothing away. We didn’t say a word to one another – I guess I wanted to spare her the embarrassment of not remembering me, if indeed that was the case.  

I never bothered with any of the “Mum Friends” when I was having Jude. I knew the drill; I didn’t feel the need. I had Jude in the summer – that meant lots of lovely weather to get out for walks in, etc. I kept this blog, I found pages upon pages of sisterly consolation in fellow bloggers, and I passed the ten months of my maternity leave very cheerfully indeed.

But as I was swimming on Sunday, I thought: isn’t it weird how no one is supposed to care what other people think of them, but actually, everybody secretly does? I mean, when I rewind through the poignant moments of the last 20 years or so, I’m not taken with hysterics at the giant gaping hole left by Mary McJudgey-Judger, the holy roller of a friend who never was. I’ve got more blessings than fingers and toes to count them with, and I know it. And I’m thankful and grateful every single day. But it really pisses me off that there is someone – and the laws of averages tell me that she’s likely not the only one – that has possibly made a judgement about me, and my personality, and my lifestyle, etc. based on what she perceived it was missing, rather than what was actually there. Shame.

Ah – it’s no matter; she probably liked shit music anyway.  :-)