After subjecting the little J-dog to the torture that is having his hair cut while sipping apple juice, nibbling hors d'oeuvres, and watching an interactive Nemo DVD on a jeweled throne at the local salon, I had some time to kill, and so we headed to the nearby bookstore to wreak havoc on the train table.
I sat down next to the life size Elmo doll to sip my coffee and scope out the scene, while the J-dog set to the business of dismantling the Groovy Girls display. (For the record, I did put everything back in its place, thankyouverymuchforasking.)
There were two other women there with toddlers about the J-dog's age, and a tortoise shell glasses and North Face pullover kind of dad who was reading the paper. One woman was perusing a tabloid, the other one was watching the choo-choo go 'round and 'round the track in the same detached manner that I assume whenever forced to watch poker TV with the P-dog.
All looked to be bored out of their gourds.
Let me say right up front that I was not looking for a new BFF.
I am a bad enough BFF as it is. (Happy belated birthday, Beck! I have this really funny card for you that I just didn't send out yet. It's these two old ladies playing cards, see, and one of them says to the other one that she's thinking of getting her belly button pierced, and the other one is like, Oh, really? and then the first one's all, Yeah, that way I can put a hook in it to hold up my bra. Hahaha!)
So, while I am not looking for love at the bookstore, I am all about making small talk with utha muthas because, yo, we're all in this crazy mothership together, right? Since everyone is just sitting there, sipping her latte and counting down the hours 'till naptime, would a little back and forth about the latest episode of John and Kate Plus Eight be too much to ask for?
Apparently so.
I tried to start up a conversation with the mutha to my right. I inquired as to the age of her little rugrat, I commented on her cuteness (the kid's cuteness. GOD!), I made jokes about the lead-tainted train the child was gnawing on. You know, the usual.
But I got very little by way of response. Very little, indeed.
I will also mention here that I do not have BO or an undecipherable accent and I was not wearing an Air Supply tee shirt or anything like that, although I may have been humming quietly under my breath. (I must confess to accessing my October archives on a regular basis just to cop a listen to that one song. I can't help it. It's like when you have a Sharpie marker in your pencil case and cannot refrain from taking it out for a quick sniff every now and again.)
No luck with tabloid mom, so onward to metro dad.
It's possible he might have thought I was trying to hit on him in an awkward let me show you what's in my diaper bag kind of way, but, again, no dice.
I started feeling like the train table parent equivalent of the chatty airline passenger you fake sleep to avoid talking to.
It's not the first time I've felt this way after making friendly attempts at conversation with mothers around me in a child-centered setting. And I would be very hard-pressed to recall a time when a mother in a place like this tried to strike up a conversation with me. I'm always, without fail, the one to stick my neck out. And although I will admit to being prone to making lame jokes and occasionally speaking out of turn, the last time I checked, I was a card-carrying member of Planet Earth.
While I do understand that we all sometimes just want to zone out and read about Brit-Brit's custody battle, I can't help but notice that, in general, a lot of the mothers I come across in public, child-oriented places like this, just don't have an interest in conversing with one another at all.
Is a bookstore play area really akin to an airplane where having your nose in a magazine is the universal code for please don't bother me? It's not as if I grabbed the airline pillow out from under any one's head and demanded they have a heart-to-heart with me, or tried to tell them about my appendectomy when they were only ten pages from finishing War and Peace.
So often, I hear mothers, especially those who stay home with young children, talk about how out of touch they feel with their peers, about how hard it is to make true, lasting friendships anymore, about being lonely.
And I have to wonder where those mothers are, because they are most definitely not at the train table near me.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
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25 comments:
I so would have been into that Air Supply t-shirt! Maybe that's what those other muthas were looking for?
Seriously, though, nobody much talks to me either and I don't have BO either (last time I checked).
You know what I'm listening to as I write this, right? "Making loooooove out of nothing at all...". Video playing in the background. Lovely.
It sounds like you inadvertently ended up in Norway, where *noone* talks to each other, ever, unless their grandparents were best friends in kindergarten. I would have expected better of Americans, who are known to be friendly. I guess not... Too bad!
Heidi
Well now I wish you lived near me, because I talk to EVERYBODY, much to my children's chagrin. They cringe every time I do it, but I will start a conversation about last week's Friday Night Lights with the 16-year old check-out girl at the grocery store. Meanwhile they're saying under their breath, "let's go mom" and trying to be real small so no one notices them. Poor dears.
Anyway, I don't know why people don't talk to each other. Maybe they were just having off days? Or...OR...maybe the tabloid mother and the tortoiseshell father were having an affair, and that train table was were they met every week, and YOU ruined it! Ha! That's IT!
There's only one explanation I can think of. Clearly, bookstore train sets are actually babysitters in disguise. Apparently, parents bring their little ones there so the parents can take a nap. Didn't you get the memo?
I, of course, threw the memo in the trash because I LOVE talking about my kids to anyone with ears and a pulse (and even that's not required). So of I ever see you at a train table near me, I promise to say "hi" and relate my most recent vomit story.
Bummer.
I will say I was "off" yesterday and possibly shunned a couple of attempts at small talk. And I've been thinking about it all day, how I squandered a couple opportunities for socialization. Damn hormones.
I completely understand what you're saying. I feel like that all the time.
I thought this might just be a German hatred of small talk thing, but I guess not. This happens to me all the time.
I also do not have BO. I don't think.
Love John and Kate Plus Eight! I totally would have talked with you!
Those moms you're looking for? They are right here, commenting on this post!
I think Candy is on to something.
You interrupted their sex plans.
You are so right on with this one! I thought it was just because I live in such a cliquish town.
Sex! At the train table! Am rolling on the floor laughing! hahahaha!
Seriously, though. I've been that mom, trying to catch a listening ear or a laugh or two from a near-by Moma, only to be completely ignored.
BUT
There are also people out there who DO have BO and don't realize it. Or the social awareness of a lamp-post and overshare or go a little overboard in the talking department.
It's hard to find a balance. But if you never try, how will you know?
Clearly we're not hanging out near the same train tables... I SO would have chatted with you... then I would have given you one of my special "Let's have a playdate" Moo cards. Then you would have thought I was a stalker and we would have left it at that... ahem...
Oh, and tag! You're it! (check out mah blog for details.)
Everyone seems to be in their own little bubble lately. If they don't have an iPod stuck in their ears, they're otherwise occupied. There's very little "neighborly" talk in any circles.
Damn, I would SO have chatted with you.
I don't get that. At all.
Once again, you've articulated something so well that I've also experienced. I read about it all the time yet find cold responses to a little witty banter. I don't get it. I wish I'd see you at some train table, we'd be there laughing for hours about Brit-brit.
Maybe they all signed up for NaBloPoMo (or whatever the acronym is, too lazy to check) and they are obsessively thinking up blog material in their head?
No?
Just a theory. I would talk to you, Air Supply t-shirt and all.
I'm still giggling about that Air Supply plug.
You know how our brains turn to mush after the 17th Teletubby episode of the week and 9th rendition of Wheels on the Bus; while the gallon jug of latte laced with mucho sugar and caffeine is the only nutrition we've consumed since dinner last night. And dinner last night was the last time we actually had a conversation with another adult (eventhough it most likely revolved around toddler bowel movements, the color of snot and/or the latest lead paint scare.) I comfort myself by thinking these non responsive parents are "irretrievable." They have willingly succumbed to the zombie inducing, brain mush world of parenthood, and they have completely forgotten how to relate to other adults...and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with me.
My friend, I respectfully side with the silent snubbers. I mean, (as you know) I absolutely hate it when people attempt to engage me in random conversations like the ones you describe, especially when I'm spending time with my family.
To those of you who disagree and continue to try to strike up a conversation with those of us who most often prefer not to, it's not that we're offended or trying to be mean. We're just signaling to our fellow human beings that this is not a good time. Maybe we worked all day, maybe we're tired. Maybe we're socially intraverted and find random conversations more awkward and unpleasant than they are worth. Maybe it's just not an interpersonal match from our perspective so we don't want to pretend to be interested. But really, probably it has nothing to do with you at all.
At the very same train table only a few weeks ago I was on the receiving end of a talk-to-me invitation and, in this instance, I made the mistake of lightening my leave-me-alone signals so the woman proceeded. It still chills me to recall the exhaustingly uninteresting jabber I took in. All in all, it strengthened my resolve to avoid speaking English in public wherever possible.
Rima, I chat to everyone, so you're not alone. Come to Omaha! We'll chat!
I've noticed that midwesterners don't seem to be as chatty as their Southern counterparts. I have a tough time with that.
OMG, too funny!
Oh man totally. Would it kill these people to make a little small talk? What happened to manners these days? People are like that here in So. Cal as well.
I've been hearing this same thing from a lot of people lately. Even at the playground they will say hello and have other mothers flat out ignore them. I understand that sometimes people have a bad day, but they could still have some manners. I shudder to think what their kids will grow up to be like.
That's too bad, I hate when that happens.
I'm naturally pretty introverted, but I don't know what happened once I had kids. I've started a conversation or two, and some haven't been too successful. But small talk, that's a basic social skill, really. And if someone asks about my kid, the floodgates open. Maybe these two were just zombie-tired, but sounds like you just got the wrong two.
I would have been talking your ear off, esp. about John +Kate +8. And other intellectually stimulating topics.
Moms like us have cooties only visible to moms like those. I figure it's no big loss. One conversation with them might suck the intelligence right out of our heads! Best to be avoided if at all possible!
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