Desperately seeking: Ride-or-die momate

“Hi, nice to see you again. If you want, when Luka’s better we should arrange a playdate (they can play and we can have coffee or gin – winky face emoji)? Nice to have a friend nearby. Anyway, have a good week. Cheers, Leigh”

In my mind the monkey covering its face emoji was loudly shouting at me “with all due respect, that was so lame and needy”.

This is an example of me “making friends” on WhatsApp. When did I regress to become an insecure fifteen-year-old boy with an unreliably high pitched voice and braces trying to flirt with a girl in my class via paper aeroplane note? Beats me but it has happened.

For me, and hopefully, many others, making friends is flippin’ hard. I have often thought that, for us non-cool, non-PTA, non-soccer, non-perfect moms, trying to make friends is as bad as dating. So much so that I am thinking of registering a new business venture – Friendr – I mean why should only the romantic heterosexual and homosexual relationships get an app? Moms need to find soulmates too. And what better way to find them than with a swipe to the left or right?

*F@#!, the app already exists*

Anyway, I digress, the symptoms of this illness – more commonly known as no-friends-nancy-itis – are not dissimilar to dating in high school – overuse of emojis, uncomfortable jokes, awkward handshakes that could have been intended as a peck on the cheek and embarrassing WhatsApps that reek of trying too hard.

Your momates are critical to surviving motherhood. And their selection is as important, if not more important, than the search for your spouse. These friends will “get you” more than anyone else can, not even your life partner will get you like these friends.

They share similar parenting styles, outlooks on life, values, dietary habits, deep-seated beliefs, confidence levels, social calendars and attitudes towards motherhood in general.

Where is the Skinny Becka to my Fat Amy?

But if you are anything like me, socially awkward, not particularly cool or stylish, have a habit of making cheesy jokes and are often overwhelmed by bouts of rage and sarcasm, then finding your momate might be a tad challenging.

I cannot comment on the success rate of the cool PTA soccer mom types in terms of forming social groups but from the outside looking in it appears a lot easier to find your momate when you are a more mainstream mom.

Ultimately, I have a sneaky suspicion that we all end up crying in the shower, in our parked cars or in the tinned goods aisle of the supermarket, as we feel isolated and alone in our journey more often than we would like to admit. But I can’t help but feel high school style popularity is still to a degree in play in Momland.

I am not that person who needs or wants an endless list of friends, I do need and want some sort of list of friends, even if there is only one name on it, as long as there is at least one friend that constitutes my ride-or-die.

I watched a Melissa McCarthy movie recently, and in it, Maya Rudolph plays McCarthy’s character’s BFF, she defends her with lioness fierceness at McCarthy’s character’s divorce mediation hearing. She throws shade at the ex and the woman he shacks up with. She encourages her to follow her dreams, even when those dreams lead her down a road of a whole bunch of crazy. When she is hit in the vagina by her friend’s fiercely stray squash ball she laughs in pain and commands her friend to apologise in person to her vagina, ‘Julie’, and as this momate thing is a two-way street, McCarthy’s character obliges, bends down and does just that. She laughs like a hyena when her friend phones in the middle of the day to share a tale of a library stacks sexual encounter with a boy half her age. I want that. The friend, not the public copulation.

I want a Thelma to my Louise. A Dionne to my Cher. A Skinny Becka to my Fat Amy. A Meredith to my Christina. A Willow to my Buffy. A Rachel to my Monica. An Amy to my Tina. A Romy to my Michele. A Blanche to my Dorothy. Or even a Rose. Who am I kidding, I would even settle for Sophia.

In truth when considering why I have struggled to find my momate, I have come to the conclusion that it is less complicated than social structures and hierarchy, a matter of cool versus uncool, the reality, I fear, is far less dramatic and not nearly as cinematic. It boils down to time and energy.

Relationships are built on time and energy, the giving of timing, the giving of energy. Time and energy spent being thoughtful and considerate. Time and energy spent on being there, on being available, on listening without interrupting, on being devoted to that person when they need you. Time and energy spent making that person feel special and loved.

How can a mom truly commit to time for anyone other than her own creation, her own monster that is a time and energy vampire, sucking her dry day in and day out?

And this is where every momates’ good intentions pave the road to broken dreams and abandoned playdates, where what was once a promising coupling fizzles out quietly and unspectacularly, almost as if it never happened, almost as if you imagined the spark – like a damp squib. Why is this the destiny for most budding momate relationships? Because the two characteristics that all moms lack is the very characteristics that a strong and rewarding friendship needs – time and energy.

How can a mom truly commit to time for anyone other than her own creation, her own monster that is a time and energy vampire, sucking her dry day in and day out?

If we have to do the math, we cannot commit to listening without interruption because our child will interrupt at some point, we cannot commit to being thoughtful when we struggle to remember our own birthday, never mind someone else’s. I for one know that I do not have any time nor energy to spare. And if I do is it enough to sustain a meaningful relationship? Or do I spend the little scrap left over to look after myself and retain a tiny glimpse of me before mom-me?

I don’t know I am tired just thinking about it. And I am already late for bath-time.

Perhaps in some parallel universe where time moves more slowly, my momate and I are living our best lives and making it work. Maybe they’ll send a sign or a postcard.

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