Last night my old college friend Matt and I went out for a drink at a dim cocktail bar in our Brooklyn neighborhood. We hadn’t seen each other in a month, and so had some catching up to do: How was his trip to Hawaii with his wife? What random projects was I working on?
We’d only just gotten started on our second round of drinks when a blond girl interrupted to ask what I was drinking. I didn’t actually know—I told her I’d asked the bartender for something “rough” with rye.
“I like it rough too!” she said.
Apparently—and I don’t want to overthink this—she was flirting with me. Soon she was joined by her friends (two sisters) and Matt and I had to, out of sheer politeness, keep up the game. Which was difficult! Partly because we really wanted to talk to each other, but also because these were not our type of women. Attractive, sure, but so what? We had no interest in pursuing this.
Then they saw our wedding rings. And things changed.
One was visibly disappointed. Another seemed glad for a reason to edge away. But the third—she was divorced, the mother of two girls, 3 and 7, and once we started comparing parenting stories, sharing Facebook videos and commiserating, well, we got along great.
Except that as I walked home—at the late, late hour of 11 p.m.—I wondered: Have I become one of Those People, the ones who can only connect with strangers by the sad fact of parenthood? I mean, it’s not like there’s any dearth of parents out there. Does having successfully procreated make us so special that we have to band together in groups and share “insider” knowledge of dangerous toys, caring pediatricians, and feeding tricks?
But damn, those Facebook videos are cute.