Won't You Be My Friend?

I have observed that finding a friend is very similar to dating and actually harder. Now that I'm a mommy, my friend requirements have somewhat changed. It's easier to keep up relationships with other mommies than with prior friends without children. This way your time is double duty. You get a play date for your child, and you get to visit with an adult you, hopefully, enjoy spending time with. At least that's the goal. Unfortunately, it rarely turns out this way.
I had a friend once tell me that it was best to pick friends for your child while you could (in other words, children with parents you like spending time with) before they start picking their own friends, and consequently, you're stuck with those friends' parents.

My son's taste in friends is relatively vast at this point: Basically, any one that is breathing and will pay attention to him. Sometimes he just settles for the breathing part. Therefore, I still have this window of opportunity to pick his playmates, as well as mine. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, being that I am not the most outgoing of people.

Getting back to the dating similarities, I've met mommies who picked me up, as it were, that are fun to be around but aren't particularly deep friendship material. Conversations revolve still around superficial matters and our kids, of course, and we've know each other for over a year now. We have nothing in common but our kids.

On the other hand, I've met mommies who I'm interested in, but it's like the good-looking guy who doesn't know you exist and you're the fat pimply girl who tries to make conversation with him when you can. "Hey! How's it going? Um, are you going to the Halloween party tonight? Maybe we'll see you there. Okay, well. Bye." All of this is said in an off-hand, casual way because you don't want them to get too scared by the desperation in your eyes.

I thought once Vaughn was in preschool this would be easier, but still, it's kind of like high school. You see each other Tuesdays and Thursdays, exchange pleasantries, and then you frantically hurry off on your merry way to try to cram in all the "me-time" you can between 9 and 11:30. You have your beginning clicks, people who know each other from the neighborhood, ones you jealously wish to be a part of. You want be in with the "cool" mommies. The ones who are chicly fashionable and haven't let themselves go down the mommy road of big hips, fat thighs, and pot belly. The ones who listen to something beyond the Wiggles and top 40 (or worse, country) and actually pick up an occasional book.

I hated dating, and finding a mommy-friend is even more humiliating. I hate putting myself "out there." What do you do to entice a mommy, anyway? I mean, I know the basics of seducing a guy: bat your eyes, play with your hair, lick your lips, show a little leg/boob. Hmmmm. I wonder if the same applies to mommies?