Her Name Rhymed With Mimberly

To go back to a subject I touched on in an earlier posting, I am increasingly aware of this Mommy Crush phenomenon. Okay, maybe it's just me and it's not a phenomenon at all. But I meet these women in the playground, and they're so ... pretty. And cool. And good, natural moms. With charming, natural laughs. And I think, gee, I'd like to throw back a few tequila shots with this woman. Then when I go back to the playground I look for them, and try to remember their kids' names, (Ryan? Dylan? Tristan? Justin? Max?). I usually never remember to ask adults their names.

Back in July, one of my playground crushes seemed as though it was about to go to the next level: the playdate. I was invited - I mean, Eden was invited - to the home of a little girl whose name I won't reveal, but suffice it to say it's the first name of a famous screen actress from the 1930s and rhymes with Maloollah. I'd had a bit of a crush on the mommy, she being so energetic and smart-seeming. And the little girl whose name rhymes with Maloollah is so sweet and cheerful, so I was really looking forward to this get-together.

The 90 minutes Eden and I spent at their sprawling Perry Street loft flew by like hours. I sat cross-legged on the floor near the girls at play and asked the mommy the kinds of innocuous questions you ask people at parties and things, the kinds of questions that could lead to more personal dialogue if the askee is willing to open up a bit. But I don't know, this mommy just wouldn't go there, and that was fine, except that she didn't ask me one bloody question about myself, not one, not even a bland impersonal one just to kill some time. So it was up to me to keep the conversation alive by lobbing out openers with potential, questions that might lead somewhere - though as time went by it became increasingly clear that, once we had exhausted the endlessly fascinating topic of nap time, the only place this conversation was going was to my private hell of polite desperation, in which I frantically searched for things to talk about with this stranger, whose daughter was ignoring my daughter while my daughter ignored her, the one with the name that rhymes with Maloollah, right back.

Once again, I overinvested in the imagined potential of a relationship and was disappointed when I actually got to know the person, then had to spend time and energy shaking it off. This is the danger of the mommy crush - or any kind of crush at all.