Had an awkward moment yesterday which I’m still cringing about.
Ds8 has a fairly cliquey group of parents in his year group. I’ve never felt particularly friendly vibes from anyone, apart from the odd hello and occasional small talk towards me if there is no one else talk to. I have not invested too much energy in trying to be friendly as I have friends who I socialise with outside of school, so tend to drop and go.
I have invited a few of ds’s friends to our house or taken them to the park for a play but this has never been reciprocated as they tend to invite/socialise with their friends’ kids. This does make me a bit sad for ds.
Recently ds has become good friends with another boy in his class who’s mum is also a little bit on the periphery like me. They have a fair bit in common. She has made a lot of effort in speaking with me in the playground, inviting my ds to their house, joining up to one of my ds’s clubs etc. The mum is good company and it’s been nice to have a friendly face to say hello to!
She asked a few times if I wanted to meet for coffee, I said yes that would be nice, but we didn’t arrange a time. I’ve been pretty busy with work, my other dcs and my other friends, so didn’t have many free days.
I was free one day this week, so texted to ask if she was free for a coffee but she said she had another commitment. It was no problem as it was fairly short notice so I arranged to do something else instead.
I saw her in the playground yesterday, went over to say hi, only to be totally blanked/ignored!!!!! She just looked at her phone, didn’t look up at all and blanked me!! I said hi again but the same thing happened, so I sidled away- a bit mortified as I looked
a complete loon to anyone who overheard!
I am still cringing today! I’m not going to lose too much sleep over it, but it did unsettle me a bit, even though I’m a mature, sensible woman who is on dc number 3 and has practically seen it all in the playground.
But my question is (if you’ve managed to get to the end!) why do people do this?