I don't really know if this is the best place to post, and I tried to post under an anonymous name but it wouldn't let me so now I'll just have to humiliate myself. I am sure there are people who can't stand me here, so I didn't really want to ask for help but i'm just so fed up right now. DH and I moved to the town we live in just before ds was born. He will be two next month. We are so frigging lonely and it is starting to really get to ds. I think I am a pretty easy going person, OK to talk to, I ask interesting questions and don't think I have a second head I don't know about or anything. And ds just adores other children - he goes up to them and is desperate to befriend them - though he often gets ignored. He had a little friend who we used to meet up with once or twice a week, and I got on with her Mum and that was great, but they left to go back to the States a few months ago and ds really felt the loss. We go to mother and baby groups, and we go to the Park. Ds tries to make eye contact with other kids all the time, with varying degrees of success. Only one mother that I have met from these groups has offered me her phone number - I rang her and we get together sometimes but her dd is a bit older than ds and not very interested in him. We have one other friend who has a dd, again a bit older than ds, and she's not very interested in him either. She can be quite horrible to him, push him and snatch things off him, but I know that's just how kids are sometimes and i suppose he'll have to get used to it.
Today, we went to the park, and there was a group of mothers with toddlers having a picnic on a blanket. Ds took my hand and led me up to the group, and wanted to sit down with them. They ignored us completely. In the end i had to pick him up and take him away, and he started to scream and cry. He cries in the park if anybody leaves - he is so desperate to make friends. It breaks my heart and I feel quite lonely myself. We go to a music class, and at the end of last term, two other mums and I planned to have a picnic after the last class - so I turn up with picnic on the last week, and one of the mums is not there, and the other is meeting her husband for lunch in the pub - and we are not invited. She was obviously embarrassed but the picnic was not mentioned, and I was just hurt and baffled.
Please don;t think I think my ds is better than any other child - I don't and god knows he has his moments of tantrums and horrible behaviour. But he does seem to love other children so much, and is desperate for friends. We live in a tiny flat in an area where most people seem to live in huge houses, and there is not really the room to invite people back to ours, even if I had the courage to.
I just don't know how to turn this around, and feel quite angry that no one has ever bothered to try and welcome us into what seems like a clique. Sorry for rant, you probably think I'm a self pitying twat - so be it.