Adult suburbia is a lot like high school.
I pick my kid up from dancing lessons and other events. I’m forced to attend the odd birthday parties as well, and I’m here to tell you that high school behavior is alive and well, long after your Camaro’s been sold for scrap.
When I pick my kid up from dancing I am always the only man there. The gaggle of mothers all look up when I walk in and then go back to talking amongst themselves. None of them will look me in the eye. I always nod and smile because I’m polite. They all look away. After a few minutes a couple of them will start staring at me when they think I’m not looking. And I mean stare. Like I have two heads.
Most of them pretend I’m not there at all. Like I give a shit. Every once in a while I’ll look up quickly and catch one of them staring at me and they panic and look away. This goes on week after week. Are they threatened by me? Are they wondering why their own worthless husbands can’t contribute a little more? I’ll probably never know. They have a definite pecking order as well. In fact a couple of the women are ignored as well.
Anyway, a friend of the family started taking her kid to the same dance school and now I have someone to talk to when I show up, much to the dismay of the other mothers. They are clearly pissed off by my talking to this woman. What they really need to do is relax and develop some damned social graces.
The only difference between this situation and high school is the frump factor. And a cloud of dope smoke. Most of these broads look like they’ve had the life beaten out of them. A few keep in shape but most are pretty far gone, and they’re younger than I am. Maybe that’s where the hostility comes from.
The same thing happens when I’m forced to go to a birthday party. I walk in and either all conversation stops or they pretend I’m not there. Like they’re punishing me. Do these broads think I like going to these things? Do they think I want to share they’re company? Maybe get a play date going or something? Because I’m here to tell you broads something. I don’t like you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you in those horrifying clothes you wear. The sweat pants and the saggy-baggy old crap that’s hanging off of you. You all need to get your fucking hair done, learn to put on some makeup that wasn’t purchased in a Northern New Jersey drugstore and learn to sit up straight.
These women look at me like I have two heads and they’re the ones that look like they slept on the floor in their clothes all night. They’re the ones that better not get a divorce because it’s going to be CAT CITY for them.
If I were you, I'd start doing little subversive things around them in the waiting room. You know; show up smoking a pipe, get on your cell and start talking dirty, or pull what we always used to call 'The Goose'. 'The Goose' was kind of a reverse wingman strategy: You'd bring a buddy with you who had direct orders to be a jackass. Obviously, not a violent jackass; just a distasteful, socially repulsive jackass. It works best on the type of people you've described above. I mean, if you don't care what they think and they're already looking down their noses at you; might as well give them the fodder which they so hungrily desire, eh?
I get that too, when I drop off my kid at preschool or go on the required 'volunteer' days. Some mothers are nice enough to your face but you KNOW when they get back to their chickencoop they'll be all like "He's so weird..and what about that beard, I mean, what is he some kind of hippy". Why I know this is because the next time you talk to them you'll get an exactly opposite response from them. They'll be cold, unfriendly.
Screw that shit, I don't need to cow-tow to mentally unstable freaks who thought high school was the best time of their lives.
Being that I am a woman, it is interesting that I say this...I really don't like women. Occasionally I find somebody more in touch with her masculine side like me who doesn't have a catty bone in her body but albeit rare.
I feel your pain Paul. Lucky you have never attended a bridal or baby shower. They're SOOOOO PAINFUL.