My friends fall into two distinctive camps: the Never Been Marrieds and the Blissfully Domestic with at Least Several Kids. The NBM’s are mostly beautiful women in their early thirties, with glossy careers and cut-crystal wine glasses, stainless steel refrigerators stocked with goat cheese and aperitifs. The BD’s, on the other hand, have smudges on their countertops and overflowing laundry bins; they have traded in their stiletto booties for lululemons and washable t-shirts. At night they sit on the sofa with their increasingly rotund husbands, sorting socks and checklisting menus while their children sleep upstairs. Unsurprisingly, these two groups of friends rarely mingle. And perplexingly, I don’t fit in with either of them.

It’s not like my friends have ditched me since I became a single Mom, in fact, I credit one of them (an NBM, incidentally) with pulling me through the separation with my son’s father, certainly the worst year of my life. Another one of them (a BD) came to visit me last week with her darling baby girl, and she had nothing but kind supportive words for me.

But a girlfriend with a husband can’t really fathom what life is like for a single Mom. I know, because I tried when I was partnered. It’s one of those things, like the pain of labor, the snap of a broken arm, the feeling that explodes from your heart when you see your child for the first time: unexplainable, unless experienced. And the swinging single girls — well, it’s difficult for them to understand that I can’t go away on a weekend getaway. Or why I don’t want more than one glass of wine on a Friday night because, you know, I have to contend with a toddler solo the entire next day and it’s just not worth it.

The thing is, I do know a few single Moms. In fact, I know several, and I made plans with one of them to take our kids for a walk on Tuesday. She didn’t call. I didn’t call either. I know she got caught up in juggling, balancing, working and guilting — what single Mom has time for leisurely evening walks? She knows I was probably at my computer, furiously trying to wrap up a proposal. We may try again, but possibly not.

In the meantime, I’ll drift back and forth between the Blissfully Domestics and the Never Been Marrieds and try to find common ground in laughter, chocolate chips cookies, and the plain joy of truly good women.