Work It, Dad!
with Avi Spivack
Hi, I'm Avi, and I try to put the work and the dad together, with mild success. This is all about trying to give you a view from what it looks like on the dad-man's side of the world, and I hope you find my ruminations humorous because I try not to take myself too seriously.
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Get your mind out of the gutter - I am talking about PLATONIC couples dating, and honestly, it has been one of the most interesting topics that I’ve considered over the last few years, especially since the birth of our daughter:
As a modern, urbane (and insane) family with one five-and-a-half-year-old girl, how do you find friends who:
(a) have a husband who your husband likes*
(b) have a wife who your wife likes*
(c) have a kid (or kids) who your kid(s) like and is of a similar age
*In some cases, both spouses need to like both of the other spouses, but frequently it’s okay if you do the gender split.
I would argue that in today’s hurly-burly world, it ain’t easy to do.
You could try kupple.com, but do you really want to visit a site that claims: “Every soul has a mate. Every couple has a match.”? (Apologies if you are a member, but not sure I could stomach that, especially because the photo on the homepage is a bunch of bologna - those 4 people are NOT friends, let’s just be honest, k?)
For us, we’ve been on many couple/family dates, and many of them just don’t work - usually the kids are compatible enough, but you do a nice brunch somewhere, the women talk, the men talk, you smile and say let’s definitely do this again - and then you never do.
The synergy just isn’t there.
No magic.
Sometimes you can point to a reason, but most times it’s just straight-up incompatibility…
Just like regular dating, you can’t force it - either it works, you have some chemistry or you don’t, and for so many of our play/couple dates, we were trying to force it.
And so, we have a few couple/family friends, but what really seems to work (for us) is having couple friends WITHOUT children, or even single friends. Because then, it’s not about the kids: holy cow, what a novel idea?!
It is sometimes so nice to not discuss children and their activities and their development and their ever-growing list of needs…instead - as we did this weekend with child in tow - we had a lovely brunch with an unmarried, childless couple, and we really didn’t do kid talk (even though she was right there the whole time, but not at the center of it all).
What we seem to have learned is that it is wildly refreshing to have different (and sometimes overlapping) sets of couple friends - those that are more for US and those that also benefit child; and if you can make it all work and find those magical people, kudos to you! (even if it’s on kupple.com).
Good luck out there - it’s not easy to find good couple/family friends!
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I like this post. I totally hear you. I’ve had some similar experiences recently. It seems like when you are on a date with another couple that also has kids, there is some kind of competition. What does your kid do? what does mine? what activities is your kid part of? well I think this, and I think that?
But with you are a couple with kids on a date with a couple, no kids… somehow you admire each other rather than compete. You admire how they make time for themselves, they admire how you have such a great child and how you manage it all.
vera babayeva | January 13th, 2010 at 3:09 am
We have found couples at my sons preschool. We all seem to get along and it works. We even got lucky with one as they live in our condo building and our kids are BFF’s at school. It seems like, so far, if our kids really get along, the parents each get along great. There is one couple that I know outside of school and my husband doesn’t click with hers and he never wants to go when we are invited but we have 3 other ones that we do. I didn’t realize that we were this lucky!
Oceans Mom | January 13th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
I can understand ur feelings. We have been in similar situations. The first time or second get together would be fine, after that it will be all power game…judging / comparing / unsolicited advices and what not!
We try to do just what suits us as a family and hang in with friends once in 2-3 weeks or so….so much better!
RS | January 13th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Almost all of our friends are unattached, not married (but dating) and don’t have kids. What we’d really, really like is to meet a few families like ours so that we can actually do things with people in a more similar situation.
Most of our social life revolves around having to find a baby sitter at the very last minute (BECAUSE OMG YOU GUYS HAVE TO COME OUT TONIGHT FOR XYZ EVENT!!!! which we could and did do - before we had Amelie) or, more accurately, turning down invite after invite because it’s too late to find a sitter or because it’s smack in the middle of something planned for her day, etcetera.
Wait. We don’t have a social life anymore. Riiiight. Just once it’d be nice to get together for drinks or coffee with another couple of mom or dad with kids and let the kids entertain while we still get some adult socializing in. Even a playgroup? Something? Anything?
PS - Kupple seems creepy. Thank you.
Phe | January 19th, 2010 at 4:45 pm