iFriend

Strange thing, friendship.

Perhaps it’s my post-partum depression but I feel something changes here once you have a kid.

First you try and hang on to old familiarities, desperate to prove it’s business as usual.

But you’ve changed.

Somehow you’ve transformed into a creature that has much in common with a snotrag: functional, not particularly fun, but a begrudged necessity.

If ever you take a stab at socializing...

Friends are annoyed you're distracted by the baby.
The baby is annoyed you're distracted by friends.
You’re annoyed at both for the above.

Yada-bladi-blah.

In the end the winner is whoever screams loudest (guess).

So…

Isolation descends, encroaching like mist in a bayou, clinging to your face, clawing at your throat.

Facebooking takes over in an attempt to fulfill friendship obligations one Like button at a time (try typing with squirming diaper-bunny).

After that obligatory first visit, friends drop off…
To be seen in photos with other people, at other gatherings.

Which you Like.

You turn to socializing with support groups and other parents (some of whom you’ve hated with a passion but are now lashed together with your common misery, your common loneliness... Or because your kids are pals. Ah, the humor of fate).