The Social Order of Suburban Housewives

I am wearing one of my favorite shirts today. It has PTA Reject embroidered across the chest.

Our town is full of cliques, especially at the mom level. It’s a lot like high school. There’s the PTA clique (which further sub-divides by school), the clique associated with the local Catholic church, the newcomer’s club clique, the hockey mom clique, the lacrosse mom clique, the private school clique, and the gym-that- wants-to-be-a-country-club clique, and a few others. There are cross-members as well as single clique members. While I am friendly with people in the various cliques and count a good number of acquaintances, I would not say that I am truly friends with more than a handful of women in town.

Why not?

I readily admit that it takes a long time for me to really make a friend. But once made, I am extremely loyal. My closest girlfriend has been my closest girlfriend for, oh, eighteen or nineteen years now, and I have known her for longer than twenty years.

But that’s not why. It’s because I don’t do things their way, and have no interest in changing my life to conform.

I don’t play tennis, for example. I tried once, years ago, and totally sucked at it. For another, I have a job outside the home – and I (gasp) like it that way. Third, I’m not pushing my sons into multiple sports per season, or the other expected suburban activities. Fourth, when I have volunteered around town I have tried to inject some new ideas and not just done whatever project “our” way just because it’s been done that way for “years.” Fifth, though this blog might not reveal it, I can be very shy when I first meet someone. I understand that this can come off as being aloof and work hard to be more outgoing when I meet people, but it’s a challenge for me. I could go on.

This means I am on the outside more often than not. I am mostly okay with that.

But does that mean we can’t be friends, or at least friendly/friendlier? I mean, really. How and why do my choices threaten what you have chosen for yourself? A little respect and openness could expand all our worlds.

I know I am not the only woman in town who experiences being on the outside of the major cliques, but I don't exactly want to be like the cliques and start a women-who-don't-fit-into-the-other-cliques clique. Anyway, I'm too busy living.

I go through angst every six months or so about this. Usually something will happen that will just floor me with its ridiculousness.

So what happened to bring this up?

A woman I know – the mother of one of C’s good friends – has been keeping her individual email address from me. It’s been quite obvious. For whatever reason, she does not want me to have it. The email address I use when I need to send and email (usually around the boys) is her husband’s. This means it takes extra time to get a response, but I accept it for what it is. I don’t really care about the email address. It’s the extremes she’s gone to that amuse/annoy me.

(Hey, I have seven email addresses, and I direct some people to one rather than another. The thing is – I admit that to people. I will say, “I have several email addresses. The best one for you to use is…”)

Yesterday, I sent out an email about C’s upcoming birthday. A reply came back from the husband that obviously was a mistake (it was map pasted in noting restaurants in the area – nothing to do with the coming birthday), and it included the woman’s individual email address.

I should also say that the husband and I have an easier relationship. He and my husband and I all have a similar warped sense of humor – but I also have been careful not to get too friendly. This is a small town, afterall.

I replied back with a joke and said something that indicated that 1) I recognized that his wife had been keeping that email from me, and 2) I won’t use it.

So now she knows that I know she was keeping the email address from me.

What will happen now?

My guess is that no one will say anything and after a period of extra awkwardness all around, it will settle back to the status quo. This woman keeping me at arm’s length because I don’t fit into her accepted social order, we’ll keep a friendlier relationship with her husband, our boys will be good buddies.

But it got me thinking about this whole thing and I am annoyed and sad about it all over again. It’s all so insanely stupid.

As I was exercising this afternoon, it occurred to me that the reason these women cling so tightly to their cliques and their social order is that they are looking for – and looking to protect – that same thing I am: acceptance.

But the trick is, if only they would give a little more acceptance, they would get a little more, too.