This is the person whose schedule seems to sync up with yours. Somehow, you always end up at the playground at similar times. Maybe your kids have taken an interest in each other. Gradually, you start exchanging “hellos” and a few “how are yous.”
For me, there was a perfectly pleasant woman with a kid slightly older than mine (maybe six months older, if I had to guess). The kid would always run over to my kid and try to engage him. He was a super excited, outgoing little scamp. My poor pandemic child is on the shy side thanks to spending half his life in lockdown, but he warms up to people in time. By day three or four of seeing this same kid, they were really hitting it off. The mom and I eventually started talking a bit. I don’t know if we were ever going to get to the point of exchanging phone numbers and setting up playdates, but at one point I did say something like, “We’ll be back, same time tomorrow.”
Bummer, though: they vanished more thoroughly than Keyser Soze. Who knows why—maybe the kid started a new summer camp, maybe they found another playground they liked better—it really doesn’t matter. These playground meetings are a lot like stumbling into a conversation at a bar or on a plane. If a friendship develops, rad. If not, don’t bother thinking about it again until you need an anecdote for a column you’re writing.
How To Approach Them:
Organically. If someone’s friendly, be friendly back. If not, so what? The only laws of the playground, at least the one I usually go to, is that it’s for kids 12 and under, it closes at 7, and you can’t drink booze there. Seriously, that’s all the sign says. You’re not forced to talk to anyone. But again, if you kinda end up talking and the kids are getting along, it’s not a bad thing to open yourself up to new friends. Even if, like me, that possibility terrifies you.