Aspiring Soccer Mom

A year ago, I had an old friend from high school who was going to be visiting nearby. Would I be available to meet up? Sure. Did I mind if another friend of hers joined us? Of course not.

We all sat down at the restaurant and each gave a brief update on our lives. Or rather my friend and I gave brief updates of our lives. The friend of a friend, Lucy*, had a nervous breakdown. She revealed that her boyfriend of nine months had broken up with her recently and she was having a rough time.

As she cried, I initially felt bad for her. Though it was certainly awkward for her to be unloading in front of a stranger, I was fine lending a sympathetic ear. But the longer she sobbed and tried to convince us that her boyfriend was an idiot for leaving her, the more she incriminated herself.

Lucy had recently graduated from college. As a senior, she began dating Samuel*, who was a freshman. After graduating, she had put the pressure on Samuel to propose. If he really loved her, he would do that, you know? And Samuel said he would one day but that he wasn’t ready yet so Lucy would ask when that would be, but he couldn’t give her an answer! It seemed to me that Lucy had unreasonable expectations in believing she can coax a boy about nineteen-years-old who is not even a college sophomore into marriage.

Anyway, I guess the proposal shit scared him away. Samuel told Lucy he was too young to be in so deep and wanted to live a normal college life. Could we believe the nerve of him not to make mature decisions? To choose partying with his friends over her? My friend and I could not… well, we could not reply, really. Do you tell a loon the truth? Meanwhile, Samuel won’t return her calls, but she is still in contact with his mom and sister who both agree that they are perfect together and can’t believe he would give her up. If someone called my family to convince them to convince me to reunite, I know I’d appreciate the gesture!

Sensing how uncomfortable I was, my friend finally tried to change the subject. It worked for a minute or two before Lucy redirected the conversation. “I’m ready to be a soccer mom, is that such a bad thing?” When you’re 21, it’s at least atypical, if not semi-bonkers. So far, all of her questions were rhetorical, but now she wanted my take on her situation “as a guy.” This put me in quite a spot. Honesty probably wouldn’t be appreciated. Moreover, I didn’t feel like I owed Lucy, a stranger, such frankness, although I still don’t like to lie. I struggled to find some diplomatic words, explaining that it must be hard for Samuel to handle such an intense commitment when all of his friends are so young and have different priorities. I thought I had done a good job of not condemning either party, but Lucy just responded, “Yeah, but that’s stupid.” Um, okay.

From lunch, we went to the beach. En route, I had picked up a newspaper to distract myself from the unending self-pity-fest. Since it was just a few months before the election, I used an article on McCain to prompt a discussion. As it turned out, Lucy was super conservative. She hates abortion and doesn’t understand why you wouldn’t love your child, which is easy for an aspiring soccer mom to say. Lucy also didn’t think that Obama should be President because he’s black. She asserted that while she wasn’t racist, plenty of Americans are, so it wouldn’t be good to have a President that many people couldn’t respect. If I hadn’t realized that her logic was so fundamentally flawed earlier in the afternoon, I probably would have pointed out that that rationale is a disgusting argument to never allow minorities to have leadership positions, but I wasn’t about to debate someone who was so clueless.

When Lucy brought up Samuel again, my friend asked about the softball team instead. Lucy hated her last year of softball because all of her teammates were lesbians and caused a lot of “dyke drama.” Also, they were all super jealous of her and her boyfriend. So, apparently, all of these lesbians wanted her boyfriend – that does sound like some dyke drama! And a bunch of bullshit. About this time, I made my exit. I had plans for later in the night that magically moved to sooner. There was a quick discussion of how Lucy and I should hang out sometimes since we live so close, but I made sure that no numbers or contact info were exchanged to prevent that from actually happening.

I recently saw my friend for the first time in a year, and she apologized for the whole incident and acknowledged that Lucy seemed “crazy” and an “emotional wreck.” I’ve held this rant in for a long time, but now that I know my friend felt the same way and can both call a spade a spade, I want to let you know that people like Lucy exist. I’m sure she’ll make a great nutty soccer mom one day who’ll switch her kid to another team if the coach is a Hispanic guy.