Dear Eva, I’m a single woman in my late thirties, and I don’t want to sound like a total cow, but: is there a polite way to tell my friends that I just want to see them, by themselves, and without their darling (sticky, needy, screaming) kids? It’s hard enough to find a moment that my old uni friends and I can all meet, so I was really excited to see them this weekend. We went for lunch, but two of them brought their toddlers, which meant the kids were the entire focus, and I left feeling frustrated and lonely. I don’t want to feel resentful towards them, so I’m looking for advice on how to arrange some friend time that does not include said friends’ babies.
Amy Got a question for Eva? Drop her an email, here: AskEva @ condenast . co . uk.
Amy, I’m going to tell you something about adult-only lunches here, a secret from a person with young children: we want them just as much as you do. More, in fact. We are with our children so much, so very much; we live with these people inside us for nine months, then strapped to us for the next year, then metres away from us for the bulk of the next decade.
An invitation to a grown-up lunch with friends we love? Where we can swear full-throatedly and bitch about exes ? God, it’s like offering lemonade in a desert. Yes, we love our children – yes, we want to be near them, to marvel at their idiot language and stroke their cashmere hair – but, crucially, not all the time. We want other things, too.
We want to be friends .
