I don't have any great advice but I sympathize.  When DS was younger and having lots of playdates I would sometimes silently wonder, Why is this woman in my living room?  But most of the time I enjoyed it, and I'm not particularly sociable.  I think it's because I prefer one-to-one rather than groups.  When I could tell that my snarkiness wasn't going over well I would switch to question-asking mode.  Very enlightening!

Now that he's older, the only parents who usually hang around are the ones we've grown friendly with.  But, he's having a sleepover tonight with the spawn of Competi-Mom.  And for some reason, I am compelled to spend time today cleaning up the house and yard for the (blessedly brief, if there is a deity) drop-off chat.  Because it shouldn't matter to me when she sweeps her eyes around the place and makes a sweetly smug comment like, "I just realized that it only takes me 90 minutes to get my house in For Sale condition.  Isn't that great?" But it does.  Sigh.

Good luck!  And good on you for helping your boy.

Yeah, I say, just keep the conversation light, in terms of content and expectations.  No one is perfect and we're all in different places.

As to your question, how do other people endure it? Some people just love to be with other people, I guess they are extroverts. They aren't necessarily looking for deep friendships every time, but still enjoy talking to just about anyone.  Other people would rather have one deep, quality conversation with someone they really connect with than ten less-deep conversations.

It sounds like these types of events exhaust you though and you should honor that, and give yourself time afterwards to unwind and re-energize.    

when I was young.  I would put up with a lot more in those days than I'm presently willing to put up with.  

Having a mom come on a playdate for a 7 year old sounds a little outside the norm to me. I quit going on my kids' playdates by the time they started kindergarten, and I can't remember a mom coming over after that age, either.

I am quite sure I could not have survived them, either, if I had to entertain the kid and the mom. I haven't been into that whole "our kids are friends so let's be best friends" thing. I didn't get the Stepford shot, either.

Maybe you can encourage the mom to enjoy this time to herself and run some errands while her child is over?

your son is 7 years old? i dunno, maybe things have changed, but why would the mom stay?  i only experienced this once and frankly i was appalled.  the mother sat down in my living room for the entire play date. my solution?  i left her there to read her book while i kept busy doing other things.

even when my dd was 4 years old, kids were left off and picked up and i did the same...so this scenario seems odd to me.  and man, i would dread it too.

I dropped a series of hints about how tired she must be (she's 7 mos in with her 3rd baby) and that I was just fine with both boys and why didn't she take a little "me" time?  

She bit and went.  And came back 2 hours later.

Plus DH did all the kid entertaining.

L

I would love to meet more people with a snarky sense of humor who make pop culture references and who missed the Stepford shot.  I feel exactly the same way that you do!

My daughter is ultra social and she has regular play dates with a few girls and I make certain those are drop-off playdates because I would whither in these women's presence for more than 20 minutes.  I can only have so many conversations about shopping at Nordstrom before my head explodes.  I am pretty sure the last time I bought something at Nordstrom was 1993 when I needed a specific color of M.A.C. lipstick for my wedding.

That said, there may be a diamond in the rough for you someday, a special gem of a real connection.  I waited a long ass time before meeting a woman who I loved to be around and our daughters get along famously which sweetens the deal.  Just my luck, she put a for-sale sign in front of her house in March.  I cross my fingers that the house doesn't sell (hey, RE is slow these days).

As for what to do in the mean time, have you straight-out asked if it would be possible to have a drop-off play date?  Just be up front and make it sound like this would give the mom an opportunity to go run errands to make some phone calls or something.  The afternoons are your time to prepare your meals or read a magazine and having a playmate for your son actually makes that easier - not that you aren't fully present to intervene if someone gets hurt or something.

Come to think of it, one of the Stepford women who hosts play dates at her house makes it a point to get one boy for her son and one girl for her daughter and she tells me that's the only way she can get her house clean!  She does laundry and cooks dinner while the kids play with their friends.  I think the truth is she is on the phone the entire time but heh, at least the kids are happy.

There's nothing wrong with blatantly carving out some time for yourself by inviting kids over to play.  You are not expected to facilitate games if the kids can play together nicely.  You can have some YOU time.  It's okay.

Miles is more than socially awkward, obviously, as he is borderline Asperger's.  He is friendly with almost everyone in school but playdates have never been something he has expressed an interest in.  

I don't know. Life is so busy, he is with kids all day and at aftercare, I think he just likes the down time and time with us on the weekends, and weeknights are too nutty to even imagine kids coming over or dropping him somewhere.

Does anyone else here not bother with playdates?  Am I massively screwing up here?  

Eli has occasional playdates with his best buddy, but in that case I am also having a playdate because his mom has become a great friend.  But again, they see eachother and all their other buddies at pre-school everyday, so you know, how much more time together do they really need?

Here's my thoughts from reading this.  By the way, I'm glad the drop-off worked out and 7 is a little old for the mom to stay around my where I am too.

FWIW I don't really do playdates as my kids are content with each other and if I do them it's because I'm getting together with a friend who has children close in age to mine so it all kind of works out.

I don't feel like I fit in with the other moms at my son's preschool.  They seem a little cliquish and for many of them, their lives revolve around where they vacation which they tend to do in packs.  I haven't even been able to afford my honeymoon yet so I'm way out of the loop.

However, I wouldn't necessarily assume that someone got the Stepford shot because she doesn't have a snarky sense of humor or get my pop culture references.  One of my good friends is like that.  She's just not into the same stuff and she is completely without guile so I just tone that down while she's around.  Likewise, I get along with the other preschool moms at the school functions even if I'm not in their circle, by trying to draw out other things that interest them and make polite small-talk. Maybe your expectations of the other moms are a bit high.  Sometimes it's nice just to talk to another adult even if there's no obvious connection.

I refuse to schedule play dates with people that aren't in my circle of friends. I guess that might come off as a little selfish, but I justify it by the fact that my kids get lots of kid interaction with out me having to endure doing small talk with someone I probably won't like.

...and I end up sitting there staring awkwardly at someone with whom I have no connection beyond the fact that we both had sex and gave birth on about the same schedule.  

LMAO! I couldn't have said this better myself. I live in a very conservative neighborhood so most of the moms I come across drive me crazy.

Good luck!

I don't think I'm cut out for playdates, and I think DS will be OK without me making too much of an effort to force social interaction on him. I mean, I didn't have play dates.  I played with whatever kids wandered into the neighborhood.  I made quick friends when we visited the pool or the park, but my mom didn't make an effort to meet those kids later.  If my mom's friends visited with their kids, I played with them, no matter what the age difference.  When my brothers were born, I played with them. When I went to school, I made friends.  And I think I'm a fairly normal person.

I definitely agree about the compatibility.  It's like when I was single and I'd have attached friends try to fix me up.  "What's he like," I'd ask.  "Well, he's single, like you."  That's not a character trait!  I feel the same way about meeting other women who are moms.  Having a child is not enough in common for me to be friends with someone.  I'll give it a chance that something will come of it, but I don't have a lot of time to waste if it doesn't.  I've been fortunate in recently connecting with a woman I met at a SAHM group.  Her son is still a baby so our kids can't play, but we enjoy each other so we get together with the kids just to hang out.  And she's even fairly conservative...I'm proud of myself!

to call a woman I have made friends with since we moved to the Keys. Our daughters (2 for her, one for me) love to hang out, and now we are friends and our husbands are even friends now, its like, amazing!

I called her and said, "Its so awesome that DD's friends have such amazing parents that we enjoy spending time with; we are so lucky!" She concurred, it was very reassuring!