picking up chicks

My Jonas is an only child and will most likely remain one. Socializing him has been hard because I'm shy. I've really been making an effort to find friends for him and it's not been easy. The ones we have are great, and he's very comfortable with them, but I feel I need to expose him to more people and kids. Not just expose him to them, but allow him to develop relationships. So we go to playgrounds and storytime and pretty much any event I come across that is for kids. My mission is always to find friends, and we do find cool people to play with while we're there, but I've yet to leave with anybody's phone number.

I think I am the only mom in Colorado Springs who has only one kid over the age of two, and who is not planning to have any more children. Most of the families around here seem to have three or four kids (which seems excessive to me but more power them) and they all play happily together at the park. They don't need any outsiders like my kid does. I'm really intimidated by the moms with several children. I want to ask them out on a playdate or something but I feel like they already have everyone they need right there in their family. Why would they need to hang out with us?

Then there are the cliques. The friends that already know each other from church, school, or their subdivisions. How is a non-church goer with a younger-than-school-aged child supposed to break into that scene? I need some tips from dudes on how to pick up chicks. I've come to sympathize with guys at bars who are there to get phone numbers and dates (and laid). I want to give my number to every single one of those boozy-breathed assholes along with a great big hug that says "I know what you're going through, man." Is this really what it's like? Women are so unapproachable, especially when they're in groups. No wonder males are so strongly led by their libidos. It has to be that way because properly approaching women is pretty freaking perilous and no other force on this earth is strong enough to face the kind of degradation that is risked. Except maybe the love of one's offspring.

Last week I thought I caught a break. A woman approached me. She struck up a conversation and I found it easy to talk to her. She was funny, nice, attractive and had only one child. "This is the one," I thought. "It's now or never....don't lose her." And then her true intentions floated to the surface as she too-casually mentioned the dreaded name of the multi-level marketing cosmetic company that claims to empower women but really shoves them back into hose and heels where they are brainwashed then scammed....Mary Kay. "Ohhh...crap. She sells Mary Kay. I know where this is going...." Ya win some, ya lose some.

So I've been putting myself out there every morning. Out there at the playground, among the ever-judging faces of the moms who already have good-enough friends. Just trying to choke down bits of pride until I work up the courage to ask for some digits.