A few days back I visited a friend of mine who is currently residing in London. I was particularly excited since I was going to meet her baby for the first time and generally I have known the couple for the past 4/5 years.

However, on reaching their place I found that things had changed. My friend had other friends (a couple) over at the same time and my friend was really busy chatting with her other friends. Ofcourse she would include me in the conversation but the conversation was largely dominated by her friends and her. Somewhere I felt that I had intruded on their time. They were obviously much closer to each other than I was with my friend currently and it seemed like I was somewhere the outsider who was watching a new complicated play about relationships. And I am not sure whether I was imagining it but it seemed as if my friend was more keen to spend time with her new friends and her husband than with me. I beat a hasty retreat - bewildered by the sudden change in my friends behaviour. As much as I wanted to give benefit of doubt to my friend, I felt hurt by such obvious 'you can sit if you want to but we really dont care' attitude. I tried to brush it off as much as I could till the elephant in the room became toooooo big for me to ignore it. I was angry at being treated that way. I am not a beggar who has come begging that I should be ignored. I should have been the guest of honour at their place, especially since this friend has lived with me in India before and I was seeing them after a gap of some years.

Slighted by my friend and hugely hurt I called the one person I should not have called - my mother. My mother has a one track mind - she circles back everything to the fact that I am not married yet. She listened to me and said 'well, its obvious, she didnt want you to think that you could come over whenever you wanted to. She has a family now and she does not want to welcome you into her house as easily since you dont have a family.' short and succint as always and to the point. But mom, I protested, she and I have always been close - we really dont have much disagreements on anything. "Yes, that was before she had responsibilities. She has a child now. In her eyes, you are nothing more than an unnecessary burden - someone she feels sorry for (apparently cos I am single) and someone she cant share her life with."

Wowowo... what am I hearing? In the midst of me kicking myself for having spoken to my mother I began to ask myself - was my uni-dimensional mother right in some way? Did my married friends with kids actually see me more as a necessary burden to put up with - someone who they see as having not moved on with their life and who they see as being in the past? Could that be true? Reallly?? Could these women who have graduated from the best law school in India actually be thinking this way????

That got me analysing every relationship I have had with a married friend of mine who has had kids... and I had to admit that most often, my relationship had changed with all of them in some ways. With some it has changed for the better (like the friend whose kid really thinks I am cool) while with the others it has been less than perfect.

As much as I hate to admit it, my relationship with these people has changed because of one simple fact - I have nothing in common with them anymore. Most of the mothers are worried about their kids, or their husbands or even their inlaws. And apart from an attempt at sounding mature, I really do not have any solution to their problems. I do not have any experience in baby rearing (other than Baby George), in in law problems or even in house hold related problems - the maximum I have come to these is when I have dealt with my sister in Mumbai. And to be frank, I get bored and I am sincerely trying to be interested but I am actually very very bored listening to these stories. Similary these women do not have anything in common with me. Most of them are not working or are clearly taking time off work, that they do not have anything to discuss with me. Most of the questions that they ask me are "how is your job" (which answer is mostly 1 word) and the next "so have you found anybody?".... both of which even if I attempt to discuss with them, they will loose interest in my life story cos it is extremely boring to them to listen to a corporate life story. Added to this is the fact there is really no scope to spend any quality time with your friend alone - most often they are with their kids and you do not have the opportunity to have fun the way you did when you were both single....

And when people dont have anything in common, they do drift apart. What is the remedy? It takes two to tango so I guess both sides have to make an effort. but most often the efforts to connect are hampered by external factors such as kids or even the husband or in my case work commitments. Net net, both of you decide it is too much of effort and decide to live with status quo.

While I have over the years accepted this as part of my growing up, the latest incident with my friend exposed me to the reality that no matter what a woman wants to do, she is still dictated by the family and the society. Her priorities are always going to be her husband and her kids over you no matter that, you are the one who has pulled her up from the gutter when she was beaten and out, you are the one who sat with her through the night when she got the worst news possible in her life, you are one who screamed with joy when she got engaged and married, you are the one who cried at the wedding at the thought of your friend moving away, you are the one who went to the chruch and lit a candle for the little bundle of joy that came along in your friends life (and didnt tell the friend that you did that), you are the one who always was there to fill in the silences even without talking. And ofcourse vice-versa as well - I was friends with these women cos they did all this for me as well.

But the question that I have to ask is - was I just a transit stop? something like a waiting room where my friends waited cos they really didnt see anything better for the moment, and when the train came (i.e. hubby and kids) just left for greener pastures? So all the comfort (even if it was not upto the mark at times) and the companionship was no longer relevant or important to my friends once they found their soul mate and the kids with their soul mates? Was I just a stepping stone in the path of their ultimate goal of marital bliss? Isnt it strange that a husband who just walks in replaces the years and years of growing up that you and your friend went through?

My mother would say "that is the norm of life"... Family always comes first. You are probably right mom, Family always comes first. Except in my case I always thought these friends were like family to me.

My post might seem a little one-sided cos I am not married and I dont understand the compulsions of being a mom and a wife. I am not denying that. My only question is - what value do I give these friendships? 0? or at least a 4?

On the bright side, I can ignore these friends now and without any guilt, when I get a husband and a kid.