Hello there.

I had the presence of mind this week to turn off the camera as I was recording this so I don't have to save myself and I can just wallow in the joy that is not given two shits.

It was interesting after last week's episode around the dating scene and me kind of realizing, you know what?

I don't have energy or time for this.

I was thinking a lot during the week about the fact that I actually don't have time for much in terms of additional human relationships.

You know, when you as a parent are around other parents in, you know, you might have sort of activities or different classes that you go to and you'll notice like, there are parents that just love to hobnob with other parents and some of them know each other already, but then some, you know, they meet there and then they kind of get to know each other as they go around.

And it's so interesting when I'm kind of rolling through those kind of situations because while I love to talk to people and chat about the kids and, you know, my capacity for small talk, or even drumming up the kind of talk that gets you out of small talk and into something else, like my ability, my skill, my desire, I've almost become a bit brain dead.

Like, I've always been really bad at small talk.

I met someone the other day at an event who was like, oh, I can speak to anybody.

And I was like, that is a superpower.

That really is a superpower because you set me adrift in a room full of people I don't know.

And you will meet one underwhelming human being.

You know, people often say to me, I'll bet you you're on TV and you do your podcast and you worked in radio and.

But I certainly fit into that.

And I never know what the actual flip of it is.

Is it introverted extrovert or extroverted introvert?

Extroverted introvert, I think makes most sense.

Where, yes, when I am useful and I have a purpose, like sitting behind a microphone to host this podcast or being on telly and I've got a use there and I have to bring my A game and I have to do things like that for me is not about me standing in front of a bunch of people, you know, showing off.

It's about me doing a job.

And so I feel like I have a sense of purpose in the room when I'm just set adrift in a room and I just have to talk to people.

I don't even know what to go to in the grab bag.

Like, I don't even have a top five great go to questions that you can ask a stranger.

And I don't know if that's a personality flaw or whether it's just fine because I don't get my energy from rooms full of people I don't know.

I love to be around people that I know really well that I can just relax and become and comfortable around.

I do love meeting new people, but I do find, and I think we all have this, there are some people that you connect with, and it's like you kind of immediately go past the small talk, but you don't really know how you got there.

You know, you just kind of click with someone and they say something and then you say something, and they take that there and you take that and.

And it's not hard.

It just rolls.

It's super easy.

And next thing you know, you're like, oh, I'm drawn to you for some reason.

And I will definitely meet people like that at, like, different activities and stuff with my kids, but for the most part, I don't.

And for the most part, I kind of like to keep to myself.

I really feel so comfortable just around my kid.

I'm definitely not one of those parents who is hanging out with their kid and is like, oh, my God, where are the adults in the room so I can talk.

Like, I really like talking to my kid.

I like hanging out with my kid.

I like mucking around with my kid.

I like playing with my kid.

If my kid's doing a sports class at the moment, I'm still heavily involved in every goddamn activity.

You know, there's no sitting over on the sidelines scrolling through Instagram while my kid's like, okay, I can see mummy's there, but I don't really care because I got other things.

Like, she wants me in sports class hanging onto her hand and doing the other arm of the airplane as we're going from one side of the room as an airplane, you know, I'm lifting her up to do the giraffe hand so that she can be the long neck of the drive and I can be the body of the drive.

There's no relaxation here, so I'm kind of in the thick of it.

But I like that.

I really do enjoy that.

And I don't really have much capacity for anything on the periphery of that.

I'm very comfortable standing next to a parent who's with their child.

We could be touching, and I'm very comfortable saying nothing.

And part of Me thinks, am I that mum that people are like, oh, God, she.

Like, who does she think she is?

Like, where she never talks to anybody.

Like she's such a load.

I don't know.

But I just am very comfortable just it being me and my kid.

And if the crack opens a little and you realize, oh, actually you're really easy to be around, I will lean right in.

Like, I'm definitely open to kind of find.

Finding new friends.

But it's got to be easy.

It's really got to be easy.

And I am quite amazed, looking around at other moms, particularly at daycare, where you can see they're quite interested in building the community around daycare.

You know, I guess it was a bit the same with the parents group again.

I gave that a nudge.

I did think I gave that a nudge.

Like, I didn't back away from that.

I was like, no, I'm going to turn up.

But it was not long before the WhatsApp went quiet.

And you realize there's another WhatsApp going on and you're not in.

Maybe I'm the issue here.

Maybe I think I'm making a choice not to talk to people.

And everybody's like, let's steer clear of Corbett.

At the same time as I'm realizing that I've lost my love for meeting new people unless it's supremely easy.

I have noticed another really nice change from the friendships that I do already have.

And I think I've really gained this wonderful new appreciation for the people that were already in my life before Olivia came along.

It's sort of interesting how having a kid shifts the dynamic of your relationships.

I've always been one of those people who has a lot of different friends in a lot of different places.

I have a couple of friends who are part of a big friend group and that big friend group, like, they do everything together.

Every weekend they're out together to dinners in different permutations of the group.

But it's always the same.

Same kind of mob of people.

They all go on holidays together.

I've never had that.

I've never had that one central group where we do everything together.

I've had one person over here that I still contact from law school, one person over here from school, one person over here from the radio station I worked at in 2002.

One person over here from somebody I met through an ex boyfriend, one person.

So I've kind of always had a lot of different friends from different areas to the point where I think I've Only ever had one birthday party and it was a surprise birthday party that, bless him, my delightful roommate at the time threw me.

I think it might have been for my 30th.

He did not realize that I am not a party person in terms of my birthday parties.

I just am like, I hate a fuss.

Don't sing me happy birthday.

Take a look at my Instagram the other day.

There's a photo on there of me hiding under the desk at work when my team started to sing me Happy birthday at work.

And.

And that wasn't for the gram.

That was genuinely my reaction because I just hate the all eyes on me.

I'm just like, no, no, no.

Like, don't just everybody go about your business.

Like, it's totally fine.

I have no dramas getting older or anything.

It's just the focus.

And this lovely, lovely guy decided, I'm going to throw her a 30th birthday because he's the type of person that would really like a surprise birthday party.

So of course you're going to assume other people would love this.

This is a really kind thing to do.

And we knew each other because we lived with each other, but he didn't know all of my friends.

So he went through my Facebook page and replied to every single person that said Happy Birthday on my Facebook page with a we're having a surprise party.

Now, anybody who's had a Facebook page at any point in their life understands that when that platform throws up, it's Rachel's birthday today.

You're getting messages from people that you haven't seen in 15 years.

And I had some of these people turning up to this event.

So I rolled up to this birthday party.

To be fair, two of my very close mates both warned me ahead of time because two of them knew me inside and out and were like, you have to be forewarned.

The dinner that you're going to on Friday night is a surprise birthday party because they knew I had to go in there with some sense of knowledge of it.

And I'm at this event with a whole bunch of disparate people who don't know each other from Adam, terrified that this person that turned up by themselves is not having a good time because they don't know anybody to talk to, wondering how this person's going over there, thinking, it was just an utter nightmare.

One of my dearest friends actually was at another party and turned up at 11 o' clock at night, just at the point where I was exiting and thought that I was finally going to get out and she walked in the door, door.

And I literally didn't even say hello.

I said to her, turn around, we're leaving.

I will drive you home.

We can talk in the car.

I'd barely drunk, I was like, get into my car.

I will drive you home.

Because I hate that you've made the effort to come all the way here and you're just going to be turned away.

So I will make sure you get home safe and we will catch up in the car.

So you know that I care.

But honestly, I cannot stay another minute of this.

I've given all that I have to give.

So anyway, that was a really long winded way of saying I'm basically not someone who draws a lot of strength from social interaction actions.

However, the disparate kind of people that I do have in my life, this has actually been a really nice way to do something different from what we would usually do, which is I might catch up with them once a month, once every three months, however long it is.

We'd pick up exactly where we left off and it was great, but we'd kind of go out to dinner and you kind of catch up on life.

But now I have to bring my kid with me, so it's a different kind of experience.

And there's something so nice about spending time with people that you know and that know you, that now meet your daughter and watching the way they are with your kid and how that strengthens the relationship that you have with them and also kind of shows you who you want to spend more time with.

Because ultimately this is my life now.

You know, this is what I'm doing.

I have a kid.

She's my priority.

I spend most of my time outside of work with her.

To go out and do stuff, it's a bit of a pain.

Like, I don't want to be out drunk on a Saturday night because I got to be up early on a Sunday morning looking after my kids.

So I'd rather go for like a 5pm dinner, which before having a child was always my favorite time for a table booking and kind of hang out with my kid there.

And that's been a really nice thing to kind of evolve because I think when you have no family and you are doing it on your own, and I've always had, like, you know, good friendships, but everybody's kind of doing their own thing.

And you.

You do feel.

I don't think I've ever felt isolated.

That's probably the wrong way to say it.

But you do feel like you kind of Rolling through things alone.

And I've always kind of not minded that.

I've never sort of thought I'm rolling through things alone because I've always had, like, good friendships and stuff.

I definitely don't feel lonely or anything like that.

But I think this new shift, you start to realize, oh, wow, like, there really is a village around here.

Again, like, they're not coming over my house and giving me a break on a Saturday.

But in terms of the people that are around Olivia, she's being exposed to the relationship she's building through my friends.

Like, I love that she gets excited when I talk about who we're going to catch up with.

And it's a friend that I've built a friendship with that now she feels a real connection with.

And I think that idea of sort of, you know, you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.

All of these people that are around Olivia, I feel really proud that they're a part of her life.

And I love the qualities and the example that they're setting for her.

And that's really cool because you actually realize I'm not alone at all.

Like, I do have all these amazing people that are forming our sort of extended friendship, family.

And this time with those people is evolving in a way that I maybe never would have had.

I think having a kid and then bringing your friendship into that, like, you have to really pare it back.

You know, you're not always going to go out to a fancy restaurant and hang out.

You might go down and sit by the water for an hour or something and flop about.

And I tell you, if there's one thing that I love doing with the people that I love now, it's flopping.

I love to be somewhere around the people who allow me to look like shit, put in no effort, and are just like, let us just be in each other's company.

Let's be in comfortable silence.

Let's talk when we need to.

Let's kind of just hang out.

That's just like, such a wonderful space to be in.

And I think when you've got a kid around, you're often doing more of nothing than you've ever done in your entire life.

And I'm really here for it.

Truly.

There's something really nice about the slowing down of life.

A lot of it feels quicker and, like, more frantic.

But the fact that I can do less now, even though I still am doing more in many ways, it's a really nice feeling.

So, yeah, that was a bit of A nice shift for me this week thinking about that, going from I'm the loner mum who doesn't want to talk to anyone to.

Actually, the relationships that I have in my life are really cool.

And when I do meet those parents where I'm like, oh, I see something cool in you, I see real opportunity there.

Like, that's really cool too.

To think that my kid will meet people and I'll be crossing paths with people and.

And that will open me up to new people that I'll gravitate towards and.

And that'll be exciting.

I'm desperate for her to not like any assholes though.

You know, that's the great fear is that your kid becomes besties with the kid with the asshole parents and you're like, really?

Now I'm stuck at the bowls club on a Saturday afternoon with you running off your friend.

Good for you.

Have a great time out there on the equipment.

I'm over here trying to down as many margaritas as I can, talking to Jan and Frank about God knows what.

Because I want what's best for you and you've chosen this person to be your friend.

Oh, that's terrifying.

Anyway, positive thoughts, positive thoughts.

Thank you to everyone who emailed me too, about their dating situation as well.

It's so nice to hear from you to kind of.

Yeah.

Hear where you're at with this kind of stuff.

Great to hear.

There are other women that like cannot be bothered and I'd love to know if you also feel like a branded who's bringing nothing to a conversation when you meet new people.

Because that's certainly what I feel.

I actually.

Some days I can say this because I've had two parents who've had dementia.

I just.

I actually do worry that it's early onset dementia because my brain is so marshmallow and maybe it's perimenopause.

I Gotta remember I'm 45 here.

You watch.

I'll go through a decade worrying I've got early on today or something's like my mother got.

And then I'll realize it's just my bloody period going away.

Oh God, is that one thing?

Is the other.

Anyway, thanks so much for listening.

I will see you next week.

Send me an email.

The link to where you can do that is in the description of the episode.

And bye.