I went out with other parents and surprisingly made a friend

When you have kids there's this strange phenomenon where-halfway through your life - you make new friends, with other parents.

- Steve Canavan

My new friend is a food stylist - something I'd never heard of. Photo: Adobe

(Adobe)

I say friends, that's a strong word. Acquaintances is probably more accurate. Mrs Canavan would disagree, but this is because it's a man/woman thing. Women, you see, will happily make friends with anyone they get chatting to at any stage of life (my mum, for instance, once ended up inviting a woman she'd met shopping in Marks and Spencer's round for Christmas dinner-true story).

But for blokes when they meet someone new in, say, their 40s, it's more difficult. Like a herd of wilder beast, you kind of suspiciously sniff around each other for a long while, checking for warning signs, and then, maybe after six months of knowing them, you might, just might, tentatively suggest going for a beer, but in a kind of nonchalant 'it doesn't really matter' way lest they feel like you're stalking them and write you off as some kind of weirdo.

The best example I have of this was when, a few weeks before my lad Wilf started primary school, Mrs Canavan announced she was going out with a group of parents in his reception class.

"But he's not even started school yet," I said, stunned. "You've never met these people, how can you be going on a night out with them?"

'Oh, there's a WhatsApp group and we just thought it would be a nice idea to get together and go for a meal and a drink,' she explained, as if it were perfectly normal.