Urban Parenthood: Can I Make Dad Friends Too?

I mentioned in a previous post I need to make mom friends since my childless, single friends seem to find me too boring or broke to hang out with. I'm not very good at making new friends since I am a bit on the shy side, but I figured the best way to do so would be by letting my kid become friends with a kid at the playground and then I become friends with his or her mom. Sounds easy, right?

That would work if all kids my son's age went to the park with their moms. Some go with grandparents, siblings and nannies. Also, some also go with their dads. So now, that leaves me to question: is it cool for me to make dad friends? Can I exchange numbers with a dad if our kids seem to really like each other to set up play dates?

The reason I ask is because a couple of weekends ago at the playground, my son seemed to really get along with a little girl about his age who happened to be there with her dad. It was kind of awkward, we exchanged nice, faint smiles while our kids played but never really introduced ourselves. Like I said before, I'm not very good at those things and who knows? maybe he's the same way.

Anyway, as they were leaving the dad kept looking at me so I said "bye" and that was all he needed to come over and initiate conversation. Now, I'm thinking to myself, what if this guy wants to meet up for a play date with our kids? Would that be OK?

Needless to say, this guy was bat shit CRAZY. I felt my eyes glazing over as he told me about his book bag, his grocery shopping habits, recent parking tickets, etc. I say etc. because he talked about a bunch of things all in one breath and I honestly couldn't keep up with what he was saying.

Then he says "so where do you live?" and I was all like "umm, uhh in the area" (even though I live down the street). "Do you come here often?" and once again I was like "ummm sometimes". It turns out we live only a few blocks away from each other but needless to say I did NOT want to go out of my way to meet up with this guy again and was kind of relieved I wasn't put in a more uncomfortable position by him asking to meet up so our kids could play.

Now had this guy seemed like a really cool person that I wouldn't mind meeting up with or had been a total DILF (not to say ILF him but it'd be something nice to look at while our kids played) I wonder if I would have been more open to the idea.