Why the playground is torture for those on the periphery, no matter how old you are

School’s out and it’s a relief not just for the kids, who have been increasingly grouchy and knackered over the past few weeks, but also for me, who finds going into the playground sparks social anxiety quite like no other forum.

From holding my own in the boardroom, or entering a busy pub or crowded nightclub, I can cope geed up on caffeine or even relatively sober, though these days, festivals require social lubrication of the third kind, if I’m to enjoy them. But the popularity contest of the school playground still facilitates the sort of crippling dis-ease it did when I was a child – which is one of the main reasons I’m happier to be buried up to my eyeballs in office politics than face the more saccharine version at school.

I know I’m not alone. This Friday, I took a dangling half day to pick my kids up on their last day of school – the weather was fine, I was hoping to grab their lost property, bring home their books, and perhaps catch one of two of the friendlier mums to see who was doing what over the holidays. I ended up traipsing the park on my own in tears.

A big picnic had been arranged – of course, I was not in the loop, and why should I be since I’ve turned my back (or was I ousted?) on the school-run set after handbags last year, and left playground duty to the Mexican manny? But save for one of two, who in passing asked me if I was joining  – I’d bought no fizz, no box of doughnuts to share – I quietly declined and found myself fretting that Ava, likewise was floating around by herself – her last best friend having left the school for the last time several days earlier, and his mum long since back to work since the birth of her second.

Thankfully, this child, with whom Ava has been largely inseparable, showed up with his grandma to say a last goodbye and I watched them wistfully as they played, knowing it might be the last time my daughter would find friendship so easy. She, like me, doesn’t have many friends (though, like her, the ones I do have are loyal), and I fear she too will soon find unstructured socialising every bit as challenging as I do. When, unplanned, the boy’s mum turned up at the park as well, having had a meeting cancelled, I hugged her in relief, then ended up in tears as we swapped stories of how miserable we both found the playground, and how it had tainted my whole experience of motherhood as it unearthed the mean girls bogeymen of my childhood.

Having an ally go to another school may be character building, but it never quite leaves you either. With my own playground default mum-friend heading off to her new life, I found myself chatting to another waif and stray, the mum of a recently new boy in Jonah’s class, who had taken the place of his old best friend – and filled the void he left.We chatted and she said exactly the same – how she found it all excruciating, how she’d been out of the loop, and was sitting at the edges of the picnic bereft of anything to share. This time, I was the one to offer a hug and say I felt the same.

She contacted me the next day, thanking me and offering summer holiday drop offs to a club her son was attending. It is true that you only really need one friend to feel better about yourself, but the danger is, if they go, you find yourself somewhat exposed. But the thing about being on the periphery of social groups, as I always tend to be, is that you are a lot more empathetic towards others in the same boat. And when you are appreciated for giving them the time of day, your friendship is valued all the more.

It was interesting, when I asked Ava how it was going without her best friend, that she too said she had been playing with the new girl, so here’s hoping after the summer holidays, she doesn’t find returning to the challenges of the playground so traumatic if she has someone else to share it with.