You've been single for a while, maybe a long while.
You've been raising your kids.
You've got things pretty well stabilized.
The house is running the way you want it to for the most part.
The kids are behaving.
They're doing well in school.
You've got your finances in order, and you're sitting down going, "I sort of miss having the opposite sex around.
What do I want to do about that?" So you are a single parent who wants to start dating again.
What to Expect? But you're afraid.
You're actually afraid to go out there and start dating again as a single parent.
You want to try but are not sure where to begin.
You have questions.
What is the impact on the kids? How should you proceed? Should I try on line dating? Where do I go to meet someone? You don't know what to expect, and you're concerned about your kids.
You don't want to just get online and hook up with some...
let's just say some unpleasant person who is going to cause you trouble.
How do you go about it? Well the first thing is the Internet really can be your friend, but you've got to be really careful.
I would highly recommend that you do start with the Internet, but you only start with very, very reputable sites that do a very good job of screening who the people are that are members of the site.
Try the Internet eHarmony.
com comes to mind.
Match.
com comes to mind, and there are several others.
I don't mean to pick on just those two, but they are the ones I have personal experience with.
However, there are lots of really good sites.
And so you can get a pretty decent idea of what someone is like before you ever jump out there and meet them in person.
Be Honest The other thing to do is to be very honest about what you're looking for.
If you want somebody who sails, put that out there.
Tell them you want somebody who sails.
If you want somebody who is 50, put it out there.
What do you want? So you have a better chance of finding somebody whose interests match yours if you're very honest about what you're looking for.
I did meet a really good lady on match.
com one time.
We hit it off, and we had a very pleasant time.
So it was a very good experience.
Now, the big problem that I find is the kids.
After all, we're single parents because we're single and we have kids.
And if we're going to date other single parents, there's a very good chance they're going to have kids.
And the problem that I find is it didn't matter.
My kids and her kids didn't get along.
There was always, at least, one kid in the group that didn't get along with the other kid.
Talk to the Kids So many of the problems that I ran into dating circled around the kids and their feelings.
There are several things that I would say to you.
One is if you're going to date, talk to your kids about it first.
Tell them that you want to date.
Tell them why.
And the first thing you're going to get back is, "Mommy, why don't you just date Daddy?" Once again, they're always trying to get you back together with your spouse or "Dad, can't you just go date mom?" I got that a lot.
So you've got to talk to your kids and explain to them, "Hey, no, I don't want to date your mom.
It's just not going to work out.
And I do want to date and I am going to be going out again, but I'm only going to pick nice people.
I promise you that anybody that you meet you're going to like.
" And like I said before though, the big challenge that I found is the kids.
The Brady Bunch works very well on television.
It never worked very well for me in real life.
So the biggest challenge I had was trying to figure out how to get all the kids to get along with each other.
I wish you luck in your dating and may you find true happiness.
As usual, my wish for you is that your children grow up happy, healthy, and are positive contributors to society.