Single Mom | Single Mom Blog | Ms. Single Mama » single parent dating

So there’s this dog…

mssinglemama — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:39:10 +0000

Meet Murphy.

Or Murph, the slobbery yet totally cute wonder pup who can tackle me in one pounce.

He belongs to the Bear.

Meet Benjamin.

He belongs to me (for now).

The two have yet to meet.

But when they do things could get a little crazy.

Benjamin has been obsessively asking for a dog for months – and not just any dog, he wants a white dog. Yeah. Freaky.

I can’t help but envision Benjamin’s face when he meets the Murph. And then my mind goes one step further and I have another vision — it’s a vision of all four of us playing in a park with some picnic food and a Frisbee or two. Maybe we have a house to go home to and maybe I’m pregnant again… maybe.

My dream man and Benjamin’s dream dog? Could it be?

Perhaps.

But the “what if’s” are obviously still there and I’m biding my time until I bring this foursome together. It’s hard though. Really hard.

The mommy in me wants Benjamin to have a dog at his disposal not even to mention a man who adores him. The woman in me feels that this is so right. But my head is still leading the charge.

Forget getting attached to a dude/father figure – what about a dog?

Patience…

Back up reading on single parent dating and introducing the kids/ attachment issues:

Dating Single Parents: Can it work?

Pressing Love Questions

mssinglemama — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:54:32 +0000

Too urgent for a video, and I want your input.

Single Parent Dating Question #1

You know her as Tracy or Little Man’s Mom, she writes the blog A Brand New Day. I fell in love with Tracy the moment I discovered her blog because she has this spirit you can feel. Always light, airy and optimistic and she’s been a single mom for years.

If you follow her blog you know she’s found someone – very, very special. For the first time, circumstances surrounding weekend plans mean it’s time for a sleep over. Her son is 9-years-old and as she says, “he knows stuff.”

The Question: “Should he sleep in the guest bedroom or my own? And how do I explain it to him?

My two cents: Honesty, is always the best policy. Kids aren’t stupid and it’s okay for them to see their parents in healthy, adult relationships. But I know nothing of the Land of 9-year-olds. I’m still in Toddlerville where not much explaining is necessary. Mr. Man took off on a space ship by the way – to the moon. It’s a very happy place where Mr. Man still thinks of Benjamin fondly and he loves the story. I’m trying to laugh about it… in reality, Mr. Man is devastated.

Single Parent Dating Question #2

This one comes from a single dad to a 6-year-old girl. A single mom of four has caught his eye at their children’s school and well… read what he had to say (tell me this isn’t completely adorable):

She is always looking at me from across the school yard. When we get close to one another, we make direct eye contact, I mean eye contact, we will stare at each other for one or two seconds directly and say “Hi” or something silly to each other. Other times she is stand-offish, I am thinking she likes me and then she goes into reality mode.
I am not a whimp and I do have a backbone but I am a bit shy. I hold my eye contact with her to let her know I would or I could be there for the long haul if she wanted me. Its when she goes into reality check mode that scares the crap out me. That and rejection.
I am so afraid of asking a girl out. I have been in the Canadian Armed Forces, been overseas as a peace keeper, been in the Rocky mountains hunting Grizzly and yet I can not find the courage to ask a girl that I like out, I do not understand myself. I know I am not a coward or run at the first sign of trouble. Do you know why guys like me are like that? I know I’m not alone.

The Question: How do I make the first move and ask a single mom out? Am I the only man afraid to ask a woman out?

My two cents: Nope, Mr. Single Dad, you are not alone. I have only been asked out by men a handful of times. Ladies, take note, this is why I encourage all of you to ask them out yourselves. So what do you think? Does she like him (I think so)? And how should he break the ice, take it to the next level, and ask her out?

Thanks in advance for your fantastic comments, I know you’ll be able to help.

[Photo: Ingrid Bergman (my favorite) in Kiss of Death - 1947]

Cabin Fever, Part 4

mssinglemama — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:45:18 +0000

Two and a half hours after I’d bundled him up into the back seat with his blankie and a pile of books, Benjamin and I pulled up to Kennedy (aka Cabin Man)’s. Bang-smash-crush-bang. The divets and holes in his unfinished driveway were giving the underside of my car a severe beating.

“Wooo!!!” I shouted as we hit another one.

Benjamin joined me with a little shout of his own. I had just spent the last leg of the trip singing out loud to him. First to Feist then Old Crow Medicine Show and finally Bob Dylan. He sat incredulously as I sang, until finally – a few verses into each one he would crack a tiny smile before moving his eyes slowly back to the road. The ride had been perfect but he was ready to get out of the car.

Kennedy and his kids were sitting around the camp fire at the edge of the driveway. We’d nixed the joint camping idea. Why camp out when we could camp here – with his parents’ house right up the hill – it would be easier, safer and more comfortable for the kids.

“Hey!” He comes up to our car and then grabs me in a hug, wrapping his chisled arms around me. No! No hugging, I think.

“Hold on,” I pull away, “I can’t say ‘Hi’ until I get Benjamin out – he’s been so good the entire way here.”

I open the car door and scoop Benjamin up in my arms.

“Hey Ben!” Kennedy says.

The words drive Benjamin’s head into my shoulders and he keeps it there until we step into the cabin where Kennedy has resurrected his son’s old Thomas table. Benjamin jumps out of my arms and shouts in delight. I smile and whisper a thank you.

Two weeks ago this table had been buried in the back of the cabin. That morning felt different than this one. We were alone then, basking in each other and the highs of finding someone new. We had pulled the table out a bit to look for a train I could take home to Benjamin. After Kennedy picked Duncan because of “the cool gear that turns” I had tackled him with a kiss.

Now we were both knee deep in kids.

“You watch these two and I’ll watch this one while I grab this!” Each of us must have said this at least five times. His 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter are beautiful… Kennedy says after he and his ex split both kids changed dramatically. “It was like night and day – they are both so much happier.”

We spent the afternoon carving pumpkins, feeding the horses, drawing pictures, making paper airplanes and jumping on the trampoline. After the kids were tucked in – Benjamin in a camper and Kennedy’s kids up at his parents house – we met by the fire. Like the weekend before, the conversation turned toward relationships. (Something, believe it or not, I’m not a fan of talking about with virtual strangers, let alone men I’m just exploring.)

“I’m not sure if marriage is for me,” he went on, ” I just don’t think I can give myself over to someone again.” Why do we keep ending up on this topic? He’s still hashing it out in his head, as we all are I suppose.

“I think the trick is realizing you shouldn’t have to give yourself over to someone to be in a relationship,” I say. Then I have a realization of my own – this man is still wounded, still bleeding. Or maybe it’s scabbed over, but he’s not letting anyone back in – not even for a second. After a few more hours of talking and some quiet time in the cabin we headed to our respective beds.

The next morning he couldn’t take his eyes off of me while we were sipping on our coffee – the kids were running around in the cabin behind us – and then he said, defeated, “So, this really is going to be impossible isn’t it? I didn’t understand exactly what you were trying to get at before – but now… but now, I see what you mean.”

“Yes.” I say reluctantly, his blue eyes are so incredibly clear. I want to dive into them but I can’t. The little pile of red flags I’ve been collecting is now filled with a few land mines. The biggest one being the fact that we can’t see each other without our kids around – dangerous. The second being his raw healing process, still unfinished.

So I drive the nail into the coffin, “It just can’t happen.”

“It’s funny,” he adds, “Because I feel like this weekend has been a little lesson for me, in what I can expect now – how it’s going to be.”

“Welcome to the club,” I laugh.

The single parent club.

Dating, for us, is inexplicable. It’s like nothing we’ve ever experienced before… this is a universal truth.

A few hours later and after some home made popsicles, we said our good-byes. Strange saying good-bye to someone who you’ve just connected with so deeply, someone who you think you may never see again.

I’m so glad I decided to go… thanks for your advice.

And Benjamin is just fine.

If you missed the beginning of this story…

Cabin Fever, Part 1

Cabin Fever, Part 2

Cabin Fever, Part 3

Single moms are on fire.

mssinglemama — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:22:13 +0000

Single moms are hot, hot, hot.

Yep. We are trendy. It’s official.

This fact was pointed out to me in my first piece of hate mail from a YouTube viewer, one of nearly 500 who have already watched Morgan and I’s “Dating & Single Moms” video. With so many views, and there will be more, the crazies are bound to come out. Regardless he made one point I agreed on.

Women with children are realizing it’s okay to be single. But while Mr. Crazy thinks this awakening to not “needing” a man marks the downfall of society, I think it’s about time.

It’s about time single moms can be proud and happy. We didn’t choose this path but here it is – and it’s in our children’s best interest to make the best of it – day in and day out. And yes, society (ours anyway) is slowly coming to accept single moms and dads. We have celebrity role models all over the place. Some good. Some bad. Angelina Jolie (the original who snagged Brad Pitt), Kate Hudson (the newbie) and who is that? Madonna? She might be a single mom again. Or is she already? I can’t keep up.

And last night Must Love Kids premiered on TLC. There was even a single dad on this last season of the Bachelorette. Yep. Single moms and dads are all over the place. And while it concerns me that some young women might actually aspire to be a single mom or actually want to be caught up in a dramatic and sexy divorce (because the reality is much darker) I think the positives of society accepting the single parent household (whether it be through mainstream media or blogs) is ultimately a good thing.

And to the question – are happy and proud single moms bad for society?

Time will be the judge but I can tell you one thing that is for certain – it’s bad for society when fathers leave their families, check out mentally or lash out physically against the mothers of their children or when they refuse to pay child support or play a role in their child’s lives. This is something that has been happening for generations but now, finally, the women and children left behind can actually communicate openly.

I think the responsibility of how our society and how this country’s children turn out lies on everyone’s shoulders – mothers, fathers, grandparents, neighbors, aunts, uncles. It takes a village and if anyone ever lays blames solely on the mother because she slept with the wrong man and god forbid (got pregnant) than they can … well … I’ll leave that one up to your imagination.

Just had to vent after that horrible, horrible e-mail from YouTube which I won’t reprint here because it was too disgusting and offensive.

P.S. I had my neighbor TIVO Must Love Kids, no TV in the house so I missed it! Darn it. Will definitely catch it this weekend and from what I’m reading – the reviews are great.

P.P.S. This is an entry into MommyPie’s BlogHerNot ’08 Conference the topic: “How to Nail a Crazy YouTube Commenter with a Post”

How to date the childless.

mssinglemama — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:03:07 +0000

The first question most single parents ask when they finally get back out there on the dating scene is, “Can I even date someone without a kid?”

The challenges to dating someone without a child can be daunting. Will they ever understand your life? And when they do – will they run away screaming in fear once they realize that parenting never ends? It can also be irritating to date childless people.

They often lack genuine empathy for your situation, talk about stuff that just seems pointless and annoy you with stories about how hard their lives are. But, as one of my friends said recently, “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

When I left my ex-husband and Benjamin was just four-months-old I couldn’t imagine anyone joining our lives but they did and the relationships didn’t end because I’m a single mom, they ended because child or not we weren’t a good match.

Here are some things you can do to fan the flames of a romance with the single and childless.

1. Be patient. They’re not going to “get it” right away nor should they need to. Do you know if you’re going to marry this person or be in a long-term relationship with them? No way. You might have a feeling in your gut, but that’s not enough to warrant long chats about how they’ll perform as a father or a mother. And besides, nothing will freak them out more than these kinds of questions. These questions will come later and by the time later comes you might not even want to be with them any more.

2. Put it into perspective. Before you became a parent – you weren’t one. Duh! You’re shouting at your computer screen. But, seriously, think about it. Being a parent is nothing anyone can prepare for and chances are you wouldn’t have predicted what kind of parent you are today. There’s no way to tell what kind of parent your flame will become once they’ve fallen for your kids. Don’t waste your time analyzing their every move. Instead, focus on how they treat you – this will give you the answers on how they will eventually treat your children.

3. Go easy on them. DO NOT ask or tell them to be your child’s missing parent, DO NOT expect them to save you and DO NOT ask them to move in until you’ve been dating for at least one year. These are recipies for disaster. You’ll freak them out. And besides, you’re probably moving too quickly. You have a child now so everything must move slowly. No more whirlwind romances. This is one of the hardest facts to come to terms with, dating will never be the same.

4. Find your fun side again. This one was tough for me. During the first year, I had a really tough time relaxing on a date or just chatting about something other than Benjamin. I thought it was all they were thinking about (the fact that I’m a single mom) when in reality, I was the one thinking about it constantly. Eventually I let my hair down and said hello to that single chick inside of me again.

5. They don’t really care that you’re a single parent unless you make them care. This is the most important lesson I’ve learned. If someone falls in love with you, the fact that you’re a single mom or dad is icing on the cake. But before they fall in love with you try to avoid scaring them off with negative comments about being a single mom. For example, don’t say “Being a single mom is SO hard, you have no idea, sometimes I just want to die.” Keep your single parent anxieties to yourself and your close friends until you’ve been dating someone for a while.

Would dating another single parent be easier? Sure. At the beginning, you’d have more to talk about, you could relate, he would instantly get the parenting thing. But dating another parent opens another can of challenges, I’ll save that one for later.

In the meantime, I hope these mini-lessons help. Do you have any to add? Or any stories about dating the single and childless?

P.S. I hope the networks are reading this post, there could be an entire soap opera titleds, “The Single & Childless.” Awesome.

Related Posts:

Date Night

Do Men Really Care if You’re a Single Mom

Can Single Moms Fall in Love?

Can Men Feel Empathy?

[Photo Credit: "Love XOXO" by Pink Sherbet on Flickr]

E-harmony Dating Review: for the single parent or any other dater

mssinglemama — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:50:30 +0000

Let me preface this by saying, I went into this online dating thing with total enthusiasm and a very open mind. After all, I’ve heard that friends of friends have actually gotten engaged after meeting online. And with very little free time on my hands – why not try it out?

I started out as a voyeur.

I would scope out the men on Match.com. They all looked like loser players, so I moved on to eHarmony. Those commercials are just so enticing. Could those people be real? They have to be, right? So I sign up.

I take the super personality tests of all personality tests and then wait as my matches come in. Some are 47, some are 37, some are fishermen living in Alaska, others are construction workers in my own back yard. Not that I have anything against fishermen or construction workers or older men. But I’m looking for a young professional, college educated, like-minded individual, not someone who I clearly would have nothing in common with.

I check my match settings. They’re set at preferences the system is clearly ignoring.

There are a few interesting men who do pop into my inbox…so I e-mail them. I wait, days, weeks and never hear a word. Then I realize – these men probably signed up for free and then jumped the boat. Or, even worse, they were probably paying members years ago. The thing about eHarmony is that you actually have to turn your matching off when you cancel your membership, otherwise they keep you in the system. It’s why they can boast so many “active” members and keep sending you dozens and dozens of useless new matches each day.

I actually e-mailed eHarmony telling them I thought their matching system was crap. They wrote me a long winded e-mail back telling me I needed to expand my matching preferences. They refused to give me a refund of my $110 membership fee. So, I stayed on, after all I had paid for three months – why not use it?

Recently I found a match that peaked my interest. A single dad, college educated, cute and his profile description was intriguing. We meet for a lunch date. A nice, safe lunch date. This after talking on the phone several times. He shows up, I stand up, and I’m towering above him.

“Oh, damn,” I think. “Why in the hell did I wear these heels?”

He was very, very sweet and it was a nice lunch – but there wasn’t an ounce of chemistry. Our personalities couldn’t have been more incompatible. So much for the eHarmony matching “system.” I’ll keep you posted if I do find compatible matches, but so far it has been a joke.

I will say – if you are going to try online dating – go with a site where you can search profiles yourself. And there is no personality matching system that can beat your own gut instinct.

If you are new to eHarmony you must read this post on the eHarmony Blog (yes, there’s a blog on eHarmony. It’s fantastic. Consider it the eHarmony bible. Go now by clicking here.)

****UPDATE****

Check out PlentyofFish.com, it’s quickly becoming the most popular online dating web site out there because – it’s FREE. I haven’t tried it myself (no need as I’m now in a fantastic relationship – fyi – I met him in a bar, the good old fashioned way).

Another great place to scope out all of the single men or women who have profiles posted in your area is Oodle.com. Go to personals and search by zip code, the site lists all of the people with profiles in your area. Pretty spiffy.

And then there’s always MySpace – also free. Most of my twenty-something friends meet their men here…send them a friendly message or two and then exchange numbers.

My friend have also had a lot of luck on Yahoo Personals…cheaper than Match and easier to use.

»This website has moved to MsSingleMama.com.

Why? Because this single mom outgrew the old space – so get your but over here to see the latest from Ms. Single Mama!