“I did it again this week. Looking at my phone, email, hoping for some news of his existence after a lovely first meeting last weekend. But nothing,” my friend, Lacey said over her most recent dating experience. This hit a chord in me, and inspired this blog entry to transpire. Her lament is a song and dance I know all too well. Just before I met Mr. Wonderful, I had come back in contact with an old friend from high school. One thing led to another, and soon I was letting him meet my kids. In hindsight, it was too early. We’d only been dating for a couple weeks. But I had gone to school with him, it wasn’t like he was a stranger, and he was a generally nice guy. We hung out constantly for a month and a half straight. I met his family. We all went trick or treating together. And then overnight, POOF. He was gone. He didn’t return my phone calls. He stopped emailing me. And I was left wondering what was wrong with me.

And you know the screwed part? I didn’t want to believe it was happening. I wanted to think that he somehow was in a dead spot and just didn’t know that I had called his cell phone 3 or 4 times in the past hour. Or that he doesn’t check his email but once a month, so he never received that funny quip I left on his Facebook page. Even though I was fully aware that this guy has all the personality traits of someone I would get irritated by really quickly, I wanted him to want me. And the fact that he wasn’t complying made me want him more. And hate him more. And so on and so forth.

It’s a sick game we play.

Dating is awful. Dating as a single parent is even worse. Single parent dating involves looking at someone with future binoculars. While you are out having fun, and glancing at each other with flirtatious eyes, and getting shivers the first time he holds your hand, in the back of your mind you are wondering if he would fit in with your family.

Does he like kids? Will he like mine? Does he fight fair? Is he in it for me, or does he just want to get laid? Is that devastating smile of his going to end up breaking my heart? How will I recover from this one?

In our minds, the breakup is played out before the first date is even over. And that can kill a relationship before it can even be called a relationship.

Thing is, a single parent has already had their heart stomped on. And beyond their broken heart, they must work to mend the broken heart of their child. And when a parent’s relationship comes and goes, that is just one more crack in a child’s already fragile heart, each one hurting a little bit more until the pain becomes a callous and the cynicism builds a wall of bricks for protection. No kid needs that.

But at the same time, we want to feel loved. We are cast into this role of caring for these kids without a support person at home. There is no one to stand behind us as we go through our day to day. Just to have someone there to be accountable to our lives, to actually ask at the end of the day, “How was your day?” We miss having that other adult presence at home, that warm body in bed, that person to wake up to.

My friend Rachel got divorced a couple years ago. And soon after her divorce she fell in love in the most wild and passionate of love affairs. Their relationship produced Sophie, the sweetest little baby with the biggest smile. When Sophie was weeks old, Rachel’s beloved split, deciding he couldn’t handle fatherhood. Rachel had never been single for more than a few months, if that, and suddenly here she was, more single than ever and caring for a newborn baby. The first time I saw Rachel after the break up was when Sophie was 6 months old. Rachel was bitter, understandably so. But there was something new in her. She was strong. Her new focus was Sophie, this beautiful baby that was loved so incredibly well. I talked to Rachel yesterday, telling her about this entry, and how I’d love to use some of her experiences.

“What do you need? My horror stories?” she asked me. “Just had one last night. I’m actually really bummed. That’s what I get for dating a 26 year old….” She went on, “What I’ve found is that men in their 20’s are looking for that cougar experience. And men in their 30’s want nothing to do with a woman in their 40’s with three kids. And men in their 40’s want women in their 20’s. And all that’s left for me are men in their 50’s and 60’s, and it’s too much like dating my dad.”

She talked more about the disappointments, but had some hopeful insight. “It’s funny, I learned to recognize the pattern. I used to go from one serious relationship to the next. This is the first time I have been single and just dating without needing a relationship, and I’ve found that I am a lot less tolerant than I used to be. I used to take whatever crap they used to throw at me and just live with it. Now? It’s like, that doesn’t work for me, so goodbye.” I love that Rachel discovered that. She isn’t playing the “Is he into me or not?” game. If it works, great! But if not, she’s not wasting her time, or his.

(Sidenote: my confident friend Rachel is a gorgeous blonde British lass who turns heads right and left…. Just throwing that out there…)

But do good relationships exist in single mom dating? What advice do you have for a single mom just entering the crazy world of dating?

To be continued….

If you have a story you want to share, leave me a comment here, or email me directly at crissi@santarosamom.com.