Dating (US)

For those of us that are single parents entering the dating world, is a completely different world all together. I wrote this poem that I’m sharing with you after I met with, what seemed like very promising relationships. They started off strong like the poem says the first three days were almost magical. And then insecurities and self doubt set in. We over think everything. I noticed that a lot of the women I talk to will constantly apologize for the very thing that attracted me to them in the first place.

I hear women say that men only want sex. I know that’s not true but I will say I know why they think that. I will also say that women and men want a lot of the same exact things, a lot. In this day in age where communication is so readily available worldwide 24/7 that we all want to make sure that this communication transaction doesn’t leave us fruitless. Men are thinking worse case scenario there’s a chance and women are thinking about weeding out as many as they can before they even get past, Hello. Women write these bios that are a laundry list of negativity. One could predict with a 98% success rate of who their last boyfriend was and was not. All in all leaving both sides frustrated. The very thing that both sexes tried to do to save them time, has only handicapped their entire chances of a serendipitous encounter.

The phrase “slow down to speed up”, fits here and so does” “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”

Now in my opinion the difference is this, parents approach this a little differently. If you’re talking with a potential mate that happens to be a Mum or dad, they have already vetted you so extensively that you could be a shoe in to pass congressional approval as the next Supreme Court justice. All before you ever said hello. Now this is good and bad. The good is that we are protecting our children first. We will not in any way shape or form ever put ourselves in a position that jeopardizes the quality of life for our children. You will add value to our family or you won’t be a part of our lives. It really is that simple. The bad is that we make a lot of horribly wrong assumptions because we err on the side of caution so we don’t give very many chances to begin with.

Part of that is multifaceted, i.e. we don’t have as much available time as our childless counterparts. Let’s face it as parents, we have all used the excuse that we just don’t a have enough time, ehhhh BS. Yes we have our attention pulled in many directions, but the cliché is a cliché for a reason...if it’s important to you, you will make time!

That brings up the final point that I’m going to touch on now, and that is that after a certain amount of time, we really enjoy the freedoms we have to be alone when we want and away from the stresses of making any other person happy. Let’s face it, we are doing a thankless job raising these kids, atleast until they’re thirty something with their own babies and then they have their a ha moment and apologize for being the assholes they were, lol. At this point you’re no longer healing from a previous relationship and your walls are heavily fortified. You’re currently at Chuck Norris level at not giving a rats ass about what anyone expects from your life, so as long as we’re able to take care of our kids and keep certain songs out of our playlists to keep us from allowing our brains to wander. We stay busy, real busy, and that’s were the BS comes in from earlier. Yes kids are an astronomical amount of work, but a lot of that work like doing laundry and making dinner, are things we would be doing anyway. So as one woman’s bio said, “I’ve grown to love my singleness, so you better step up and be the reason that I don’t want to be single anymore”. And then their are the hopeless romantics, I recently discovered I fall into this category. A woman told me that I was, and I initially took offense to it for some unfounded ignorant self view of what it was to be masculine (I never said I was perfect). But since that day I have embraced my new moniker and it has allowed me to be more open and vulnerable. Which was very important to me. The greatest thing that I hold dear in a relationship is the connection I have with my partner. I view a connection where my partner knows all there is to know about me and I mean everything, and here is the kicker, because of that open, raw, and REAL person that she sees...She loves me more. And the intimate part of that is t he fact that she is the only person in the world that I would ever be 100% with. I call it my vulnerability virginity. I was married for 15 years and my ex never came close to knowing me on that level and it wasn’t because I wasn’t willing. Effort is real folks, like the line in the poem, “match me step for step”.

Since I have shared this poem with a few people, there was a resounding connection we all had. We all agreed that if we found someone that tried 50% as hard as we did to make them happy, then we would be the luckiest person on earth. Which leaves me with this, when we meet someone, focus on the similarities you have with that person. When we look for ways in which we are the same, we inherently look for the good in that person. About 5% of a person that is different from us is more than enough for us to feel like we found the uniqueness we craved, any more than that will only lead to massive differences in the long run. The kind of differences that leave one partner in a constant feeling the need to please their spouse. And the other partner feeling like they completely wasted their whole life. And both living in a life and with a partner in which they both equally detest. The idea of change is one of the strongest forces that we fear. So much so that we are willing to sacrifice our LIVES to keep change away from our lives. THATS SCARY! I tell my kids all the time that everything they want in life lives just on the other side of this imaginary wall of 5 seconds of fear. We all know that it’s never as bad or as good as it seems in the moment.

The last thing I will leave you with is this, everything in life that you want involves action, so go do you!!!