First of all, if you’re a single parent with a young child and you’re considering going back into the world of dating, we admire you. Holding down a job and caring for a young child can take up every waking hour of every day, and so fitting in time to go dating sometimes feels like an impossible task!
Ultimately though, very few of us want to spend the rest of our days alone, and so we all eventually jump back on the dating train eventually.
Dating in the modern age can be intimidating, and doubly so if you’re a single parent with a child. Wrong as it might be, having a child is likely to rule you out as an option to a lot of potential partners who don’t have children of their own. They have no idea of the challenges you face, and often they don’t want to know. That doesn’t mean there aren’t options out there for you, though. The latest statistics tell us that one in three children in the USA now live in single-parent homes, and so there are millions of people in the country who should, in theory, be open to meeting someone new.
We realize that gamer dating when you haven’t done it for a while can be scary, and so we’ve put together a few basic tips for you that should hopefully help you on your way.
Stay Away From Tinder
Tinder increasingly seems to be the way the rest of the world goes dating. It’s also the least reliable way to meet a long term partner, and the majority of people on it are young and have no children. Going beyond that, it also turns the process of dating into a mobile slots game. If you don’t like your first set of results, you just swipe and try again – exactly the same way that spinning the reels works in mobile slots on website such as Amigo Slots. Trying over and over again until you find a winner is what makes mobile slots exciting, but if you apply the same philosophy to dating, you’re likely to become bored and frustrated very quickly. There are specialist dating websites and apps for single parents: that’s where you should look.
Use Your Lunch Break
Unless you work for a particularly mean employer (in which case you should leave them), you should get an hour for your lunch break from work. That’s enough time to meet someone for a first-time, casual date. As crazy as that idea might sound if you’ve never tried it before, lunch-hour dates have been a thing for at least ten years. Your free time is precious, and you probably don’t get much of it. Instead of trying to arrange childcare during the evenings to go on a date with someone who might not be right, have a brief, casual, low-pressure lunch date first. If you get on with your date, it’s more likely to be worth arranging something more formal for the next time. You can think of this as smart dating!
Don’t Put The Kids Front And Center
You should be honest about the fact that you have children when you’re arranging a date. If you’ve used a specialist single parent dating app or website to arrange your date, you already have this point covered! Your date knows you have children, and has accepted that. As fascinating and adorable as your child or children may be, your date has come to meet you, not them. Tell them about your life and who you are as a person. At the same time, remember to ask them about their own life and interests – and not just their children! As difficult as it might be, try to forget you have children for the duration of the first date. Be yourself, and make the date about yourself, too.
Use Your Telephone
There’s a big difference between talking through text and meeting someone in person. The language people use when using the spoken word is more considered than the language they use through messaging – it tends to be more considered and less forward. You don’t have to go straight from messaging someone to meeting them in the flesh. Phone them first. It might sound like an old fashioned idea, but your smartphone still works as a phone, and this is a good way of screening a date before agreeing to meet them. You can sometimes tell a lot about a person just from the sound of their voice and the way that they talk. Insist on a phone call before agreeing to a date. If they’re not willing to talk on the phone, they’re not worth considering as a partner.
Prepare Your Kids Before Things Get Serious
We hope you reach the point where you have to consider this because it will mean that you’ve potentially met someone who’s going to be great for you. After the third or fourth date, you’re approaching the point where you’ll either be going to your new partner’s home, or they’ll be coming to yours. Sending the kids away for the night is probably reasonable for the first time, but you can’t keep doing it forever. You and your children have been a team ever since you became single, and you need to involve your team when you’re making decisions about who to date. Don’t suddenly spring a new partner on them. Tell them you’re going dating, tell them where you’re up to with it, and give them plenty of notice before you arrange for your new partner and your children to meet. Twenty-four hours isn’t going to cut it. They need time to reflect on the idea, ask any questions they want to ask, and get used to it.
Sometimes cliches are cliches because they’re true. There really is someone out there for everybody, and if you go looking for them, you’ll eventually find them. As scared as you might be by the idea of dating right now, you might be surprised by how quickly it become excited after you’ve started the process. Don’t be afraid to try sites like Craigslist el paso tx, ask people out, don’t be afraid to reject people who you don’t feel are suitable, and make sure that dating happens on your terms and nobody else’s. That’s all the advice we have to give to you -so we wish you good look and happiness in your search!
These tips will really help a lot of single moms. My friend is also a single mother and now looking for a partner on dating apps, I hope these will help her a lot. Great Blog!!