However unless you're the type of mother who is able to bear to leave the kids with someone else (or be lucky enough to have someone willing enough to have them - especially when they are multiples) - how on earth do you even fathom the idea of meeting someone new after single parenting??? I quite honestly wouldn't know where to start.
Friends who don't even HAVE kids complain about how hard it is to meet a decent person these days. I hear stories of ridiculous internet dating scenarios gone awry and terrible (I have one friend who is a serial internet dater and honestly, the stories she tells, you can't write that shit!) and I don't find any appeal of it - I think it's a bit weird (each to their own, not bagging anyone who does internet date - but yeah... not for me). Then there's the "one night out = a thousand nights to follow in" friends. Too many friends I've seen get themselves wasted, sleep with someone, fall into a relationship (that they never even wanted with that person in the first place) then take 2, 5, 10 years to get out of it again... Or the friends whose friends have good intentions, set them up with a "mutual friend" - until things stuff up and then someone ends up losing either all the friends, or everyone becomes all awkward at future barbecues! And this is without even dragging kids into the scenario.
If you're a worker, then yes your opportunities to meet people is increased slightly - depending on the workplace and the nature of the job. Me personally - I'll be a nurse by the time my kids are starting kindergarten - a very female dominated occupation, and the likelihood of the types of men you'd meet on the job would most probably be ones who have
- be a male nurse (who, 9 times out of 10, you're wasting your time - you don't have the right "junk"!)
- be a doctor, whose lovely wife and lovely children and lovely home are something you'd never compete with - no matter how lovely you are at anything you may be lovely at!
- been in a Saturday night drunken brawl and need you to suture their face before they spew on your shoes
- be mentally disturbed and emotionally defunct and in need of a straight jacket and/or lithium
- only be their to suppor their wife/partner/girlfriend or whatever whilst they are having their child (hitting on a labouring woman's partner whilst in the delivery suite = probably NOT a good move!)
or
- have something contagious and nasty (at best) or be dying of some horrible terminal illness (at worst)!
Soooo... my own personal chosen career-path is perhaps not the most socially appropriate meeting ground. There's also the ethics / work-college politics etc. involved with seeing someone at work (and moreso, what happens when you stop seeing someone from work)... So personally, I've done the "see someone from work" thing and I don't think I'd be drawn to that idea again. And that's even when I am working. Right now, I'm not - I'm on deferred study-leave...
So how else do other single mums meet people? And most importantly - how on earth do you find someone that you can trust with your most prized possessions a.k.a YOUR CHILDREN??? You can't just leave your kids with their noses pressed up against a pub window whilst you quickly ask a bloke 10 screening questions, then hide them under the pile of laundry when you get back to your place! And trusting someone to be around you children can't be an instantaneous process.
To me, it would take a long, long, looooooooong time to trust someone with my children. You can't be too cautious. Because if you were, how would you feel if something bad happened to them because of your judgement? Especially when, just through being a single mum alone, some men perceive it as neon sign above your head signalling you're a "sure thing"... "must be easy"... "clearly puts out"... based on the fact that you're raising children alone (this is of course not the case with all men, but you can't say there aren't these predatory types / user types out there. There are. Fact.)
In my average day - I have what I would consider "human contact" with 5 or less people besides my children: my best friend (on the phone), my mother and/or father (on the phone, maybe once or twice a week in person), the lady who works at the post office, whoever happens to serve us on the check-out at the supermarket that day, and on Mondays and Thursdays - my childcare lady. Anyone else we happen to see is someone we already know, and in passing... And further to that, see I mentioned "we see"... not I see. "We". My kids are always there. Therefore the time required (even if I did meet someone with intention to get to know them) is impeded by their constant presence.
Whilst I'm not even considering a relationship right now, or nor can I forsee wanting to any time in the near future (I have far too much other crap going on and far too much that still needs to be done) it does make me wonder what on earth will happen when I decide I am... And who on earth it could be with. And always, always be scared in the back of my mind that the person I chose. Pretty daunting, really... Oh well. Cross that bridge when I come to it - as always, just food for thought! :)
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