Any Woman to Date Your Kids

All right single dads, I dig you.  I haven’t been able to successfully date many of you (see Cruel Trick), but I like the idea of you.  I read one guy’s profile that said, “Once you go dad you never go back.”  Touché.

I’ve got a bone to pick with, well, some of you.  I am not looking to date your kids.  I want to get to know you.  I realize the same issue may exist with some single moms, but I’m a single mom dating men.  If you need to swap things around to make this applicable to your life – please do.

Where was I?  Right.

I want to date you.  I realize that you don’t exist in a vacuum but please be willing to let me know the man you are, not just the father you are.

Cue Jarrod – at least that’s what we’ll call him.  He runs a small tech firm here in town.  Jarrod is smart, cute, successful, driven, witty, and talented.  He has good taste in music.  He’s exactly the kind of man I’d like to date.  Jarrod has three kids and has been divorced for over half a decade.

While I’ve now been divorced for several years and am open to something more substantial, there was a time where I was only really looking to find a Mr. Week Night.  Let me explain.  I have a fairly traditional custody arrangement and as part of it my kids spend one night a week with their dad.  I wanted to find a man to spend my time with on the night that they were gone.  Someone to go out on the town with, or to see a movie with, and yes, to shag. 

Back to Jarrod.  Our emails and texts were good.  My growing excitement that I might have found someone that I’d really like was only hampered by the trepidation that we’d get snagged by the scheduling trick of divorce.  Not surprisingly, he turned out to have the exact opposite custody schedule as me.  But wait - there was a ray of hope.  His kids live a bit further away, which means that even though he’s supposed to have them overnight for one night during the week, he doesn’t.  And my kids are always with their dad for that same weeknight.

EUREKA!!!  We Have a Winner! 

Or, so I thought…

My trepidation turned to real excitement.  Our conversation continued, but I noticed a trend start to develop.  As our one night of availability came and went for several weeks in a row he wouldn’t make plans.  He wouldn’t ask me out.  If I asked him he’d respond way too late for us to get together.

He’d disappear, only to reappear after there was no realistic chance of us making plans.

He did ask me out, but only for times when one or the other person’s kids were around, which I had already shared is something I won’t do initially.  I don’t want to be thrust into having our families meet immediately – it’s a whole different level of pressure.  I want to meet you.  I want to know you and for you to know me.

Around the same time, he also took to sending me pictures of his kids, instead of pictures of him.  Now, he has a good-looking family.  He’s proud of them.  These are good things.  However, he wasn’t even in the pictures, his parents were, but not him.

We hadn’t met.  He wouldn’t make plans when we were both available, but he wanted to make a show of his career and his family.  I eventually was left with the distinct impression that he was looking to make a nice family picture without having to make real effort.  A nice family picture is great, but not when it doesn’t really matter who the woman in the photo is.  I want someone who wants ME, not someone for whom any decent woman will do. 

Maybe he’s married to his work.  Maybe he wants a segregate mother figure for when his kids are around.  Maybe he was looking for Any Woman.  Maybe he was broken up that he didn’t get his kids for a weeknight, when he would have if they lived closer. Maybe I could’ve made his lonely night less lonely.

Alas, it was not to be.  Eventually, I wrote him off.

After about six weeks I got a text from him saying that he really was interested in me and…

Would you like to get together some time?

Sure.  I’d be up for a spontaneous coffee or drink.  I replied.

Spontaneous coffee sounds great.

Perfect.  What time works?

He walked right into that.  His response?

I have a work function tonight, I can’t. 

Of course, he did.  Honestly, he probably did.  But, a word of advice: don’t approach someone who you blew off and be non-committal.  I am not just Any Woman.  I’m not looking to date someone’s kids, though they may be fabulous.

I would have loved to have met Jarrod. But, I wanted. To date. HIM.