I had decided I wasn’t going to write about dating on this blog for the general purposes of protecting my own privacy. And if someone else ever actually reads this – well – there are enough blogs one can read to follow someone else’s failed love life and I don’t mean to add to them.

But I do think the issue of dating is important for single parents to at least mention. And especially as it touches on adoptive parenting, parenting teens, etc. So I may write about it from time to time.

I heard an interview on NPR a while ago by a guy who wrote a book about his experiences as a single father raising a couple of kids alone oh, I guess I will put aside my laziness and look it up.

Well, I started to do that and became mesmerized by all the books on the topic”how not to stay single” Which is also a book title by Nita Tucker which is quite useful, at least I hope it is.

But back to my point – and I guess I need to add ADD as a personal defining adjective – the author was talking about dating and said something I liked about parenting in your life as opposed to stepping out of your life to parent.

When I’m with other single adoptive parents I sometimes feel like I’m in a new movie called Stepford Moms.” Everybody is happy, nobody is wishing for a partner, let’s all agree how much easier it is to be the only parent, the one who makes the rules, nobody for the kids to go behind your back to, etc. etc. Rah Rah.

I personally really want a partner, middle aged mother that I am. Maybe putting it out here, one more place, will be that much more energy out into the universe.

And all of that is leading up to what I hope was this year’s emotional low this week. And not wanting to write anything. Having spent way too much time the past six weeks or so writing my fingers off to someone I met on-line. And foolishly let into my heart. Yeah, a modern cliche. Well, that one is over. Just for the emotional thrill of it, I did the bulk of it during my hardest month – the one that 19 years ago ended in the death of my partner, which this year fell on Thanksgiving.

And I’m working on how not to mourn the loss of something that never was. I got one line out of it that is a keeper. How to know when to run for the nearest exit and slam it behind you, bolted and padlocked – The context – she is worrying about whether it’s OK to have casual sex (not discussing it with me, really, and it certainly didn’t feel like a casual discussion to me), stressing over how it fit with her personal moral compass:

“It’s a hunger. I don’t know why it’s a problem for me – when I’m hungry I eat. But I can choose to eat good food or I can choose McDonald’s”.

Ronalda McDonald, here, signing off for the night.