Surfing Love Sites as a Single Mom

courtesy of rockawave.com

For a few tide changes now, I’ve been a girl on the curl, surfing online dating sites for that one Starkist Tuna. Sorry Charlie, to make you tread water until I drift into your current, but while we wait, know that I’m sharing the waves with some terrific tunas who are teaching me to be no Chicken of the Sea, and to enjoy riding this one long wave to you… Read how I’ve been handling the board while balancing work and home. Thanks for the read.

Surfing Love Sites as a Single Mom

Disclaimer: Why write another “How To” on charting the choppy waters of online dating? Especially tips targeted to single moms, who may already feel judgy eyes on them when it comes to how they enjoy their shards of time not spent at a desk, in the produce aisle, or on the soccer, softball or football field? That’s the last thing unattached moms need—a faceless freelancer telling them how to date. 

So why bother? Well, because this writer is in the same boat—single parenting while trawling dating sites, off and on, for a few years now. She’s made mistakes and she’s also made friends. 

“A wise person learns from other people’s mistakes,” my mother likes to say. If true, then at fifty-four I’m still dumb. With the help of a smart therapist however, and gal pals who continue to pry my fingers off the IG accounts of hopeless causes, I am starting to learn from my own mistakes. 

Here are some takeaways from time spent dropping my line on Plenty of Fish, OK Cupid and, say, Episcopaldating.com (the weirdest by far.)

Be discrete

I get it now, but I didn’t at first. It matters who I invite over to dip into the popcorn bowl on family movie night. One ex-boyfriend met my kids right away and two didn’t. Guess which break-up was messier than the other two?  As I see it, it’s a lose-lose set-up for Mr. Maybe to meet my sons before I know he’s Right-on. If the guy is kind of jerky towards mom, kids see that, or if he’s a keeper, but for whatever reason doesn’t keep, then kids—and boyfriends—experience that. Messy. For now I don’t have the head space or the counter space for that blender model. I’m sticking to the every-other-weekend man plan, until I get the internal memo from heartquarters to move forward. 

Enjoy meeting people

Five years post-divorce and surfing the riptides of online dating with a better feel for the board, I’m starting to have real fun with it. It began when I chose to ride that wave of gratitude. Think about it, how else would an over-fifty single working mom in the bowels of Brooklyn, meet eligible bachelors? I don’t even drink anymore, not that meeting males in bars ever worked out that well (except I did get fourteen good years, a set of Wedgewood, and two shining sons out of that last pick-up.) Where else, but within the glowing rectangle on my palm, could I be thrown into conversation with an accomplished man who can teach me a thing or two about some cool profession or unusual past time? In the small talk which comes before pillow talk, I’ve learned how to scramble a super fluffy egg and new strategies for experiencing conceptual art. I now know who Ram Dass is, where Cyprus is, and how to light a menorah. I know how to crash a Christie’s auction and act nonchalant as bids spike over a Basquiat. I’ve discovered a weather app I like more than the default that came with my iPhone. 

It’s not a popularity contest 

When I bemoan an empty inbox, my shrink reminds me, “You’re going for quality over quantity,” then drops his not-so-scorching term: “life partner material.” Last December, my friend met who-she-thought-was-a player, on what-she-thought-was-a-hook-up, and wound up joining the June brides at the altar. She likes to point out that “it only takes one.” So I’ve learned to be less afraid of the ones that fall off. I no longer noodle why some threads—despite batting my lashes with my best banter—break free anyway. After my autopsy on a dead thread comes back clean, I move on. 

Limit It

I hop on about eleven, and I’m off before midnight. 

It’s the last thing I do before smoothing on that face oil and reaching for the bedside light switch. Late night works for me. Because getting into it on my lunch hour with a Redwood timber tycoon—who may not turn out to be a Redwood timber tycoon—didn’t. 

Get clear on what you want. 

If I’ve learned anything riding the high seas of romance on the world wide web it’s this: people want different things. Setting aside the crazies, who can’t weave words into sentences that make sense, most folk will tell you where they’re at—if you bother to ask.

I no longer assume everyone is on the same long board when it comes to friendship, love and sex. This goes for female surfers too. My gal pals surprise me all the time. It’s taken lots of doggy paddling and a couple of wipe-outs to drift closer to how I really feel about things. News flash: people, however they may self-identify, have different attitudes and priorities, which can change over time. Just how long ago the ex rolled off the California King and moved out of the house is a question worth asking. I’m pretty clear now that I’m looking to make friends first, people who value my company, no matter the outcome, as I value theirs.  Eventually, I hope to ride that one long wave into shore... 

Find a Surfing Buddy

I have two gal pals jumping the waves with me right now. Looks like one may have found a real starfish, but even if she disables her account and shimmies off into the sand bar with him, she’ll still want me to float my prospects by her. Which is good. When it comes to the hapless heart, reality checks from real friends help filter the silt out. 

Keep Doing You 

“Patience is the key to paradise…” or so the Turkish proverb goes. If you’re at the point where you’re trawling deeper waters for this “life partner material” (who is still super hot in his own way) then this could take a while. Or not. (like the friend who married “the one” only seven months after they met on that innocent hook-up.) 

It takes what it takes to lure true love, so for now, after I check off childcare, chores and chasing at-risk teens back into their classrooms as a teacher’s aide, I’m buoying my bark during the long trawl by making time for what that matters to me. Like putting up pots of squash soup, and bending that morning bod with perky mid-life Aussie Amazons on YouTube. And with all the waves I’ve made over the years to keep bad romances afloat, instead of funneling that energy into my own writing, well, I could have written my debut novel, its prequel, and six sequels. Today I’m writing daily.

So until I catch the same current with that big-hearted sailor whose got both oars in the water, and who causes me to bite my wrist involuntarily at the sight of him in a full-length leather coat—you know the type— the one for whom I find myself doing Crest white strips before every date, while I’m  just treading water, waiting for that one to join me in the jet stream, I’ll just keep doing me.