Mum Dating

Online dating helps me meet and break up with someone without leaving the house.

Someone on Google.

Dating as a mum is hard.  Dating as a solo mum of a toddler is nearly fucking impossible. Nearly.  

Having time to yourself as a solo mum is rare.  Not, like strawberries out of season rare, we are talking hen’s teeth, once in a blue moon, quiet time with Emma Wiggle on the TV rare.  It never happens.  It takes coordination, timing, luck and a fucking army of people to babysit and prep a mumma for adult conversation with a stranger.

It’s been a really, really long time since I’ve stepped into the dating game.  If I didn’t have a baby a year and a half ago I would tell you that moss does grow on stones that don’t roll.  And probably lichen with cobwebs and an entire ecosystem that has become undisturbed and self-sufficient.

The way back into dating is not gentle.  It’s just as brutal as it ever was – only this time I’ve breached an age bracket.  Constant swiping through pictures of men who have lived incredibly hard lives in their 41 years or men wearing nappies and sucking a dummy asking for someone to feed them a bot-bot in a weird fetish type arrangement, the options – while ok for a giggle – are not reassuring.

Until they are.  In the rare moment of mindless left, left, left, my thumb stumbles occasionally. They aren’t ridiculously good looking or particularly young or old, all we are looking for now is something kind.  Kind eyes, friendly smile, something approachable and friendly that has ticked the box – has kids.  

And that’s how I found him. Not the one, just the one to get me back in.   My love life this far has left me broken, unsure of myself and mostly convinced that it’s a rare species that could find me attractive let alone lovable.  There is no option but to fake the confidence and just say yes when opportunity arises. 

A wise friend told me last month that the best way to get over it, was to get under a new one.  This is not a new idea.  Women have been doing this for centuries, but it’s not something that’s typically worked for me.  I’m one of those people that catches the feels and catches them fast.  I typically fall for fast talking, charming men who are liars.  Lots of words and promises and very little action, commitment or kindness.  

But let’s get real here.  I have a baby.  A turdler who requires more attention than I can give somedays, most days, and starting any kind of relationship with a man when all I can see is ugly on top of new mum imposter syndrome just seems all kinds of wrong when checked against the romance self-help books.  

Enter kindness.  Finding kindness in my responses, when I look in the mirror and mostly from the messages of strangers.  Normally, matches will either unmatch immediately, not respond or ask for sex in the first greeting.  It’s like pretending to be 41 when you’re 61 allows you to be an arsehole as well.

So we’re back to getting under to get over.  It’s not that simple though.  Navigating that minefield of post one-night-stand self-loathing could do more damage than good. 

And when I do have alone time working out how to spend it as almost as complicated.  Do I really want to spend the one night I have without her awkwardly sitting across from someone I’ve never met in a bar I don’t like, too far away from home to get an uber?

It’s hard to tell.  All I want when she’s not here is a shower and a nap and to wake up from said nap in a clean house with all of my washing done.  For years I’ve been sexually self-sufficient.  What I’m not self-sufficient in is housekeeping.  So how on earth do you make this shit work?

Swiping and weeding out the liars and the ingenuine arseholes to find the rare gems that are kind, mature and can handle the options you have to give them. The latter is rare.  It was always rare and now that I’ve breached a Centrelink age group I’m unsure Dennis, 39 (really 51) looking for a no strings attached ‘friend’ he might like to share with his wife, is not really what I’m after. 

I’ll swipe. I’ll message. I’ll ask questions and respond at random hours of the night because I’m awake with a one year old and I’ll see what happens next. There might be a date, there’ll hopefully be a nap but there’ll definitely be no house fairy.  

And maybe next week, when I’m a little braver, I’ll tell you about the kind one.