I am eschewing dating. I could say that I've given up but I haven't really. I've just put it aside for now. The real reason is that I couldn't figure out how to be a single mom, work full time, write, pay bills, clean damn house and date all at once. So I would rather write.

I was dating someone about 18 months ago and over the 6 months we dated, I slowly quit writing. Something had to go. I couldn't get rid of any of the other tasks though the house cleaning is usually pretty low on the list. I've now hired someone to help. She came last Monday and was here for 4 hours but we spent two hours talking instead. She is Christian and seems on the conservative side of politics and I'm more of the Flying Spagetti Monster - lapsed atheist - goes to Unitarian Church erratically - type but neither of us cared. We talked about abortion gently and the amazing statistic that about half of the pregnancies in the United States are "unintended" (the new PC term) and that we don't really understand that. We both admitted that we were lonely and rarely had time to just sit and talk like that. Way more important than dusting for both of us. Besides, think of my kids' great immune systems since we have dust elephants with a little (!) cat hair.

So the someone I was dating 18 months ago wanted to move in and was willing to get married if necessary. I knew I was sliding into some sort of withdrawal. Either I was just not mature enough to hold onto my self and was doing some version of that stupid girlie thing where you do what the guy wants, or he wasn't really listening. I had the impression that he'd seen some part of me and then pasted his idea of who I was over it and had stopped paying attention. The final straw was going 3000 miles to a wedding in his family. He got quite drunk. I deal with that enough at work and in family history so had already made it quite clear, I thought, that I didn't want to be around anyone drunk. In retrospect I should have gotten another hotel room and gone to Disneyland with his family the next day, but I kept my mouth shut and flew home two days later. That was it. Quite sad for a while. I didn't write a damn poem for a year and then wrote "the she, she" whew, what a relief.

After I got divorced I refused to date for a year. If pressured I planned to say, "Well, I'm still in a post-divorce Lorena Bobbit sort of mood." Never had to use it. Just saying "Not until it's been a year." works quite well. With the 'wanting to move in' Gentleman I said that I was most definately not interested in acquiring a husband until I'd paid off the old one (last August). He noted that his current lease was up in May. I inquired a couple times if he was interested in helping root out various parts of the house, but he wasn't. I didn't have much time what with dating and the rest of it. So it did not happen.

Another person tried to date me recently. I was nervous from the start as I hear that no one has been allowed in his house because "it isn't perfect yet." I could just invite him to tour my house and I'm sure that would be it. He stopped calling me after Christmas because he wanted to see me right at New Year's and I had A Very Complicated Family Situation. He didn't seem to understand it. He's never had kids. Oh, well.

So I am eschewing dating. It feels comfortable because it's one less thing to worry about. And I am writing again. Happy happy happy.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.