When we were 20, life was simple. You see a guy, you meet the guy. You like him, he likes you. Love grows and hey, whaddya know? Bam. You're in a relationship.
You see each other every day if you want. You get crazy and obsessive. After all, you have all the time in the world. Because you're 20, for godsake! And you're not on a schedule.
Fast forward 15 or 20 years to your current, divorced self. You meet a guy online, at work — or if you're lucky — at the grocery store in an organic kind of way.
THEN WHAT?
"I have my kids every other weekend, Tuesday and Thursday nights," says Mr. Gorgeous-well-established-recently-divorced-man over coffee.
Your heart sinks.
You have your kids the opposite weekends: Mondays and Wednesdays.
After a half-hearted discussion about the relative pliability of the ex-spouses, you determine this will, yet again, be maddeningly impossible to coordinate.
So much for the Saturday afternoon bikerides. No Friday night dinners followed by incredible revitalizing sex on the kitchen table to remind you
you're not dead yet. No lingering Sunday morning French toast with whipped cream, which leads to more incredible revitalizing sex on the kitchen table.
Why does it have to be so complicated?
Where is the magic? Where is the romance?
Well let's see... discussing the age of kids, schedules, and ex-spouses kind of stabs romance right in the heart and kills it dead to start with, ya know? Yet how do you get around that?
Are you telling me I now need to find a guy who not only meets my basic criteria (attractive, fit, accomplished, witty, employed, considerate and personable) but he has to be ON THE SAME KID SCHEDULE as me?
That is a virtual impossibility, methinks.
Okay wait. There are a few other options....
The guy who has either:
a) no kids;
b) grown kids; or,
c) stepkids living with their mother
I was going to add "d) Kids, but without custody," but NO, trust me on this one... a dad without custody is not a dad you want to hang with. It shouts "restarining order" or "unemployed." You don't want that guy, girlfriend. You, after all, are a yummy mummy. You deserve more.
So, it is my new mission to pursue men who fit into one of the above three categories. So far, the ones I've met who fit one of those, are either waaaay too old (therefore kids grown and gone) or undesirable and unattractive (therefore no kids), or both.
That leaves the dads with step-kids. They know how to be around kids. They come with no extra baggage. And they're available!
That's it. I'm posting on Craigslist:
DWF seeks DWM who is gainfully employed for regular companionship and liberating sex. Must have stepkids, now grown and living in another city, and therefore willing and available to devote all energies to me.
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