The Single Parent Conundrum.

So this will serve as my second letter to/for people on dating sites... well kind of. This is about dating single parents, inspired by the fact that a decent majority of people on dating sites happen to be single parents.  Now me not being a parent of any sort myself, and yet having been raised by a single parent, I feel as though I can provide a different perspective on this topic.

I grew up in a single parent household in the time before internet dating was even a thing. Before the internet was even a big thing. But my mom still did date, now not initially that I can remember, but she did date. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with single parents dating, the pursuit of romantic love and companionship is not limited to childless people. If you've got a babysitter (assuming that they are young enough to need one) and some free time then you deserve to go out and have a little fun, everybody needs a little me time now and then.

So I am on a couple of dating sites, which I possibly have mentioned before, and thus I have come across the fact that they appear to be primarily populated by single parents. And therefore I find myself facing a decision where I could potentially limit myself or not be a dirt bag and be open to dating a single mom. That being said, I know for a fact that personally I am not finding myself ready to be a parent quite yet. But I still have no issues with dating a single mom, and at this point you might be asking how that might work exactly. Though I do have a couple rules in association to this point.

1) I don't want to intentionally meet your children.

• I know this would mean that you will be constrained greatly by time. Because they come first. Absolutely.
• This does not mean that I never want to meet them, it is just not yet.

Reasoning: People tend to form connections with other people both kids and adults. If it doesn't end up working out, I wouldn't want your kid to have to deal with a broken connection that they cannot fully comprehend. They already have to deal with that considering that their parents are no longer together.

Exemptions: 

• Unintentional or accidental meetings, because of course things happen.
• We have something real; no real isn't the right word. Something serious, something noticeably not short term. I can't put a timeline on this, but, I mean I'm thinking a minimum of 6 months, maybe even a year.

2) I don't want to replace your child's father.

• Depending on the circumstances surrounding your separation having both parents involved is beneficial or so I hear.
• This does not mean I think you should get back together with your ex just to raise your kid(s). But you really shouldn't be dating to try and find a potential replacement or substitute parent.

Reasoning: As mentioned before both parents deserve to be involved depending on certain circumstances of course. Those circumstances being; them being around, wanting to be involved, and not being abusive. Also if the child does not respect the person that you're trying to introduce into their lives, they won't end up respecting them as any form of parental unit, which might seem normal if they were say a teenager, but not so much if they're younger than that.

Exemptions:

• Adoption when/if the child is okay with it.
• The child is a young infant, before concrete memories form. Or if you are involved pre-birth and the other parent does not want to be involved in any capacity. (May be going contrary to the above mentioned 1).)

3) (Not so much a rule as a guideline) At a young age we are taught to share our toys, but that's not always the easiest thing to do, and sometimes it is. But the problem is that people aren't toys, well not so much a problem but a truth, and therefore they are much harder to share. This rings especially true if you haven't had to share them before. (As I am writing this I realise that this is not only about children having to share a parent for the first time but could very well be about the adults). It is especially hard for a child to have to share a parent for the first time though. This is because before this it was only you and them. And the thing about kids is that they are a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. If their comfort is threatened they will do whatever they can to return it to what they view as normal. Change is difficult, especially at a young age. They can become bratty, jealous, uncooperative, and do whatever they can to sabotage the situation. The situation can worsen if both parents are single parents, because then the child will not only feel threatened by the other adult but there will also be another child  to compete for attention, which is exactly what it will seem and look like.

Now onto story time. I am going to give actual examples of my mom's ex-boyfriends as I remember them. All I ask is don't judge her based on the people she's dated. I will not be using their real names for obvious reasons.

First. I'm gonna tell you about Ichi. From the best of my memory Ichi didn't last overly long, and I was introduced to him probably far too early. I thought he was cool, he played guitar at church and was always willing to help me out, he seemed nice. But I was introduced to him too early, also was quite young at the time, so I can remember him in a good light. When I was older, significantly, I asked her what happened, and it turns out he was controlling, he wanted her to stay cloistered, and he tried to keep her isolated from the people around her. So needless to say, he was a douche canoe and I am glad he's not in her life anymore. 

Second, I guess I have to talk about Ni. He was in our life the longest. I want to say it was about three and a half years we ended up living with him, I think, it was a significant amount of time anyway. He tried to be a replacement for an absentee parent. By the time he had entered my life I felt no need for a "father" my mom did a great job by herself. I should also mention at the beginning, pre-move in I was only a child, old enough to know I didn't need a "father" but young enough that I did get bratty and uncooperative, because he already had three kids at the time. It didn't really help that at the announcement of the impending move-in it was combined with my mom announcing that she was pregnant. But my brother did come out of their relationship, so that is a plus, but inversely he was verbally abusive, detrimental to my self-esteem at a pivotal time in my developmental life. Not to mention that if there was someone who could be considered a professional victim, it would be him. And very happily he is mostly no longer in our lives,

Third, would be San. San started a trend of my mom dating good guys. He was nice, had a good job, non-abusive, and an appropriate sense of humour. Needless to say, he was a good choice, the problem was that he had an only child around my brother's age, and since my brother was used to sharing my mom with me, and he did and still does have a relationship with his father, so it's not as though San was trying to fill that "void' in either of our lives. But that didn't change it, his daughter's unwillingness to share him, it having been a long distance relationship, and he wanting to spend more time with his daughter resulted in the crumbling of their relationship.

So, that's a thing I decided to share. But I hope that this doesn't dissuade anyone from pursuing a relationship with a single parent or single parents from dating. I feel like I should also mention that though I only shared stories of my mom's failed relationships, she is currently in a rather successful one and has been for several years. He is a wonderful man, so don't give up on looking for that someone special. 

Post Script: Sorry if this post turned out to be a bit of a downer. Was it a downer? I don't know. It had a bright ending so I think it was good, but I also wrote it but you know. This post was certainly longer than I had expected it to be. Also Ichi, Ni, and San are the Japanese words for one, two, and three. There is no significance in my choosing of their names.

Love, Lust, and Infatuation: and being able to identify them in yourself.

Preface: As you might be able to tell, there are certain things that I choose to write about more than others. And despite the lack of it in my life, romantic love is one of those things I quite enjoy thinking and writing about.

With it being so close to Valentine’s Day I thought this would be an excellent time for this post. Because, really if not now than when really? Well really whenever because Valentine’s Day is a crap day to celebrate, to quote John Green “If you need to be reminded to like your romantic partner, you’redoing it wrong.”

So let’s get on to it already.

As usual when I compare things let us start with definitions both current and past. Love as I have discussed before, is not the easiest thing to pinned down but, for this purpose let’s focus on romantic love. And the top dictionary entry for love is “an intense feeling of deep affection or fondness for a person or thing; great liking.” And originally it was derived from words meaning “desires”, or “it is pleasing”. But as we know Romantic Love is not a simple thing. These definitions leave a lot to be desired, they don’t explain how Romantic Love is not easy, and how “falling in love” is a myth because you don’t fall in love. Falling is easy, but love is not. Or how Romantic Love is a two way street, and that it takes two people for love, two people who are working equally for love to be. I should be clear about what I’m saying when I say work, I don’t mean some dead end minimum wage job that you hate, I mean it should feel like your dream job: fun, love doing it, not always easy but you learn from it, and it is something that you’re passionate about. If you feel all of the above about your relationship, it’s love plain and simple. And I will finish this with a quote "It’scomplicated. All this love shit’s complicated. And that’s good. Because if it’stoo simple, you’ve got no reason to try. And if you got no reason to try, youdon’t."- Adam Driver’s character to Daniel Radcliffe in What If.

Now on to Lust, and unlike love, lust is easy and simple. Lust is a base animal instinct. The definitions; currently lust is a strong sexual desire, whereas originally lust was desire, appetite, pleasure; sensuous appetite. (But do I really have to deeply explain lust? It’s not a hard concept to grasp. Tee Hee… hard. I know, I’m so mature). Pure and simple lust is solely sexual attraction. It is exclusively a physical feeling, and often a temporary one that can just as easily pass from one person you see on to the next. It can be a very fleeting feeling, and the smallest of things can make it disappear completely or even enflame it and make it burn even brighter. I am not trying to say that lust is a bad thing, but I mean lust by itself can be very much an empty thing, but also can be a very addicting thing. Lust combined with infatuation can be very potentially useful in leading to love. Lust as said in less simple terms is the wanting or desire to have sex with a specific person. Now I can’t say that list is absolutely necessary for good relationships, because of course then I would alienate any asexuals, that’s something I would not want to do. But lust is a human thing and what we choose to do with it tell us a lot about ourselves.

Okay, infatuation now. This is the fun one, well kind of, I like it. So the dictionary says infatuation is to be affected by an intense fondness or admiration, but originally it was closer related to a variation of foolishness, to be more precise inspire in someone a foolish romantic passion. Now I know what you might be thinking, that this dictionary definition sounds incredibly close to that one I attributed to love. But that’s wrong, because of course infatuation isn’t love, it is very much from love. Well, very is a bit of a stretch, but back on topic. Another way to put it that is easier to understand or convey, an infatuation is a crush. Simple enough concept to grasp, and unlike love, a crush is something what you can fall into. They are easy, sometimes uncontrollable, and can happen in a split second (not necessarily a literal split second). Now I know what you’re thinking, but aren’t you supposed to crush on the one you love, and you’re absolutely right. But the thing about crushes is that they can very much be one sided, you can have a crush on someone and them not return those feelings. There’s also the unknowingness of a crush because of course logic dictates that if you have a crush on someone and they also have one on you as well you both know about set crushes that something will happen between you two (in a perfect world that is). But then you also have to take into account that you can a) have multiple crushes at a time, and b) the crush lives on an intensity spectrum and if you imagine the spectrum as a wave the crush surfs it quite regularly. Now, ideally you’d want to match your crush’s’ position on the spectrum, and along with your partner grow its intensity to the point where it becomes love. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out and heartbreak occurs. Yes, heartbreak isn’t exclusively related to love, it very much can happen with infatuation but with smaller impact, you know, less lives ruined and blood shed spanning years andcontinents.

There it is, Love, Lust, and Infatuation. Because if we didn’t have important words for things where would we be.  It also certainly helps knowing when the right opportunity to use these words is, and this is of course because the words we choose to use say a lot about who we are. Now normally I wouldn’t choose to commemorate Valentine’s Day because it is a pointless tradition, but it does make people happy, and I’m not one to squash other people’s happiness. But as I quoted in the beginning, “If you need to be reminded to like your romantic partner, you’re doing it wrong.”

Post Script: You see that, two weeks in a row, now isn’t that just something. If I can just have the time to finish the rest of the half-finished ones I’ve started because I don’t really want to post just fluff.

Funk, no not the music.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, birthday people and not birthday people. Not birthday people don’t make a big deal out of their birthdays, after all it’s not about an accomplishment. Birthday people are the exact opposite.” – Emily Owens M.D.

I have been both a birthday person and not one. But recently this day has not been my favourite day, which I have come to believe it a little odd-ish for someone of my age, and it actually has been like that for the past couple birthdays. I’m thinking that the early onset of this day is regret and looking back at how little I feel like I’ve accomplished.

I know 25 isn’t that old in the grand scheme of things but as the day draws closer I can’t help but think about it. And in all honesty it’s not even about my birthday, not exactly anyways.It’s just that I’m seeing all these people my age starting their own families then there’s me, I don’t know how to meet women let alone have any hint at if they would even be interested in me romantically. It’s not even that I think I’m ready to start my own family it’s that I’m not even close, I have not romantic prospects, absolutely none. And I think it’s just as hard that I don’t even have a simple crush, besides nostalgically or on a celebrity in years.

Above in italics is a perfect example of why I don’t post nearly as often as I would like to. Sometimes my writing gets away from me, now usually this isn’t a problem because I end up on interesting tangents but sometimes I find myself in a bit of a funk and my writing ends up being whiney, complain-y, and all woe is me. Truly, that is not at all what I am wanting to post on here so it frustrates me to no end when that’s all that my writing ends up producing.

Now normally I don’t let it get that far and just choose to close my notebook and give it time. I’ve also let myself write dark to get it out, but more often it’s just small bursts like this. But I think that’s how it is with everyone you want all the good and none of the bad. But I mean sometimes you need the bad to just show you how good it is when it is good.

So when you find yourself in a funk whether it writing or whatever I’ve found that there are usually two ways of dealing with it. First being to push through it; break through the wall that is funk with perseverance. Second is to give it time, in the same way that “Time heals all wounds” time tends to break funk down. But they both have their own advantages and disadvantages, it’s different for each person, and it’s even different for each situation. For me, as may seem obvious I tend to lean towards the give it time option, hence the breaks between posts. But then I don’t really try to push through, but that’s because when things get frustrating I just tend to switch to a different project.

With that I do thank those of you who regularly check this blog for updates, and those of you who read when I do post

Post Script: Happy New Years, plus one month. This winter has been weird, as I am finishing this it is the 1^st of Feb and as of so far there hasn’t been snow. And I live in Canada. It’s weird.