Single Mom on Match.com, Part I

I was a single mother from the day my daughter was born, during my senior year of college. I knew it would be that way, just the two of us.

Not that I didn’t try to work things out with my boyfriend, her biological father. Heck, I gave it more than the ol’ college try. I gave it way more time, patience and leeway than I would most relationships. I thought I owed her that.

I even thought I owed him that. Or maybe it was more selfish. I know I didn’t want him to ever be able to blame me for calling things off between us, or for being the cause of our little family unit being separated. If Mandy grew up not knowing her father, it wasn’t going to be my fault. I gave him every chance in the world to step up to the plate and be a responsible, contributing part of our relationship and her life.

It didn’t work out. He left us. And other than a few sporadic dialogues where he tried to use Mandy as some sort of pawn with which to try and get back at me, I never heard from him again.

I dated here and there. I even had two very serious relationships that I thought would lead to marriage. For one I moved across the country. For both I moved us in, and we functioned as a family unit. Both men loved my daughter with all their hearts. Neither relationship worked out.

My daughter was and still is everything to me. When she was four years old and entering pre-school, I decided that I didn’t want her to be adversely affected by a string of serious relationships that ultimately failed. I didn’t want her to feel as if one father figure after another was abandoning her.

So I swore off dating. Not that I was swearing off men, or loosing faith in finding someone out there that was The One for me. I hadn’t become jaded and bitter. I just decided to take a break and concentrate on being the best mother that I could be. I’m a secure and independent person. I’m not needy. I didn’t feel lost without a partner.

So it was just the two of us for the next 7 years.

But then Mandy entered the 5th grade. There were Girl Scout camping weekends and sleep-overs with friends. There were weekends when she was out and about, and I was home alone watching a movie.

I wasn’t meeting anyone in particular as I went out with friends or through work. What to do? Join a club? Take a class?

A friend at work suggested Match.com.

So I tried it. It seemed fun, kind of like shopping.

At the time, I was checking my email account about once a week on the weekends. During the week was just too busy with work, and then helping Mandy with homework, preparing dinner, bedtime stories.

By the end of the first week I had received some emails from potential suitors on Match.com. I didn’t have time to answer them all.

By the following week there were more. I started to make a list of those I had replied to and those to whom I still owed responses.

By the third week the list was longer. By the fourth week I gave up. If I can’t keep up with emails, I reasoned, I don’t have time to date. So I cancelled my Match.com subscription.

Somewhere in there, during that month, my future husband had emailed me. I had never replied.

And so I was single for another year.

I spent that year taking care of Mandy and focusing on my career. Oh, and getting out of that debt that is so easy to accumulate when you’re a single parent from a young age, with no financial help. That took a while.

When I felt like I was in a good place, debt paid off, career going well, Mandy entering into the 6th grade as a happy and confident young lady, I took stock of my current dating situation. Or more accurately, the lack thereof. I had nothing going on. No prospects. No nothin’.

So I decided to try Match.com again. Maybe this time I could keep up.

I found some interesting prospects. There were a few guys that seemed well-rounded, intelligent, and open to the fact that I was a mother. I even met one for coffee one afternoon on my lunch break. Sparks didn’t fly, but he was nice enough.

Meanwhile, after contacting me that first time, my husband-to-be had found someone to date and had left Match.com. He came back to it a year later, though, when things didn’t work out.

He noticed my profile and decided to try again...

Tomorrow... Part II.