By Arita Sysamout

One of the suckiest things about being a single parent is the single part. Until you have your “Eat Pray Love Yourself” moment in life to get you refocused. From every Disney movie to soap opera. It’s been engrained in our brains to believe we grow up, go to school, have a great career, get married, and live happily ever after.

No one can prepare you for when things don’t go accordingly. Just remind yourself that you are and always have been worth it and you can’t expect love from people that don’t love themselves. The good news is you don’t have to participate in the dating game! I’ve had times when my phone was drier than the Sahara Desert and also times when I would have been considered a serial dater. I’m not qualified to give relationship advice however, I do have some funny dating stories that I can look back and laugh at. That’s been my dating life for the last 10 years until I currently took myself off the market. I’ve decided to wait a while and come back out later as a Limited Edition.

Dating in general is hard, when you’re younger. We are still figuring out who we are and who we are becoming? Now imagine that, but you’re older with teenaged kids that find everyone so annoying. At this point in life you’ve figured out what you want or don’t need and who you’re looking for within a partner. It’s quite challenging.

In our thirties, the dating pool mostly consists of commitment phobic guys…. You know, the players for life that realized they want to settle down or other fellow divorcees. If I give it 10 more years, I’m sure the market will open up. No rush… We all have some kind of issues… The eventual hope is to find someone with compatible likes and issues for lifelong bliss. Or you can work on healing yourself and prepare for the day you get taken off the market. We are all scarred, traumatized people trying to live and love, myself included. I knew when I was questioning myself about “where I had been?”, I wasn’t ready for a relationship.

There is a sense of peace that comes with being single. I can watch what I want on Netflix all the time. Eat candy in bed, and also, we have time and permission to fall selfishly in love with ourselves. It helps to know who you are and what you deserve. I can spend my time doing whatever I want like I’ve always dreamed off.

I’m totally pro-marriage and encourage you to marry the one you can’t live without when you find them, just don’t let anyone, even yourself pressure you into dating when you aren’t ready. We want to believe the grass is greener on the other side. As a rep for the other side, I just wanted to say it’s not so bad as long as we keep it watered. I will enjoy my days running around with my perpetually annoyed teen because I know these days are limited. He grows faster than I can keep up and before I know it, he’ll be an adult and I’ll have all the time in the world to think about where I’ve been. Then I’ll have time to meet someone my own age to annoy.

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