The Dating Dad

Perspective, June 2004

Dating stories are social currency, especially with our married friends. Our tales of horror, humiliation and, worst of all, utter boredom, reassure them that they're on the right side of the life cycle curve — that dating is hell and thank goodness they don't have to deal.

The good, the bad, ...
But, you know what? I love dating. Most of the time, it's really fun to meet total strangers and look for points of intellectual/cultural/experiential overlap. Sure, the logistics, the choice of clothing and venue, and the emotional investment, even for a blind date with a total stranger, can take their toll. And for every really good date, you probably have three to five mediocre to miserable ones. But -- and here's this month's take-home message — the bad dates are just as important and worthwhile as the good ones.

Stop swearing and stay with me, because this will all make sense by the end of the column.

I snuck out of the office last week to grab a chai with a buddy I hadn't seen in a few months. Jen has had a bad time of it — she's in her mid-30s, got out of an unhappy long-term relationship a couple of years ago, can't seem to find a guy who stays sweet after they've been going out for awhile. She has that "I should just cut my losses and stop dating" vibe when she talks about being single. Every new date for her has become a lesson in disappointment. She couldn't understand how I could derive so much pleasure from being on the scene.

Of course, I have been married and I have a child, and dating is still a novelty, so meeting someone new doesn't have the same urgency for me that it does for my 30-something female friends who have never married or had children. I'm not actively looking for my soul mate or someone with whom to start a family. If I end up with a girlfriend, great! But my life is not incomplete without one.

After we talked for a little while, though, and I explained to Jen that I go on dates expecting nothing more than a diverting evening, she began to see some personal value in my take on the situation. It provided her with a different way to look at the process.

See, it's all about expectations
It's easy to pin high hopes on the latest friend-of-a-friend set-up -- by all accounts (or at least those of your not-single friend, who, really, doesn't know either of you very well, and probably is just setting you up based on very little empirical evidence that you're right for each other), you two have a lot in common, and that picture on her web site is damned cute.

Your three and a half phone conversations went so smoothly, it was almost as if you'd spoken before. So you go on the date expecting to meet your next relationship. And then it turns out that she doesn't actually like to read, or that she's really not even a little bit attractive, or she's painfully boring, or she orders crazy customized meals, or has a tendency to smack her lips before she starts every sentence. And you sit there, in your own clammy discomfort, wondering how to bring the evening to a close. This is not your next girlfriend; what the hell was Sandy thinking? And your brain really takes off — you're wondering how to handle the check, if she's going to try to kiss you, if you could fake getting an emergency phone call saying that your daughter stuck a French fry up her nose, and now she's burping up mashed potatoes — and you have no idea what your date has asked you, so you nod your head absently and get a puzzled look…

But… wait. Why not show up expecting only this: an interesting evening and a story to tell?

See, the worst dates become the best yarns. And really, in the dating world, what are we besides our stories? I mean, not only do our narratives help our shackled friends feel better about their situations, but they make our lives more rich and interesting. The weirdoes, the blatantly incompatible, and the clueless troglodytes we meet in our quest for good company enrich our perspectives on the world. And they make other people laugh.

No, seriously! Think about it — what makes a better story to tell your best friend: the one where you talked and talked with the cute guy from accounting, or the one where your date showed you his colostomy bag over saag paneer and basmati rice?

So that's why I love dating, and why I even relish the rendezvous that don't go so well. Because, no matter how bad it is, you'll get a story out of it. In fact, the success of the date is inversely proportional to the quality of the story (and if the date is bad on an epic level and you still end up together, that's a prize winner!).

The point of all this is that you need to remember to keep some perspective when you go out with someone new. Enjoy it for what is really is — an opportunity to horrify and amuse your closest friends.

And when things get really ugly, just mutter this mantra under your breath: "This is going to be a GREAT freaking story."

Landlocked, May 2004

A couple weeks ago, I was offered a kick ass job in a kick ass city, for a kick ass amount of money. It was one of those professional and lifestyle opportunities where everything seemed to fit into place. I've had this dream of living in the San Francisco area, essentially since I moved away from Santa Cruz after college. I want to surf before work, even if it means wearing a wetsuit and booties year-round. I want to be able to order Indian or Ethiopian or Singaporean food to be delivered at 11 on a Wednesday night.

Dream job
I want to take Simone to tide pools, and play in the sand with her, and take her to the Museum of Modern Art for free on Thursday nights. She knows sushi and dim sum, she's a sucker for lamb saag — but what if she knew the names of dishes her schoolmates' families made? You know, stuff you never get in ethnic restaurants.

My littlest sister and her cool husband live in the city, my mom lives two hours away in Sacramento. I'd have back-up, company, support, free babysitting and Simone would have near-daily interaction with family.

So I was offered a plum job, and the salary would have been solid, even by Bay Area standards. I didn't interview for the position; my mentor called me asking for help. I offered to commute a few days per week, staying with my sis and brother-in-law, then working from home in Colorado the other days, so I could be with Simone. I had it all worked out — alternate weeks in Cali and Denver, traveling on, say, Wednesday afternoons. Sometimes, Simone would come with me, and I'd still be with her half the time. The travel would be wearing, but I do some of my best writing on airplanes, and the frequent flier miles would be unreal.

But the boss said she'd need me in the office every day.

I sent email to the ex, asking if I could take Simone with me, with the caveat that I'd fly back with her every second or third weekend. I had no expectation of acquiescence. I didn't get it. To her credit, Simone's mom recognized the opportunity of realizing my dream professionally and domestically, and she even offered to go to mediation, with the aim of my moving alone and being able to see Simone "once a month or so."

But I see Simone every weekday, because I take her to school in the morning, and we have our two nights per week and alternate weekends together. Rarely does a day go by when I don't interact with her for at least a few minutes. She's my favorite person, my partner in adventures, the most important relationship in my life.

I'm not moving to San Francisco, at least not for another 13 years or so.

It got me thinking, though. In many ways, divorce didn't result in freedom, but in constraint. The implications are enormous, maybe even bigger than I'd originally understood. If I meet the love of my life in, say, Helena, Montana, I can't move there to be near her (not that I'd necessarily want to move to Big Sky Country, but the take-home message is that I don't have a choice). I can't take a seven-day beach vacation (unless four-year-old is in tow) without intensive negotiation first.

I had to skip out on my favorite annual press event this year, because I couldn't find someone to back up Simone's mom on my custody days. I can't stay out all night carousing on a weekday, call in sick, and sleep in, because I still need to be at Simone's apartment by 7:10 in the morning to take her to school (make no mistake: that hasn't stopped me from going out on a Wednesday night and paying for my 2.5 hours of sleep all day Thursday). I've missed lacrosse games, critical film screenings, opportunities for exponential leaps in professional development, hot dates and killer parties. And I can't… well, you get the idea.

And you probably know where this is going, too. So let's skip the wordy transition, and get to the guts.

Here's what I do get:

   1. A pig-tailed, magical being running to me at seven every morning, not caring if my eyes are a real-time advertisement for Visine.
   2. Big laughs at all hours of the day (and night).
   3. Songs sung sweetly from the backseat of the car.
   4. Lessons on the nature of prehistoric sea reptiles and evidence that some of them bore their offspring live.
   5. An excuse to leave work early, or stay home on a Saturday night.
   6. A reminder every day of the joys and wonders that exist in my life, despite its unhinged, over-committed, silly, daunting, frustrating, near-tragic, and sometimes frightening, nature.
   7. A guaranteed weekend wake-up call, followed by snuggles, cartoons, wrestling and giggling.
   8. A cell phone loaded with pix of the girl who fills my heart to the point of pain.
   9. A fridge covered in photos of happy times and artwork that seems to get less and less abstract every week.
  10. A sense of vulnerability that colors every action I take — in love, in play, in dreams and nightmares.
  11. A palpable, concrete reason NOT to get too wild, not to make stupid decisions, not give up or give in or grow up (much).

So, you know, it's a tradeoff. Hip, jet-setting lifestyle versus endless array of humbling moments, and emotional rewards beyond measure. Hangovers that last three days versus rambling discussions about the nature of cat puke. Lonely, desolate mornings where finding life's meaning seems unlikely vs. being awakened by a version of the theme to Power Rangers Dino-Thunder that no one else has ever heard. Sane versus silly, scandalous versus salubrious, simple versus strenuous…

Who am I fooling?

I'd better go mow the lawn before Simone gets home. We have plans to blow bubbles in the backyard until it's too dark to see.

Manipulation, April 2004

An early start
Don't you think not-quite-four is too young to start active manipulation of the adults in one's life? I mean… isn't that supposed to wait until, I don't know, the pre-teen years?

Simone rarely seems to struggle with splitting her life between two households. When her mother first moved out and we worked our way through the new life schedule, my daughter often seemed to handle the transitions better than her parents did. Her mother and I had to work out all kinds of logistics the hard way -- snacks before the switchover, what happened when there was inclement weather or bad traffic, how to not talk business during the switch.

There was too much anger between us to stay terribly civil whenever we saw each other, which happened almost every day. It was easy to push each other's buttons, and I know my ire was just below the surface. So being kind, or at least polite, to each other while passing our daughter between us was a struggle at first.

Like the time the ex put Simone in my car at dinnertime with a bag full of popcorn. I took it away as we drove off, which was ill-advised. But my bigger mistake was calling my former wife on the phone from the car, with Simone wailing in the background, to tell her how angry I was. The better choice would have been to send an email later, but this was early on, and I was too strung out and angry to think things through.

Anyway. Simone has always done pretty well transitioning from one parent to another. What I didn't realize is that she has found sneaky ways to thrive on the disconnect between her parents and the other adults in her life.

The sneaky four-year-old
Here's what happened a couple of months ago. I take Simone to preschool every morning. If I have her the night before, I get her up and fed and dressed and in the car (oh man, I'll save that fun for another column). If her mom has her, I drop by and pick her up on my way to work. Then we alternate days taking her home in the afternoon. So if Simone had a toy in the car, and she wanted to keep it for the afternoon drive back, we'd put it in her blue Hello Kitty backpack, where it would ostensibly remain until the end of the school day. The problem was that Simone couldn't forget about her parasaurolophus or Komodo dragon or My Little Pony. After many notes and phone calls from her teachers, we finally got the message and stopped sending toys to school. That was last fall.

In January, Simone started telling me that her teachers said it was okay to bring a toy in the blue backpack, if she was getting it from her house to her apartment or back. It sounded perfectly reasonable, so I started allowing it to happen.

Then we had parent-teacher conferences in February.

As a former teacher, I can relate countless horror stories of split-families and the merriment we'd have at conferences -- the parents who'd snipe right there in front of their children, the ones who'd insist on separate conferences, or, best yet, the parents who'd bring their new spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends/live-in lovers/hetero life partners along. Now that was a party! Simone's mom is still a teacher, so we see eye-to-eye on how to handle conferences. Still, hanging out in the same room with the ex isn't terribly fun.

But the teachers seem to love Simone, and they told us right off how happy and well-adjusted she is. They said that Simone knows we both love her, and is great with her classmates.

Of course, as a former teacher, I also know when I'm being set up for the big kablammo. "But, please don't send toys to school anymore. They're too distracting for her, and she screams if we try to take them away."

I smiled, a bit perplexed, but started to see the bigger picture. I explained how Simone had told me that her teachers said it was okay to bring toys if she was transporting (Simone's word) them from one home to the other. My former spouse agreed that she'd heard the same thing.

That's when the teachers looked at each other and shook their heads ruefully, the hint of grins on their faces. Apparently, Simone had told them that we said it was okay to bring toys to school for the same reason. We all had a good laugh over it, and I felt a guilty sense of pride that my pig-tailed daughter had managed to get her needs met. It's a good survival skill.

But it kind of frightened me, too. If you're a parent, you're probably shaking your head and thinking, "Boy, Eric, are YOU in trouble!" If Simone is capable of playing adults against each other at four, what will life be like when she's 16? I'm not talking about the usual stuff that even happens in fully-functioning nuclear families ("But Mom said I could!"). I'm thinking she'll, like, convince her mom and me that the chief paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science said she could take trilobite fossils home from the lab, or that her teachers said it was okay to do a research project on the effects of playing violent video games in the presence of potted plants. And I don't even want to think about slumber parties. Oh, and worse, dating.

Living in two homes will allow Simone to bend more rules and find more loopholes as she starts to realize the possibilities. This means that my ex and I will have to communicate more often and in more detail as Simone grows older.

Great. I'm already losing sleep over it.

Dichotomy, March 2004

I wonder if the dichotomy ever goes away. The last fourteen months have delivered some of the best and worst times in my life. Being single again is, by turns, a new adventure and a lonely slog. Despair and outrageous optimism can come so close together, I couldn't tell you where one ends and the other begins. Being a single parent means huge rewards; my daughter and I get concentrated time with each other -- we share new experiences, develop our own ways of communicating, have our private jokes. But it's also painful and difficult at times to live without backup -- 2 am puke sessions; navigating a crowded airport carrying the car seat, the backpack, the coats, the daughter; getting Simone up, dressed and into the car by 7:15 each morning.

But the dichotomy is, for me, the most difficult part of being a single dad. It's when I’ve had an amazing weekend with my daughter — a trip to the zoo, home-cooked dinners or goofiness at the sushi bar — but I'm still looking forward to the date I have scheduled for 6:30 Sunday night, just an hour after Simone's mom has picked her up. It's that feeling, at 5:15, of being both thrilled to get the night off (and I can be pretty strung out by the end of a Simone weekend), but depressed that our time together is ending.

Simone weekends are great, and off-duty weekends can be spectacular. But the dichotomy is always there. I'll be out and it'll be midnight on a Friday, and someone will ask me how Simone's doing. Suddenly, I'll feel the emptiness of not having her with me. And I'll feel guilty for being out having a good time when I should be pining away at home for my sweet kid. Or at least washing her sheets.

Does that go away? Being a single dad seems to be the best, and the worst, of both worlds. I get to go out carousing, but I don't get to see my daughter whenever I want to. I don't have to go home some nights, but if I do, the house is an empty carapace -- no laughter, no snuggles, just a guy with a headache and smoky clothes.

What I've decided to do is try to maximize the time I do have with my daughter, so I feel less guilty when she's away by:

1. Banishing the laptop from the dining room table. It's okay for me to watch the latest Homestar Runner short or catch up on email while I eat frozen French fries and carry-in KFC by myself. But when the girl's home, and I've already lost a half-hour cooking up a healthy dinner while she watches Kim Possible, it's ridiculous for me to check to see if some new, wonderful, beautiful, e-mail-savvy woman has dropped me a line. It can wait until Simone's in bed.

2. Leaving work 10 minutes earlier so I can stop at the grocery store before I pick her up at school. Yeah, it's always fun to go tearing down the aisles with Simone in the cart, and she does a good job of picking the ripe pears, but that time would be better spent in the Big Blue House wrestling on the floor or reading a book together. Which leads to

3. Resisting the urge to park Simone in front of Prehistoric Planet after a long day at work, and eating dinner in front of the TV. Unless it's one of those weeknights where I'd been out until 2 am, got up at 6, picked her up for school and worked a whole day, I should have enough reserves to keep Simone entertained without the aid of the television. Sometimes a picnic dinner in front of a flick is okay, sure. But it shouldnt happen too often.

4. Read that "one more book." Simone's in bed, blankies tucked around her, we've read four picture books, and she says, "Daddy, read one more, please?" Hell, I love Arnie the Doughnut. Of course I'll read it again.

5.No distractions during the last hour of the weekend. I will not "just send one quick" e-mail. I will not send a text message. I will not talk on the phone. I will only watch football if Simone's sitting with me on the couch, knocking back popcorn and Doritos.

The problem is, no matter how much I try to follow the above resolutions, there are still times when I feel like a crappy dad. A short time ago, I had to get a sitter for Simone so I could catch the one screening of Starsky & Hutch. Normally, I stick to screenings on my off nights, so I can have my weeknight Simone fixes. But UnderGroundOnline was depending on me for the review, and, hell, I wanted to see the film. So I picked Simone up at school, we grabbed her a Fazoli's kids meal to go, and we played at home until the sitter came over. Then I set up Lion King 1.5 on the DVD player, put Simone's dinner out on a little stool in the family room, and gave the sitter the scoop. When I urged Simone to be asleep by the time I got home, she asked if I'd come in for a little snuggle. I assured her I would, kissed her goodbye, and slipped out the door, waves of guilt chasing me into the garage.

When I got home, she was, indeed, asleep. And after paying the babysitter and turning off some lights around the house, I debated on whether to risk waking her up by climbing onto her bed. But when I looked in on my daughter, her mouth slightly open, her room filled with the smell of her particular sleep fragrance, I couldn't resist. And the best thing happened: She woke up enough to say, "Oh, Daddy!" and put her arms around me. Then she was asleep. I snuggled her for a few minutes, kissed her warm cheek, and snuck out of her room. My conscience wasn't clear, but I felt a little better.

There must be a way to take joy in the moment. Do single parents ever get used to it? Can you be psyched to get your time away without feeling that pang of guilt for being happy? Can you miss your child but still enjoy yourself? Is it okay to count down to the next off-duty weekend, but still take pleasure in the parenting time until then? I'd love to hear how other single parents deal with the dichotomy. Drop me a line!

Rules for online dating, Feb. 2005

I used to be embarrassed about the fact that I was dating women I'd met online. Actually, I'm still uneasy admitting it. Invariably, someone will ask, "Where'd you guys meet?" And then I have to a) suffer dubious expressions highlighted by raised eyebrows and/or b) defend the idea. I'm not a champion for online dating services, but I have been on more dates with women I've met on nerve.com or Jdate (the premier Jewish pickup place) than I have in other places.

It's a function of logistics (half-time parent, full-time working guy, overtime freelancer) and knowledge of my own limited communication skills (kick ass writer, smart in discussions, terrible at small talk). I do much better wooing a woman via email than trying to maintain a conversation in a smoky bar.

Tips for single parents
So, here are my rules for single parents trying online dating:

1. Don't depend on it solely, because you'll be disappointed. Sure, checking the personals can be a great way to filter out the ones whose lifestyles and/or predilections don't match yours. If you're a single mom who loves cranking up Jane's Addiction and eating hot Krispy Kremes in the car after you drop off your daughter at preschool (and, if you are, write me!), you might not have a bunch in common with the silver-haired cellist who keeps all food items separated on his dinner plate.

But, photos are deceiving, and we all should tacitly admit that chemistry comes as much from physical attraction as it does from intellectual compatibility. There are guys out there whose online photos are 10 years old, and when you meet them, though they may be nice enough, they've put 50 pounds on their butts and bellies, and their hair has migrated from their heads to their nostrils. At least, when you meet a new person in context (bar, place of worship, grocery store, workplace), you can establish the physical part right away. If your brains aren't in the same place, at least you won't feel shallow when things don't work out.

And there are some real dangers that you're going to miss something and end an email-spawned romance too early. Dating situations that begin online are the lab-grown versions of free-range relationships -- early signs of potential incompatibility become deal-breakers when a person hasn't had a chance to grow on you over time.

My best friend is dubious of my online adventures, because he worries that I may meet the right girl, but one of us will say something stupid early on and mess the whole thing up. We won't have the same sense of shared experience we might if we met in a more natural context over an extended period of time. There won't be that foundation of "Oh, I couldn't stand him when we first met, but I realized after the third or fourth time we spoke that he's really quite charming." It's a point I'm prone to ignore -- you know, if the sparks aren't there on our first date, why meet again? But the truth is, as my sister says, we send "representatives" of ourselves out to first dates and job interviews, and, with blind/online-initiated meetings, there's not the same chance to get beyond those facades and fall in love with the real person.

2. Always get a picture (AGAP). I once met a woman on the faith of her phone voice and a few short e-mails, thinking, "How bad could it be?" Oh man.

3. Meet as soon as possible. I would be the first to admit that e-mail romance is heady stuff. If you're a half-decent writer, if you're always online, if you're a slave to text messaging, you know it's fairly easy to develop relationships with little or no face time. If I ever write one of these articles after two or three Guinnesses, you'll learn of the way I was drawn into something and figuratively smacked off my chair at the final revelations. But that's another story.

The thing is, if you find yourself falling for a smooth e-mailer who's funny, romantic, obviously well-informed and likes all the things you do, you're only setting yourself up for the big smackeroo when you see her at your meeting place before she sees you, and wonder how quickly you can end the date. There are wonderful men and women out there, who do terrific e-mail, but turn out to be not your type. Meet, figure out if anything's there, then get into the hot and heavy text.

4. Speaking of meetings, don't, if you can help it, just meet at Starbucks. First, lattes, though delicious, aren't great for the breath or speaking voice. Second, you have to deal with the "who pays" question way too soon. Finally, as tempting as it is to "meet for coffee," you voluntarily place yourself in the conversational compatibility crucible, and will most likely end up asking each other questions like, "So, where did you grow up?" and "So, what's your favorite movie?" Blech. Meet with something to do, or even a minor goal in mind. Window-shop or laugh at people together at a mall, or tool around an art museum on a Saturday. You need an activity that allows you to react to your surroundings, so the pressure is off non-stop talking. Do. Something.

5. You know this already, but leave the kids out of it. As great as your first date goes, as sure as you are that you two will stick with each other for a while, give it some time before you get "the kids" together. Remember, if you find yourself bonding quickly, your young son or daughter will be like Super Glue to your Elmer's. And if your new significant other has kids too, your offspring might make an even bigger connection to them.

And, though I believe in the theory "the more friends, the better," it's not fair to allow your child to develop attachments that you might find yourself unable to maintain. All single parents are aware of this, of course, but we still have the propensity to slip when a new person comes into our life after a drought of satisfying assignations, and connect too quickly, and lose all sense of perspective. When only your own heart is at stake, it can be worth the risk. But take your time before inserting your child into the experience.

6. Keep things in perspective. It's only a date! Have fun, and remember that, even if it's a terrible rendezvous, you'll have another killer story to share.

The First Column, Jan. 2004

Worst-case Scenario
When my marriage started to head south in the fall of 2002, I could only focus on two things — how my two-year-old daughter would fare in the aftermath, and how I'd get along myself, back in the world of dating.

In fact, at my lowest moments of self-pity, my worries were intertwined into worst-case scenarios that made the rest of my life look bleak. The way I saw it, there were two possible outcomes. The first would be that, after awhile, I'd find a woman who'd relieve me of my fear of remarriage, or at least be so incredibly perfect that any fear I had would be surmountable in favor of the potential long-term effects. The problem would be that Simone would become a step-child to this woman.

It was bad enough imagining that my soon-to-be-ex-wife would find another male role model to help to raise my sweet daughter, but to imagine Simone forced to straddle two families, two bedrooms and two sets of step-sibs was almost more than I could take. Would she feel affiliated with either family? Would she feel like either place was home, or that she was merely a guest?

The other scenario was that, being a single dad, now gun-shy of the idea of a forever commitment, I'd end up 68 years old and still alone, that sad guy who shows up to family and near-family gatherings, reluctantly invited, who drinks too much, tells boring stories, and smells of beef jerky and Bengay.

I remember telling my best friend of my two possible impending futures. We were riding in the car after a Colorado Mammoth game. At the end of my depressed monologue, he glanced over at me, opened his mouth, closed it again, looked back at the road, looked at me, shook his head, and gave me the middle finger. It was nothing less than I deserved.

Separate ways
A short time later, papers signed, my wife found a two-bedroom apartment not far from our south suburban home. Over the course of a weekend, while I took our daughter on a short road trip to my father's house, she and her mother moved half of our worldly possessions to the new place.

We'd read picture books with Simone, and had prepared her for this day, so she was more excited than upset to walk into the empty family room after our six-hour drive from Albuquerque. Her mom showed up a short time later, to take her to her new bedroom for the night.

But it was a tough moment for me. I'd spent the weekend, including two 500-mile drives, with my bundle of joy, and suddenly her laughter was gone. Silence in my big empty house. I was no longer a full-time daddy.

Also gone were the leather couches, the big-ass TV, the queen bed (the full guest bed had been moved to the now bereft master bedroom), and sundry other items I wouldn't notice missing until I needed them days or weeks later. We'd agreed, mostly, on the separation of stuff, but it wasn't real until that moment, when I could see the ghostly imprints of the furniture in the carpet.

I opened a Guinness and wandered around the house for a few hours, not really sure what to do next.

And though Simone seems to be adjusting well to her new living arrangement, I'm still learning the rules and conventions of the life of a single dad. The last 10 months since we signed our papers have been fraught with comedy and embarrassment, near-misses, loneliness, unexpected joys and a few satisfying close encounters.

But the stories. Most are much more fun in the retelling than they were in the experience.

The new girl
There's the first time I invited a woman home to a Friday night dinner with Simone and me. It was sixth months after our marriage had ended, and my daughter had yet to meet someone I was dating. As far as she knew (if she thought about it at all), when she was with her mom, I was at home or work, spending too much time on the computer, or not cleaning, or going to film screenings.

But I'd been out a few times with the new girl, and dinner would be our only chance to hang out together that weekend. So, I invited her over.

Andrea and Simone seemed to hit it off right away, so they colored together at the dining room table while I prepared dinner. My daughter did get a little silly at times, throwing a crayon or pretending to bite it, but all was relatively quiet. The two went off to play in another room, so I set the table, finished cooking, and called to them to wash their hands while I put food on the table. Simone didn't want to stop what she was doing, and that's where the fun began.

Have you ever been to a meal with a strange family and the kids started to act out? You sat quietly, uncomfortable, averting your eyes until it was resolved. Suddenly, I was having a rare verbal tussle with my daughter in front of company. I felt self-conscious reasoning with a histrionic three-year-old.

What would this woman think? Would she ever want to hang out with the two of us again? When I finally got Simone's hands washed, it was another struggle to convince her to sit down at the table. And that's when she thought it would be fun to knock her silverware on the floor.

After taking a deep breath and internally counting to five, I gently picked my daughter up in my arms, and took her to her bedroom for a time-out. She screamed, she cried, she made me think I'd never be able to bring a woman home again. I told Simone to call me when she was ready to be polite at the dinner table, closed her door, and went downstairs to apologize to Andrea. She didn't seem too troubled by it, but I could almost see the pot roast I'd cooked getting cold, could almost smell the fresh asparagus turning from spring emerald to steamed green. Simone was calling, so I headed back upstairs. She was ready to come down.

To lighten things up a bit, I tossed my little girl over my shoulder, and brought her downstairs upside-down (if you're a parent, you already know what comes next). We were both laughing together by the time I got her to her chair. She stood on the cushion, getting ready to sit down, when she threw up all over herself, the dining room chair, the table. The more fluid parts began to make their viscous way down to the carpet.

Here's what went through my mind in the first milliseconds:

1. Oh, my poor baby, better get her to the bathroom!
2. It had to happen tonight. I can't wait to tell this story.
3. I'm never going to have a girlfriend.

I conveyed Simone to her upstairs bathroom, and held her hair back as she vomited another time into the toilet, then removed her soiled clothes, brilliantly pulling her shirt over her head and getting chunks stuck in her hair. I stripped off my shirt, picked up my tiny, naked, whimpering daughter, and ran downstairs.

"I'm sorry," I said to Andrea, "I need to take Simone in the shower." I waited for this new girl to say something like, "Well, you have your hands full, I'd better go." But she just nodded, so I turned toward the staircase.

A beautiful mess
Then: "Hey, do you have any upholstery cleaner for the chair? I already took care of the carpet."

I may have cried later, but I didn't at that moment. It was one of those times of pure magic -- I'd expected this younger woman to make a quick escape, but instead she was cleaning my daughter's gastric exhalations out of the crevices of the dining room table. I'd been through half a year without backup, making discoveries about the easiest or best way of maintaining a house and being a parent by default (or miscalculation).

I'd fully expected Andrea to leave me to deal with the mess, the sick baby, the lonely house in the suburbs, my doubts. She'd asked a simple question, but, for me, it caused a momentary shift in my sense of the world, in the possibilities for a happy future.

I held Simone's warm body close to mine in the shower, calming her, and carefully untangled her hair. I made her laugh by gargling the hot water, and helped her rinse out her mouth. I looked at her open, trusting face, and felt horrible for the evening's events. I'm still pretty good at beating myself up.

Once she was toasty in her fleece pajamas, sitting on the family room floor with a big plastic bowl in front of her and A Bug's Life on the TV, I went back to the dining room to find Andrea.

"I'm sorry," I said. "What a disaster. Simone's parked downstairs, and I need to stay with her. So, if you want to go, I'll understand. I'm just going to put my dinner on a plate and eat it downstairs." I gave a wan smile, and braced myself for the answer.

She said, "Would it be okay if I stayed with you guys for a while?"

Andrea no longer lives in Colorado — she moved to the East Coast for law school last summer. But I'll be forever grateful for the way she treated me that evening. It was only my first foray into the emotional juggling act of the single dad's social life, but the lessons I learned and the optimism it bred have stuck with me.

That's only one story. Let me tell you about the time I was on the receiving end of a "Cyrano"-like e-mail deception.