Dating Again After Divorcing: On the Market

by Stacey Farrant

When the dust finally settles after the separation, and you think that you are quite content spending another Friday in with your two favorite guys Ben and Jerry, you discover that the cupcake-patterned flannel PJs you wore last Friday night are stained from the Cherries Garcia that comforted you through yet another depressing chick flick. It’s moments like these that make you get up, take the covers off the mirrors and decide – “tonight’s the night I shave my legs!”  You don’t know where you’re going or what you’re gonna do but by golly, you are not going to do it with stubble!

For some it takes months or years to get back into the game after a divorce or the end of a long term relationship.  But whenever you do, those dreaded three little words just haunt you, “on the market”!

I had raised three kids so when I heard those words, all I could think about was the nursery rhyme “to market to market to buy a fat pig, home again home again jigity jig”. Was I ready to be put out there like a prime piece of peameal bacon??

When you’re married, your partner knows your quirks, has seen the stretch marks and has heard you snore.  So now you have to find that one other “special” person that is willing to accept your imperfections all while trying to give the illusion that you are indeed perfect?  Who is this person and where do I find him?

What is the best way to let the guys know your “available” without wearing a sandwich board everywhere you go? Do you sign up for one of those online shark tanks, do you wonder aimlessly around the grocery store hoping that some nice single dad asks you where to find the J cloths?? The worst has to be the idea of Speed Dating, it has been so long since you’ve had a date…why do you have to rush it?

Now that you decide that it is time to date, what do you wear? The mom jeans and a hoodie only say “leftovers”. It’ time to go shopping!!!

The first stop…is the SPANX Kiosk!  Is there anything worse than holding up a piece of builder’s beige spandex sausage casing in front of you in the middle of the mall? Nothing on your body is where it used to be, so now you need to create that optical illusion that your still all that of a 25 year old.

I would say that $59.95 can buy you a lot of confidence… until that dastardly thing rolls up on you while you’re sitting down to dinner. Then you have that awkward panic overwhelm you as you think to yourself, “how am I going to adjust this and not have him see my muffin top at the same time”?

You suddenly feel like a bad scene from a sitcom, hoping that if you point at something in another direction you can create a diversion as you quickly tackle your undergarments as though you’re kid with a fruit roll-up at recess.

Ahhh the painful thought of putting yourself out there, the judgment the scrutiny, the giggling… and that’s just from your own kids. I remember asking my teenage son if he could see my underwear lines, he replied “guys dig them”. Why did my daughter have to be away at university just when I needed her keen sense of fashion that wasn’t that of a 16 year old boy?

Like everything else in life, it is the process that you must endure. I’m glad that I put myself out there. I have dated the good, the bad and the ugly to find out that there is that special someone out there for me.  Now I am very proud to say that I am officially “off the market.”

Stacey Farrant is the single mother of 3 teenagers, a career woman by day and a self-proclaimed DIVA whenever fighting grime, cooking dinner and running the car pool allows…. all while wearing a 6″ pair of stilettos. Follow her on Twitter.