In this world of divorces and various dating and life circumstances, there may come a point when you are going to have children and be dating. Contrary to what you may have heard, the two can mix.

What you need to realize with your children is that there are two rules to always abide by:

1. Always be honest.

2. Only tell them what they need to know.

Yes, when you’re starting to date again after divorcing their other parent, you want to make sure they know that while you’re seeing other people, this doesn’t diminish the role of their ‘actual’ parent.

Let them know that you want to enjoy spending time with another person. It’s not that you don’t love their other parent, but that you want to see others.

From there, going into detail about why you aren’t with the other parent is unnecessary. If the child asks, diplomacy is going to be the best advice, especially when your child is young. What you can also do is let your actions speak louder than words.

Be nice to their other parent no matter what.

Be nice to the new dates you have, and introduce them to your children.

Listen to your child’s opinion of your dates.

This doesn’t have to be a sticky situation. What you need to do is to not make a big deal out of this dating situation and simply show your children how happy you are because of getting out of the house.

And how happy you are with them as a result. Smooth sailing.

Breaking Up, Divorce, Family Children, Divorce, Kids, Married, Parents

The truth is that having a great car will certainly get you noticed but if you find that your date is actually judging you on your car….watch out.

That said, you don’t want to show up in a clunker either.

So, if you don’t have a Porsche (and how many of us actually do?), there are some ways to make sure that your date doesn’t recoil in horror when they see you pull up.

Get the car washed – Really, this takes only a few minutes of your time and it will certainly make it look like you care about your car and about how you look to your date.

Vacuum the inside out – With just a regular vacuum or one of the vacuums that they have at the local gas station, vacuum out the inside of the car. Take your time doing this and make sure that you’re removing all of the pet hair, dust, and dirt that might have built up.

Grab an air freshener – One of the little trees that you can hang in your car can help to make sure your car smells fresh – but don’t hang it from your rearview mirror. Put it in your car for the entire day before your date and remove it right before you leave for the date itself. That way, you’re not overpowering the car with ‘new car’ scent, but it still smells great.

While you’re saving up for a fancy car, you can make your car look as nice as possible. And hopefully your date will be focusing on you and not the price tag of their ride.

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Consequently, a lot of people are staying off line, but are also staying single.

The idea of background checks has become a popular selling point for sites like True.com.  By screening all of their singles, members of the site feel safer knowing that they are talking to the ‘real’ person they think they are talking to.

Or are they?

There’s a lot of discussion right now as to whether these background checks are actually all that effective.  After all, thieves and con artists thwart them in other situations, why is it so difficult to believe that they can’t slip past them here too?

Some people are crying ‘foul’ for these background checks as they generally are only a cursory check that doesn’t usually spot the liars.

But with potential new legislation making background checks necessary for online dating, is this combination of events setting up the online dating system for a fall?

If this legislation is enacted, more singles might come online, thinking that online dating is safer.  But since the checks are often meaningless, this might actually increase the dangers of getting online – more people = more problems.

In the next few years, this question is going to be something that people consider before searching for love online.  For if the checks in place aren’t really helping, then what’s the benefit to them?

Happy Valentine’s Day?

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