Dating as a Dad...is dead?

So it may have finally happened. After several years of trying to navigate the dating scene as a single, divorced dad who doesn't look like Richard Castle - I think I've finally hit that quit point.

I've seen it happen to friends, single, young, old, male, female - it doesn't matter the details - sooner or later, they've given up. Stopped trying to find that person. Stopped asking, stopped searching, stopped expecting it to happen. And I always thought it was a bad thing.

I've always been a relationship guy. Historically, I'm at my most creative and productive when I have a significant other. Someone to share it with etc. Someone to want to impress. Someone to make proud. So I've always thought that I needed that to be at my best. Someone else.

The past few years have been a gold mine of stories, anecdotes, disasters and frankly just plain weird stuff. I've gone on blind dates. I've internet dated. I've tried to rekindle old sparks. I've met a complete stranger at a bar in Wisconsin that I later discovered was a house of ill repute. I've had some monumentally great nights and some nights whose details will never see the light of day.

But this week, I made a choice. It was like many of my choices, it was impulsive and poorly thought out. Yet it was a choice. I need to stop trying so hard. So I deleted my online dating profiles, which have proven to be a colossal waste of time on editing. I will never get back the minutes I debated whether I liked cats or just kinda liked cats or would be OK with dating someone who didn't like cats or had cats or a picture of cats playing canasta....but I digress. I made the choice to stop searching like a thirsty man in the desert hoping for an oasis.

Yes. I've heard a million times the old adage of "if you stop looking, that's when it will happen". But I grew up on Field of Dreams, so I'm going to focus more on "If you build it, they will come". 

So despite my historic understanding that I need someone to allow my energies to flow creatively, professionally, personally - I'm throwing relationshipi-ness to the wind and trying to build a better me. Even if that only means, I'm not going to look, search, hope for that missing piece as hard.

Plus giving up is the only thing I haven't tried. So maybe this is just my sub-conscience trying something new. :)