Excuse me. I’m a little late to this party, but…
What the holy fuck is wrong with you people?!?
“Oh oh oh! What about the children!!!” Gimme a fucking break. God forbid a grown man should want to get a little nookie every now and then. It’s not like he made the kid wait in a dark alley or something while he went barhopping. The kid was with his mother! Who is presumably a good parent, too. Hey, maybe Mom will want to do something on a weeknight sometime, and ask if she can drop him off at SHAKES’s place for the evening. Then I guess they’ll both be shitty parents. Someone call Child Services, 'cause SHAKES Jr. is obviously on a road that can only lead to hard time in the federal supermax!
And what’s with all this “oh, you need to give 100% of your attention to your son when you are with him” stuff. What? SHAKES shouldn’t be allowed to do the dishes? Take a dump? Bullshit with a friend on the phone for a while? Should he confine these activities to weekdays only? Believe me, the kid doesn’t want 100% of dad’s attention all the time! He probably wants some time to chill out and watch Scooby Doo and play with his Power Rangers or whatever it is that kids do these days. SHAKES is a parent. His job is to be a parent. It’s not to be a full-time entertainment machine.
Furthermore, it’s ridiculous that people are asking him to define exactly what he was ultimately looking for with this woman. Sounds like he wanted a hot date and to see how things went from there. That’s NORMAL!! That’s pretty much standard operating procedure for those of us who aren’t completely socially handicapped or insane. We don’t sit around obsessing over (or starting long and whiny IMHO threads about) the future of relationships that haven’t even started yet.
Speaking of which–there have been a lot of comments about the low quality of people that you meet in bars. Well, if you’re able to meet a person in a bar at all, that means that you’re there too, right? So either you’re also a low quality person yourself, or maybe there are all sorts of people who go to bars on occasion, and you can’t necessarily generalize.
And all of you people bragging on how long you went without dating for the sake of the chiiiiiillllldddddrennnn–you’re just playing the martyr. It’s pathetic. Or maybe you just can’t get laid, and you’re trying to make yourself seem noble instead of merely unattractive. And that’s also pathetic.
I mean, look at this guy:
[QUOTE=dmatsch]
That’s exactly what I did. Single father here. I didn’t date AT ALL for 11 years.
Only now that my daughter’s at the age where she wants friends more than her father do I find the time to have a girlfriend.
But that was just how I prioritized my life. YMMV.
[/QUOTE]
So he didn’t get laid for 11 years? Jeez, I’ll bet he was a great father! Uptight, edgy, and totally self-righteous. With a bad habit of playing pocket pool every chance he got. I’m sure his daugter really appreciates his “sacrifice.” I just really don’t get how not ever having sex could make a person a better parent.
This kind of thinking only leads to resentment. And a decade or more of frustration and resentment is far more harmful than an occasional evening apart.
I’m a healthy 36 year old woman. I need to have a sex life. And I don’t need to apologize for it.
Fortunately, I have a 50/50 joint custody arrangement with the ex, so it’s easy to work around the times I have with my son. And frankly, I get laid often enough already that I wouldn’t feel the need to rearrange my son’s schedule for a date with some new guy. But I can sure feel for single parents who aren’t quite so lucky.
So to all you self-righteous assholes who are piling on poor ol’ SHAKES for daring to want to go on a date with an attractive woman: Get a freaking life or something. Jesus!
p.s. Obligatory disclaimer for that one-in-a-thousand situation that someone is sure to come up with: If, for some reason, you having any kind of independent social life would have caused genuine harm to your child, then I applaud you. Okay?
