The Reason Behind "Operation Love Connection" Fail

Have you done your research on finding a love connection and learned that you find love "when you're not looking for it?" Are you still single, yet with your common sense realize that you're sane, loving and totally capable of handling a loving relationship? Good. Then you're not alone. Welcome to my world.


Have you been doing all the right steps in your "me work" and reflected on your own mistakes that led to breakups? How about following your passions, and yet, there you are, still single?
Yup. We are soul twins.
I even wrote a blog about how if you're sane, normal, can handle being social and open to love, you shouldn't be single.

Read the blog here.

Well, last night was an epiphany for me. As I was sharing my deep, profound and invaluable insight about love and relationships (okay, so I was venting about being single and lonely) with my teenage girls, my younger daughter who is going through a breakup for the first time asked me to stop talking about relationships.

At first I was p'd off. Then as reality sunk in, I realized that I do talk about it too much.

So, from that point on (sulking on my pillow in my bedroom), I wondered why I obsess about being in a relationship so much. Then it occurred to me: Having an emotional connection with a man is a need.

I've been so busy being a single mom that I wasn't living as a single woman.

Let me tell you something: Being a parent is hard work. Being a single parent is double the trouble, and twice as hard. Being a single parent of three kids with no support from an ex (at least physically with interaction) is exponentially a trifecta of hardships.

I admit that I made the mistake of hiding behind being a "good mother" for not taking care of my own social needs.

So as my dear, sweet "D" pointed out that hearing my relationship woes as she was going through her first breakup was not welcome, I became irate. How could my own flesh-and-blood turn on me when I've sacrificed being in a relationship, or worse, fell out of the dating world to make her happy?

Well, that's the clincher. If you don't respect yourself enough to meet your own needs, don't expect your kids to make up for your own neglect.

Seeing my young, teenage daughters in relationships was hard enough during the four years of singledom I've had since my divorce started. But this was a wake-up call. Although I've been burned countless times by online dating and realized it was wasted time, there's no excuse for not scheduling "me time" in my private life. In my epiphany, I realized, "what private life?"

To find love and make a connection, you have to schedule meeting people on your agenda. There's next to no chance of having serendipity come knocking on your door "when you're not looking," and have some great catch find you when you're locked away in your own single parent castle.

What was the epiphany I learned by being "shushed" by my daughter? I need to stop beaching (only spelled with an "it" instead of "ea" in the middle) and start taking action to become more like a single (and less like the self-victimizing single mom).

Self-pity is so unattractive, and not my style to begin with. From this day forward, I'll put my own needs on the calendar along with all the others. Otherwise, my kids will learn how to be a doormat in life, not the strong, independent and "grab the bull by the horns" type of person I want to become.

If you enjoyed reading this blog and would like to read similar articles from the author, or you feel like I've resonated in some way to your own situation, follow Sheila on San Diego Single Parent Dating Examiner.