Dating a dad

Hi, I am very interested in a guy that i work with and I think he may be interested in me as well. However he has full custody of his 8 year old and he recently made a comment about how he never has "adult time" since his child occupys all of his time. I'm not opposed to dating someone with a kid but I don't know if he would say yes to a date with me since he doesn't seem to have time to himself. Amy Advice?

Maybe he doesn't know that you are interested in him and if your intuition is that he may be interested in you then confirming this first will definitely let you know if there is a possibility. Raising a child alone is not easy and often single parents are so focused on doing a great job that they neglect their adult lives and the demands of parenting alone can be quite challenging sometimes. I say go for it and don't take his comment personally. He may very likely not have much adult time but for the right woman he may welcome the chance to change things. Don't give up before you try. Good luck!

If he made the comment about not having any 'him time' in the context of knowing full well there's a spark between you (and most men aren't stupid, they know darn well when a woman's interested), then he may well be giving you fair warning of what to expect, to make you consider things more deeply, as well as trying to test your reaction. Men are very good at asking what should be questions that expose their feelings and vulnerability under the cover of a statement. They push whatever button to see what type and volume of squeak comes back. So this statement, I reckon, was a question that went, 'Would my having little time and you having to always come second in the queue bother you?'. What exactly was your response? Aside from that issue, what about the fact you two work together? Do you suppose he's open to having a relationship with a colleague that he sees daily as a way of getting around the fact that his partner wouldn't see him that often outside of working hours? How fond of this job are you? What if things went wrong or outright "splat!" between you and he? Would or could this put your job in jeopardy?...even from your end due to, say, it being painful and/or embarrassing to have to see your ex all day every day? Why are you 'fishing' at work, anyway? No pickings in your social circle? Have you tried broadening your social life? Back to his unavailability warning: tread carefully because it COULD be designed to offer him the luxury of non-committal via starting as he means to go on (hoping the set-up will become a hard-set precedent). By this I mean, come however many months or years of you STILL feeling second in the queue and/or him STILL failing to provide all the requisite duties of a relationship partner, he would then be at total liberty to turn around and remind you that he not just never promised you a rose garden, but the distinct opposite. See what I'm saying? Really, if he already knows he has too little time for a relationship, WHY SEND YOU INTERESTED VIBES TO BEGIN WITH? Or why not pursue a woman in the same boat who'd be that much more inclined not to mind due to having the same agenda? Too many men who are still too fresh out of a divorce and daren't face the possibility so soon of potential repeat rejection and heartache, hide behind excuses to do with their kid/s. As I say, you might find yourself complaining that he's flaked out on you for the Nth time on a Saturday night or even your birthday night, only to hear him yet again coming back with something to do with his kid: kid's suddenly ill, kid's upset about something, kid won't settle, ex-wife has cancelled her custody weekend, "the bizc"... I've seen it happen to women a thousand times before. And it's very frustrating for them because - why, they'd have to be a RIGHT COW to dare question the validity of his kid-centred excuse, wouldn't they! Game, set and match to the man who wishes to protect himself by constantly keeping you at arm's length with the when and where and for how long of seeing you constantly in his exclusive control. And he MUST be fresh out of a divorce or else he wouldn't (- you'd think) still be making his kid his whole world like that. He'd be amicable with his ex whereby she was having their kid at her house more often than the court-ordered schedule as would leave him with enough adult time to himself, and he'd have a regular babysitter on call and/or a network of similar situationed friends/contacts who regularly shared the hosting of sleepovers, etc. Some men also think they can foist surrogate motherhood/nannying onto their girlfriends. Every date you and he have - kid comes too. What are you going to do - stand back uninvolved each and every time and expose yourself as a "right cow" THAT way? Or get involved until it becomes a habit and feels like an onus on your part? And you didn't say, 'I'd love to have a relationship with a man who has a ready-made kid'. You said you wouldn't be OPPOSED. That means, you'd tolerate it. That's all fine and good, but if the reason he (misguidedly) gives his kid non-stop attention is because s/he is still upset and vulnerable from his (I'm presuming) divorce, then the kid may resent you majorly for being on the scene and upsetting her already topsy-turvy world, and act-out accordingly (headache city). So either he's not yet adapted sufficiently to his new life set-up (which means neither is he back to being sorted emotionally) or/and he's presenting you from the word go with a cushy excuse to get given all the perks of a full-blown, full-time relationship on his terms alone, without having to do the work as earns them. You may THINK you wouldn't be opposed to dating someone with a kid, but I think you haven't really given it all deep enough consideration, beyond the simple fact of his looks and surface personality lighting your candle. Agree? And why wouldn't you want a freer and smoother relationship with a male who was your situational counterpart, anyway?

"If you do jump into this, keep it casual and see what's going on in his world. How about inviting him and his son to the next community fair or some event where you can see the dynamics of their relationship?" Good idea. And, BEE1179, try to meantime stay detached.