life with kids

if there is one thing i have found out over the past couple of months, it's that dating with kids is a whole other beast than just dating alone. you have kid's schedules and working around that, and if the person you are dating has kids, that's another factor. either way, dating is hard enough without having to tiptoe around your kids and late night visits after bedtime. it's kinda funny, but it does take some getting used to. it used to be, for me at least, that if i started "dating" someone, it was almost instantaneous that we'd hang out ALL the time. you know what i'm talking about. like when one of your friends gets a new boyfriend/girlfriend, they are MIA for a month or so, sometimes longer. not so when you have kids. i was lucky to see the person i was dating once a week, if that. i think over the past 2 months we've only acually hung out together like 6-7 times. that's not a lot. i never really thought that dating could be more difficult than it was when i was single and childless, now i stand corrected. i guess i'll have to wait until my kids are in college before i can start dating again, it'd make it much easier, but by then, i'll be so engrossed in the daily routine of my life that i'll have a hard time with the adaptation of sharing my free time with someone else. and i'll be 45 years old and even more self-conscious than i am now. oh my, what will the future hold?