how do you approach thhe dating thing?

[herbalshakti]

Ok. So I have decided that casually meeting and possibly dating men might be a good thing for me. I recently met a super hot guy at a bar (he was the bartender and owner) I made the mistake of leaving my credit card there as I had a open tab. He asked me for my number before I left and sure enough he texted me to let me know that I had left my cc there. I feel a bit awkward, because it appears that he also looked me up on facebook and since I am not super acquainted with fb my privacy settings were not in full force. He very likely saw pics of both my kids and my x and I. I feel a bit emabarssed, I should have been more on top of updating things like that, I don't mind that he saw my kids though I would have liked to tell him first, I feel mostly weird about him seeing my x and I together. He obviously, has interest in me but now I feel like I decieved him somehow. Im gonna see him in the next day at the bar to pick up my cc and I don't know what to say!! Im 27 and he's about 4 years older. I co-parent and so I have a good amount of freedom but I don't want to appear so desperate. How do I be clear about my freedom and not wanting a father for my kids (they have one already) without sounding desperate? I ask because I feel that because he found out these details of my life I now need to explain myself. thoughts please?

[la mamita]

I have dated casually; I was very up front about having a kid, because it's not typical for my age/peer group. Nothing serious ever happened during my casual dating period, so I never had to deal with introducing my kid to a new partner. Everyone was cool with it (I did some online dating because it's not that easy to meet queer women which was my 'target population' and that was great because I could screen people out and be pretty open about myself and what I was looking for before even meeting them).

Until I met my current partner, where I was not dating him initially, just rekindling a friendship, but it turned serious fast and we're now living together and engaged. My son has taken to him fabulously and met him a few weeks after we started 'going out'.

I do have full custody and my son's father is not super involved, so my situation is a little different...my parents are very involved, so I do have an extra set of hands for babysitting, and I don't think a kid 'needs' a father, so I'm not trying to replace anything by getting involved with someone new. I have close friends who take care of my son a lot and who are like family, so he has experience with other adults in a caregiving role, so it's not weird that my new partner has taken on that role as well. Just another big person who loves him.