Andy Garcia is the perfect man for me. He is charming, handsome, intelligent, sexy as all hell, and completely unavailable. Though I once saw him walk past as I sat drinking coffee in Café Trieste in San Francisco, I know that is the closest he will ever get to me. And I have to admit, that is part of his appeal. No power struggles over housework. No conflicts over money. No betrayals, no wounds, no scars. Just pure, unadulterated fantasy. The beauty without the cost.

As a single mom considering getting back into the dating world, I can say that real men don’t have all that much appeal. The thought of dating might become mildly interesting to me if I thought I could somehow replace the family I lost in the divorce. You know, give my daughter the father she needs and me the husband I deserve. The single mom fantasy.

But I know that’s not going to happen. As a child of divorce myself, I know from watching my parents that remarriage can’t recreate the lost family. Remarriage can create a new family, with new issues, new joys, new conflicts, but it can never be the original one. And the original one never really goes away. It just fractures. So, it becomes vitally important that anyone I bring into our lives be a decent addition to my odd family.

For this single mom, the question has changed from "is he good enough for me" to "is he good enough for my child?" I worry that I won't choose well. I was not known for selecting my men wisely when it was only me. Why do I think I could chose an appropriate man to be a father? I screwed that up the first time around. Do I really think I could do any better now?

The few times I have been out—alone--to a poetry reading or to sit in a café reading the newspaper like normal adult people do, I have rushed home, breathless, to put her in the bath and snuggle with her into sleep. That’s the best part of my day, and I don’t want to miss it. So, anyone who might join me on my forays into the adult world would need to understand that my night ends early. And that she comes first. Always. Who is going to accept that? Where would I find a man who doesn’t mind being second?

If I even decided to try to date, I know the question of where to find someone to date would be a big one.

I've had some nice offers, but as much as being a single mother, the whole being a professor issue also comes into play. We professors tend to be liberal, over analytical, and opinionated. My politics, my desire to debate, my need to be with someone who at least respects if not shares my views limits my options. I don't date Republicans in a state full of 'em. So, where does one find liberals? At the Univeristy, of course.

We professors tend to be more alike than different. We were the nerds, remember? We were the smartest kids in the class. Or the creative ones. Or the strange ones. Or the ones with the odd ideas. We have never fit in. And we don’t now. The general public just doesn’t understand what we do, and we face enough misunderstanding in the outside world that we often don’t want it inside our romantic lives, too. Like actors, we tend to date and mate with people like us.

Our tendency to become romantically involved with other professors narrows our choices a great deal, especially when we teach at a the one university or college in a small town. When I was single before, I made it a rule not to date in my own department, though the most interesting men, of course, were there. So that left men in other departments (mostly married) and the townies.

The townie thing just hasn’t paid off for me. I have discovered that a man who is with a woman with more education will, eventually, become insecure about his own intellectual status. At one party I attended years ago, a friend asked my date, "What is it like to be with a woman who is smarter than you?" The relationship went down blazing fast after that. So, I found I have educated myself out of much of the dating market.

Fortunately, that isn't a problem because I am not all that interested in dating right now. Of course, I am lonely. Of course, I would prefer to have romantic love in my life. But am I willing to give up the energy, time, and attention to my daughter that participation would involve? I don’t know.

So now I know why men prefer porn. No commitment, no responsibility, no entanglements, limited cleaning up. Me, on the other hand….I don’t want porn, per se, but I want fantasy. My fantasy; my way. You want to hear it? I bet you do.

But no way. This fantasy is mine, and like the secret birthday wish that is ruined when you share it, this one stays with me.

I revised this blog post into an essay you can now find at LiteraryMama.com.