单身妈妈们想对约会对象说……

I've been a single mom for about four years now, and I can honestly say that it's changed me for the better. My dating life? 's a different story. While I haven't been on a ton of dates (because, hello, when do I have time for that?!), there are some things that are just too true about dating as a single mom to I'm sure all single moms can agree.

至今为止，我已当了4年的单身母亲，我可以很诚实的告诉你：成为单身母亲让我成为更好的人。我的约会生活？额……那就是个不一样的故事了。虽然我没有约会很多次（因为我哪有时间约会啊？！），但作为单身母亲有些事情太过真实无法让人忽视……我相信所有的单身母亲都会赞同我的观点。

1. Pretty much everything must be planned in advance.

1. 几乎一切事情都需提前计划好。

Remember those carefree evenings when you would go out on a date and you'd be able to let the night linger on forever - even if the date was mediocre - because you had nothing else to do? Yeah, those are the paleolithic years of my dating life. Now, I can't just drop everything that I am doing to hang out with a man for hours at a time. Outside of the usual and already time-consuming date night prep (like, you know, shaving my legs...), I have to make sure that my kid is well-cared for while I'm out, since I'm not the only person at stake here.

你可以外出约会，夜晚想待在外面多久就可以多久——即使约会对象很普通——因为你无事可做，还记得这些无忧无虑的夜晚吗？是的，这是我约会生活的旧石器年代。现在，我无法为了每次出去与男生约会好几个小时而放下手里的活儿。除了那些为了约会之夜所做的普通耗时准备（比如，你懂的，刮腿毛等），我还要确保自己出门约会的时候孩子被人照顾的很好，因为我不是唯一一个处境危险的人。

2. My time is extremely precious.

2. 我的时间尤为珍贵。

Children can take a lot out of you mentally as well as physically, so if there is ever a child-free moment in time, I typically prefer to spend it laying on my couch, binging on Netflix shows and drinking copious amounts of wine. But let's be real: There's most likely some serious housework that needs to be done. Yes, folding a pile of laundry is probably not as fun as going out on a date, but if it needs to get done, I'd rather just knock it out then go out with someone who might not be worth it in the long run at all. To that point, I really appreciate it when someone puts in the effort to try and make our time spent together well worth use there's nothing worse than thinking I could be doing laundry while I'm on a date.

孩子们会让你消耗太多的精力和脑力，所以如果孩子不在身边，我通常会躺在沙发上、看Netflix的电视、大口大口的喝红酒。但让我们现实点：很有可能我需要完成大量的家务活儿。是的，叠一堆衣服可能没有出门约会那么开心，但如果需要完成的话，我宁愿对其不理不睬然后与根本不值得厮守终身的人约会。对于这点来说，如果有人十分努力以让我们在一起的时光很值得，那我真的十分感激，因为没有什么比约会时我却想着本来可以洗衣服更糟糕的事情了。