Dating will come when you are ready. Do not rush it. You need the time to heal, and get yourself on the path that you want to be. You are a good person, and will be presented with many opportunities for dating, and relationships. You do not want to take on extending yourself to others before you are emotionally, and mentally ready. You have to settle your prior affairs, and then you can start with a clean slate when the time is right. Having another individual in your life to offset loneliness is good, but can open up a new set of problems for you if you are not seeing things clearly and have unresolved issues from another relationship. Stay strong! Spiritreader!

I completely agree with you about not dating yet. Before I have always taken a couple of years off. It was just one of the million questions circling in my mind. Where do older people find dates?

I struggle with this, too, tammib. When my ex moved out, I tried dating online. It really exhausted me because I gave so much of myself away. But, I went out with men who didn't want all of me. I'm too old for the bar/club circuit and don't really participate in activities where there are single people. I've tried church, the supermarket, etc., but I FINALLY realized that the only thing preventing meeting people was me. Spiritreader is on point by telling you that you have to be ready on all levels. I thought I was, but I wasn't. Now that I have taken the pressure off of myself to meet someone, I can focus on truly healing.

If you feel you're truly ready, there is a website called Meetup. This is a website that lists activity clubs in your area. It's not a dating site by any means, but there are all kinds of groups who have different activities. This would be a start. You can also see if there is a local Parents Without Partners group in your area. These are nice people who meet socially once a week at a restaurant, etc., and just hang out to talk.

I wish you the best.

If you think you are too shy for internet dating you may find yourself in the grocery story stumbling through "Hi, um...do you know where the numbers are and can I have your chips?" :)

Seriously though....all the advice here is good advice. Personally, I think a dating site isn't a bad way to start. NOT because you'll find good quality men there (you might) but it gets you started with communicating with men again. Now there is a secret downside to the dating websites. I will share that secret with you. Ready? There are men on the dating websites and a lot of them are NOT the kind of men you want to date. I've heard so many horror stories it isn't funny. I can't believe how badly some of us can behave! But a good dating site like Match lets you block people, ignore messages, etc so there is an element of safety there. Think of those guys like spam in your email :) But, you can safely communicate with some good, eligible men and maybe that will help you get or find your "mojo"?

That's my two cents. As a man, it's a different game on the dating websites. The women get tons and tons of attention while it's pretty hard for a man to get any attention.