Some of my friends keep telling me I need to get married, get a girlfriend, or at least get a date, not necessarily in that order!

While my friends mean well, they probably haven’t really considered the complications and complexities of such a proposition for me!

As far as dating is concerned, I don’t think most women would consider Friday evening at McDonald’s Playland as a night on the town even if we did order hot fudge sundaes!

As for something more serious than a date, I don’t think most women (or men, for that matter) are wanting to raise somebody else’s kids.

With these challenges in mind, then how could a guy like me actually meet women?

Well, I decided to give it some thought. After much pondering it seemed that the best approach would be to use the children as leverage, use them to my advantage in trying to meet women. After all, they are cute! And women like cuteness!

So, I’ve come up with some pick-up lines I thought I might use. But I thought I should see what my readers think about how these pick-up lines might play out before I tried them because I really can’t stand rejection!

Let’s say that I’m at the grocery store or at the mall shopping with the kids and I spot a woman who I would like to meet. What about these approaches?

• Walk up to the woman and ask where the children’s department (or children’s store) is and pretend the children aren’t really my kids and that I’m keeping them for a friend who’s having problems. (Makes me seem sensitive and caring, don’t you think?)

• Have one or both of the children go up to the woman and ask her name. Then approach the woman myself and apologize for their rudeness. (Make a mental note of her name and, if possible, get the children to ask her phone number and any other demographic data that they can acquire.)

• Have one or both of the children run up to the woman and tell her they are lost. Then I approach her looking frantic and thank her effusively for finding my children. Then I insist on showing my appreciation by taking her to dinner and a movie. (Of course, the children will have to come along.)

I sense some skepticism about these approaches arising among my readers…

Then, maybe it would be better for me to try out one of the online dating and relationship sites to meet women.

But, I need a good line to attract attention to my profile, yet I don’t want to oversell myself.

What could I say for my profile? What do you think about one of these?

• “Single male grandparent raising two loving children looking for serious relationship so in case I die then I need you to raise my kids.” (Sounds severe, maybe I should try something more subtle.)

• “Single male looking for serious relationship, loves kids!” (Does that seem a little deceptive?)

• “Energetic single male looking for love with adventurous woman…must include kids and cat on adventure.” (Starts out interesting, but kind of loses its appeal, I suppose, near the end.)

None of these work for you either?

Then why don’t you help me out? Give me your best face-to-face or online pick-up lines for a guy in my situation…

Meanwhile, maybe I better just stick with my current status for now, Single Male With Kids, with the focus of my life on the Kids and not on the Single.

At least until I figure out a better approach!