by JULIET WATERS

For the single mother, Internet dating is one of the greatest inventions since diaper wipes. Just follow these simple steps:

First, be interested in sex. This may happen on its own about a year after you’ve had a child. But think of all those mothers who have to endure months of pestering. They have to make an effort. Why shouldn’t you?

Next, realize that you have no life. Up every morning at 6 a.m., savagely exhausted by 10 p.m., two beers and you’re the one babbling. Watch a reality TV show where a beautiful lingerie model from New York City goes on a brunch date with a shy, hot British guy she met on the Net. Think: “Hey, I sit around in my underwear a lot. I could stay awake through brunch. I could do this.”

Post a personals ad on nerve.com. “The personals for people who hate personals.” Browse through hundreds of pictures of cool, cute, witty guys. They all live in NYC. Debate the ethics of pursuing a long distance relationship when you have joint custody of a one year old. Write Monkeywrench from Montreal. Under “reasons you should get to know me” he lists, “I have power tools and can fix your front porch.” Read too much into this.

Correspond. He’s the single father of a child not much older than yours. Share custody woes. Exchange long confessional e-mails. Commiserate with his tragic situation (co-parent who has a tendency to move every four months when her life starts falling apart). Fantasize about power tools. Realize you have become a very different person. Agree to meet.

Experience your first one Net stand, which is the reverse of a one night stand, and yet the same. Instead of getting physically intimate with someone you don’t know emotionally, you have become emotionally intimate with someone you don’t know physically. Sit across from the innocent man whose only sin is that he isn’t the man you imagined. Hate this. Feel bad.

Take a break before stage two: Lavalife. Decide the problem is that there aren’t enough Montreal guys on Nerve. Post an ad on the personals for people who like personals, even though you don’t so far. Send many polite rejection letters. Do this for about three or four months. When FiredUp sends you three messages on the day before a daycare strike, decide he’s a stalker. Send him a somewhat rude request to leave you alone. He will handle this graciously. Feel bad. Agree to go out with him, some week when you’re not fucked up and busy—which will turn out to be two months from then.

Be very surprised when he turns out to be a cute, smart, rich, Jewish single father from Hampstead. You have absolutely nothing in common, except kids. But you have a great lunch, and a fun time. Know this guy is a great catch for about 90 per cent of the female population. You, however, are of the 10 per cent that has been slacking off in bohemiaville so long, Hampstead might as well be North Africa.

Still, be heartened by the experience. Be excited when Zealth starts sending you clever poetry. Let him e-mail you at your real address. Reply suggesting coffee and be just about to hit send when you notice his real name. Wrack memory. Realize this guy stalked your college roommate. Call college roommate to see if this could have been youthful folly.

Take personals ad off Lavalife.

Get a message the next day from Bastardcritic on Nerve.com. You guys have a lot in common. Of course he’s a single father. Your work, aspirations and lives are so alike it’s eerie. You live in the same neighbourhood. His father wrote a book that has been sitting on your father’s bedside table for five years. Sit across from the innocent man whose only sin is that he’s too much like you. Hate this. Feel bad.

Hear a voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like Tinky Winky. “Run away! Run away!” Realize that meeting guys is easy. The challenge is going to be breaking up with yourself. :