The first rule of dating as a single father is to be truthful with your kids. Honesty may seem like a no-brainer, but single dads often prefer to delay mentioning that they're dating at all until a relationship turns serious. In fact, dads are much less likely than moms to introduce a date to their child. While it's okay to delay the introduction of your child to a woman - which, incidentally, may require the diplomacy of the historic Reagan-Gorbachev meeting - it is not okay to hide from your kids the fact that you're dating. Not only are they entitled to know, but chances are likely they will find out. Either someone else will tell them (and you don't want their mother's spin on it) or you will slip up ("Dad, this isn't my bra!"). When this happens, all those trust credits you've built up will blow away like leaves you so painstakingly raked on a windy day.

There's a delicate balance between honesty and revealing too much. The survey I conducted of more than a hundred fathers and their children indicated that 47 percent of kids want to know that their father is dating, while 17 percent would rather not know. The remaining 37 percent are ambivalent: that means they want to know you are dating but they aren't looking for details.

The ultimate objective of this book is to help you discover that you can be a hunk while also being a dad, and a great one at that. You'll learn how to decode the complicated feminine psyche, why you shouldn't share your Internet date searches with your kids, why you should welcome fix-ups and blind dates, and whether you can set a curfew for your teenager while not having one yourself.

You'll also see that while you may still feel like a teenager, dating is a lot different from what it was when you really were sixteen. Back then you didn't have to shove over car seats or swipe away Burger King crumbs before climbing into the backseat of your car. (This evidence of parenting, by the way, is not a turnoff to women. A caring dad is passionate, adorable, even sexy when he successfully balances being a lover with being a father.) Any relationship you develop now has to have room for your kids. This doesn't mean you acquiesce to them and let them commandeer your social life. It means that you bring to a romantic relationship every part of who you are. It's when you are clearly manipulated by your children - and we all are to some extent - that a woman, mother herself or not, will abruptly stop answering your phone calls.

This book will also help you make decisions regarding marriage, blended families, cohabitation agreements (a kind of prenup without the nuptials), and smart sex. And we'll face any psychological worries, such as impotence and snoring, that may get in the way of achieving the intimacy you crave.

Whether you have primary or joint custody or see your kids on occasional weekends, dating as a dad requires skill, ingenuity, and a liberal dose of patience. Reassure yourself that as a living, breathing man, you are entitled to date, and despite what your snooping neighbor might think about the parade of women arriving at your house every Saturday night (okay, you can dream), you will be a better father for doing so.

I empathize with your situation. I became a single parent when my husband of fifteen years passed away suddenly. Our daughter, Debra, was nine and our son, Noah, was five. My desire to be a great - no, actually, phenomenal - single parent drove my very existence. I would prove to the world (or at least to my mother-in-law) that I could cook dinner, coach my son's soccer team, keep the laundry under control, and earn a living. I forgot one thing: my life as a sensual, social being. Single moms and dads so diligently strive to provide a secure and normal life for their kids that they often neglect having one themselves, and when they do, the conflicts can be overwhelming.

Under pressure from family and friends to start dating, some fourteen months after being windowed I finally agreed to be fixed up. The dating skills I had acquired twenty years earlier were no longer adequate, especially when it came to keeping my social life apart from my ever-present children. I made mistake after mistake, including allowing my passion to blindly drive me into a serious relationship that ended in marriage and then divorce. (Single women can sometimes confuse lust for love, too!) Balancing the needs of my children, his children, and our relationship as a couple became so complicated that I ignored by better judgment. I wish I'd had single-parent dating advice before I got started. I am now single and dating again, much the wiser.

Before you embark on your new love life, be upfront with your kids and reassure them that no woman will ever take their place in your heart. All children are affected profoundly by divorce or a parent's death. How you perform now as a father - a responsible, self-confident one with his own social life - will set the standard for their future adult relationships. There is no better teacher than you.