Talk about a question with no definitive answer. Everyone, and I mean everyone, must answer that for themselves. My stock answer is that we should begin to go out socially and even date when and only when we think we are ready. No one can make any hard and fast rules in this area.

There was a time when a widow was supposed to wear black and hide from the world for a year after her husband died. Who came up with the one year rule has never been established. The hiding from the public probably did more harm than the wearing black. It meant she was locked in a prison of silence with no one to talk with about her loss. I think the rule was put in place to protect the public from the discomfort of not knowing what to say to someone in grief, more than some way of honoring the departed husband. Thankfully those rules died long ago. Now we live with no set rules which sounds great until you are the one trying to figure out what is proper and worrying about what others might think. “Do people still think I should wait a year?” 

Just among the people I have tried to companion in their grief journey, the responses are as varied as the people involved. I have a male friend who started dating within six months of his wife’s death and another who has not given it a thought in the two years since his loss. I have a woman friend who was utterly shocked to find herself in a rather heated relationship less than six months after her husband died in an accident. I have another friend who is just now beginning to think about sticking her toe in the water after longer than two years.

These differences cannot be explained by the depths of the love nor the happiness in the marriages. The man and the woman who started dating very soon came out of very strong and happy marriages. One might conclude that since they loved being married they wanted to do so again, but the others involved also loved their mates and loved being married. There really is no way of explaining nor structuring the “When.” Saying “You will know it when it happens” sounds like the old cliché about knowing who is the right one when the time comes, but it really is that way. 

I have noticed that men seem to marry sooner than women. I don’t know the statistics for saying that, it is just my observation. I also have known many who, in their rush, made some bad choices. I urge my male friends to date more than one person. I teasingly call that building a harem. The tendency is to fall for the first person who is warm and loving and marry without really knowing the person. When we are in the throes of grief our emotions are on edge and not real trustworthy. We need to take our time and date several before making any kind of long term decision.

The other major problem is how to get started. How and where do we meet people? Sometimes we find them in our old group of friends, but that too can be awkward if we go with someone from our old group and find we do not enjoy being with them.

I started singles groups in two of the cities where I lived. I am working to do so where I live now. Dating is daunting and meeting people to date is a mystery. I started the first group because I got tired of being asked about where to go to meet someone and the only answer I could come up with was the bars. We need some safe places for single people to meet.

That is a dream that probably will not happen where most of those reading this post live. How then do you meet people? I hate to say it but most of the time we must depend on our friends. Blind dates are the pits, but they are about the only option we have. When a friend mentions knowing someone we feel demeaned somehow and don’ t want to appear desperate, but at least the person is someone known by someone you know. Somehow that sounds better to me than finding someone on the web. I do know folks who have found a true love through one of the web services, but they still sound scary to me.

Coming back out into the world is made complicated by these facts. It is a hard and scary thing to do. Most of us have no idea how to do it. I have not dated since I was nineteen years old, how would I know what to say or do on a date? But the day does come when most of us will want to take off the black and decide to live again. When? Only when and if you want to.

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Doug invites you to log in and post comments at the end of each blog entry. He looks forward to hearing from you. Any of Doug's books, CDs or DVDs are available at www.InSightBooks.com.