Was a single dad and was upfront about it, it weeded out a lot of garbage people when I went on dates (and I mean walks and coffee type stuff). I made it clear I had to schedule doing things because I had a child to raise pretty much solo at the time.

Literally, “I have a kid, and if something comes up he is a priority.. always. Just so you know. I don’t want to waste either of our time, nor do I want that to be a surprise to you if a babysitter situation doesn’t work out or anything like that.

One person once said, “well, I’m not here to compete for your attention with someone’s else’s child.”

“Good to know, because you’ll always lose to my child’s needs. Wtf?!”

I was single for a loooong time. Which was fine actually. Then you meet someone that says, “That’s understandable. I mean, I don’t ever want kids, but I feel the same way about my dog. I know a great taqueria joint that provides great tacos pretty quickly and kinda endearingly terrible service if you have the time, you down?”

Then you end up as drinking buddies for a bit, and then realize after time passes that you ended up with an unexpected situation…
a pretty awesome stepmom to my kid ~16 years later and an all around nice person to people and a cool person to make soup with while finding things to talk about, or not talk about, all the time. Also dogs.