...and I NEED relationships with other adults so that I can FIGURE OUT how to proceed with the kid - how to keep her motivated and healthy emotionally - how to keep her inspired - (I may have said in an earlier post that I found out the students get an avg of 4 hours/sleep at her high school - she'll start next year). It's a "great" school - with all these wonderful reviews - and it was SO DRY last year I thought we'd both lose our minds. I need other people in my life - and the adults I have access to are so ruthless and just bizarre - and she NEEDS a father figure who doesn't act like an idiot - and I hardly can be responsible for providing her with one - I wouldn't touch a romantic relationship with a ten foot pole right now. I think that's the most difficult aspect of single-parenthood - not being able to provide your child with a father/mother figure, when your ex is like COMPLETELY lost his/her grip on reality. I mean - he MUST be flirting with her friends' mothers - because they ALL behave this way with me - I'm doing ALL of the work raising her, and they used to tell me what a fantastic job I was doing (until I got to know them better and realized I'd better stay out of their head games and gossip-fests). Now they're like: "Oh, so how long is he going to be in town?" "Oh, I hear he took her to the Cape. Did they have a good time? What sort of stuff did they do?" "Oh, her dad's coming in for this or that, isn't he?" I mean he completely abandoned us for some other woman, is NOT IN TOWN for the daily GRIND of her teenhood, and - oh, it doesn't really matter to me that they all play these stupid games (yeah - it does matter - it's really really disturbing that these grownups are so dysfunctional - and her teenage friends are as sage as can be - it's really frightening to me on a very basic level). But what matters is that it's SO pervasive - this CHILDLIKE NONSENSE - that I cannot get myself to engage in conversations with adults any more - and from the looks of things she'll NEVER have a father figure with a head on his shoulders. And I cannot do all this by myself. It's killing me.