The Really Useful Grown-Up Guide to Dating & Mating Dating when you’re an adolescent is just awful. The awkward silences, the nervous banter, the fumbling fingers - the uncertainty of it all. No grown-up seriously wants to go back there. But dating when you’re a mature adult is sometimes not a whole lot different and brings its own trials - so you need a strategy. Where do you meet someone? How do you know if they’re available? How do you know if they’re interested in you if they are available? How do you find out more after that first glimmer of, OK, this one’s a possible… ? More to the point, how do you get laid if you’ve got young or, worse, adolescent children at home? And how do you tactfully reject unwanted attention or, rather, attention from the unwanted? Especially when almost any attention is welcome when you’re a single adult dater (we’ll skip the acronym). In order to start dating again successfully there are some really basic questions which are better answered Yes. Answering No could mean you’re taking off on square wheels. Susan Alexander Born in a storm in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Susan’s life was never going to be plain sailing. She’s been married, defactoed and single again a number of times and along the way she has raised a few children, not all her own. Currently residing in Sydney, Australia, she maintains a number of full and interesting lives - as a consultant, an academic, a personal counselor, and a serious and sometimes not so serious writer. Christina taylor Born, educated and first married in England, Christina divorced, re-married and divorced again in Australia, where she now lives. Along the way she learned a lot about parenting, step-parenting, and relationships - often the hard way. Christina worked in the corporate world as an executive search consultant. Now, as a qualified sex therapist, she has moved from the board- room to the bedroom.