Put yourself out there after divorce

For some people, it becomes abundantly clear when they need to start dating again.

“I had been alone for 12 years after two bad marriages and I was going a little crazy,” Ann Anderson Evans recalls. “Celibacy was making me peculiar.”

Since she wasn’t enjoying her peculiar state, Evans — the author of the new memoir “Daring to Date Again”— decided it was time to take action.

Evans shares some pointers for those who may still be reluctant to start dating again.

Have a plan. “Do you want to just have fun or do you want a long-term companion?” (Remember, there are no wrong answers.)

Cast a wide net. “I said to myself, ‘I will date everybody I can while still being safe.’ I wanted to expose myself to as many people as I could,” says Evans.

Don’t share things with your kids. Evans says she made a conscious decision not to talk about her new dating adventures with her family. “I wasn’t sure that they’d understand,” says Evans. “It’s probably the same rules when a young adult is dating — you maintain a space between yourself and your parents.”

But Evans says she has good reason not to worry about what her kids think of the book. “They’ve made it clear that they are not going to read it. And I’m 100 percent fine with that.”

Follow Lakshmi Gandhi on Twitter @LakshmiGandhi.