Dating after divorce can be a minefield for the midlife woman.

Perhaps even thornier than pondering what to wear on a date, where to go, who pays—not to mention how you even find people to date in this brave new world of Internet match-ups—is getting over your reluctance to take a stab at it. "A divorced woman may feel very vulnerable at this stage, in part because she used to have a spouse to 'protect' her and now she has to go out into the world on her own," says Diana Kirschner, Ph D, author of .

“We’re perpetually fed a line that we’re looking for love in a market that doesn’t value us,” says Marina Adshade, an economics professor in Canada and author of . However, with the gray divorce boom, there are a lot more older people available than ever before.

That said, the dating market for older singles isn’t all that easy. There just aren’t that many available singles our age and the ones who are available are an interesting lot (read Anne Lamott’s funny take of her year on to understand).

Only THEN are you somewhat ready to play nice with others. Thou Shalt NOT Ditch Thy Friends in Order to Date Ladies, breaking plans with girlfriends or altering your schedule if dating conflicts occur is a definite NO NO. If you won't date that woman with the extreme muffin-top, you need to ditch the third-trimester beer gut. Divorced or not, dating is difficult anywhere, especially if you're afraid to take a chance.

“This wildly varies from person to person,” says Judith Sills, Ph D, a Philadelphia-based psychologist and author of Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex, and Love When You've Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped, or Distracted.

“Everyone ends a relationship by grieving the emotional investment.

They generally date less than those who're perfectly fine playing the dude, and going for it first. You'll quickly end up visiting the first Commandment, dragging your pre-divorce baggage into your dating life to beat some poor unsuspecting bugger over the head with. Thou Shalt Get a Wardrobe Inspection If you haven't been in the dating game for a few years, your closet is likely full of styles from God knows what era, and you probably have the same "do" that you had when you got married.

Lots of men like a woman who will take that kind of control. Take the time to get over your divorce baggage, figure out who are again. Having someone with some fashion sense give you an honest physical inspection is one of the best tips for dating after divorce. Because of all of the social networking that we do, we connect on a technological level (ie: Twitter, Facebook, dating sites, etc.), but we've become totally anti-social in the real world.