Indeed I understand it does not seem easy to start again dating after having been married. I feel it must be hard for you. However it is totally possible. If you want I can give you my advice on the dating thing, as it is something I have been interested in for the whole year of 2007 (working on relationships and dating was my goal for 2007). Excuse my poor English as I am French.
-Well, first, your own conception of dating will have a lot of influence on your success and your enjoyment of it. For instance, if you say "this is hard and this is a pain", then this will probably be. I have experienced this. Sometimes, I was in bad moods and feeling desperate, and these are the times when it was the most difficult and when I did not dare moving forward with girls. Other times I felt good and confident, and these are the times when I enjoyed the most trying to meet women, and when I had success.
So the good news is that your success does not depend on others' people state of mind but much more on yours. You can make it an enjoyable and easy ride. Meeting women is not very hard in itself, unless you are negative about it.
Of course, if you start to be positive about it, you will not see the results instantly. It takes a little time. First it will not change anything, so you might be tempted to think : "I am positive now and I see no results, I have still encoutered no one, so meeting women is hard". Don't do that. In my experience, if you are really shy, it takes aproximately one year of dedicated focus on this topic to see results, so be patient. (however the good news is that this is really FUN so it is not so important how long it is)
-Secondly, a very usefull perspective to be successful with meeting new people is to see that as a
skill. Yes, meeting women (and people in general) is a skill that you can learn. So it is important to see the dating thing as something you have to learn. Therefore, you can make as many mistakes as you want when you try to meet girls, and not feel bad about you being rejected, because this is LEARNING. If you focus on this area of your life for 6 months to 1 year, you will make lots of mistakes, but in the end you will really acquire skills and become successfull. In the process you may also discover some part of yourself that you did not know and...ENJOY this process of learning.
-If you want to start learning a bit you can subscribe to David DeAngelo free news letter. (google this name and you should find it.). He gives very interesting advices. He also have an e-book that you can buy if you decide to really focus on this area of your life. (His e-book is usually considered by the dating gurus as the starting point for those who want to learn about dating).
-Don't hesitate to try beliefs that you would not really like in normal times. Sometimes a belief can seem bad, and when you try it from the inside you see it is not so bad. Change your beliefs for the sake of learning, if you don't like the results you get with your new belief then you can still get back to your previous belief. I say that because you need specific belief to be successful with dating, like : "I am the center of interest", "I am very seductive", "girls really like guys like me, I am so unique, the girl I will meet will be so lucky"...stuff like that. Again, seeing the results after changing a belief takes time, so be patient, and try to act according to this kind of belief.
-Very important one : Give what you want to get. If you want just sex, give sexual attraction (act like a playboy, be playful all the time, feel and act like an attractive man.)
If you want unconditional love, give unconditional love. This was something I took time to understand, (I got this advice on this forum btw), but it is really easy to get love when you first give it.
Also in order to love others, you first have to love yourself unconditionnaly. Do things such as looking at you in the mirror and say "I love you, I love all the good and bad in you" and really mean it. It seems funny but I swear it will feel good, (at least it does to me
). So love yourself unconditionnaly, then give love to others, and you will get their love too.
-Also never try to buy affection by being a nice guy if you just want sex, it decrease the attraction and this is not honest. (Read DeAngelo for more info on that). If it is love you want, don't try either to buy affection by being a nice guy, because you cannot buy love. Just be yourself and be nice when YOU decide, not when you think the girl wants you to be nice.
Developping my social skills is one of the things that I most enjoyed in my life. There are so much to learn in this area that it is impossible to sum it up all here.
It gave me the ability to connect better with people, and to discover myself along the way. I am sure it can be the same for you. This is a great growth experience that you can have by exploring all this.
Good luck and don't hesitate to keep us posted, we'll support you !