My friend, let's call her Eve, doesn't date single fathers. It's a standard she adopted for various reasons (it would be mine, too, but I'm in a happy relationship), one of them being that she aims to mirror the fact that many, many men think that single mothers are inherently garbage. Garbage that they only settle for out of mercy, sheer goodness of the heart, or whatever shit it is they tell themselves. So much so that "ending up/being a single mother" is used as an insult by most of them.

Eve does online dating, but also finds dates via her extended friend circle. In her bio/profile it says single dads are a no-go, next to a list of other requirements.

The men who contact her have all read her profile as they usually reference something she wrote.

What she tells me is mind-blowing.

Example: Man A writes her, seems smart, educated and funny, and references her bio. Eve notices a picture of a little child in his profile (face not blurred, of course), which doesn't necessarily mean anything as many men include a picture of a child that is not theirs, a pet that is not theirs etc in their profile to make it seem like they care about someone that is not only themselves. But I digress. She asks him if this is his child. He says, "of course." She tells him she doesn't date single dads. He says he knows, he has read her bio after all, and he's not a single dad.

The next part of the conversation she says she had more often than she cares to admit.

She asks him if he is not single after all.

He, perplexed, says that naturally he is single, he's looking for something serious after all!

Eve then points out that he is, in fact, a single dad.

Then they, ALL of them, are baffled as to why they'd possibly be considered single dads, and end up applying their "superior male rational brain" logic to explain why they are not single dads (????), why her standards are RiDiCuLoUs since they don't even have custody (lol that's even worse, buddy), get all hysterical, blame their crazy ex for them being single dads (????), explain that it doesn't count because they only have the children every other weekend or don't pay child support anyway. They are SHOCKED that they are considered single fathers despite being fathers and single, and even more so when they realise that this is a deal-breaker.

Ladies, if you decide to date single fathers, I urge you to try and find out how they view themselves. Them not getting that they are single fathers but having no issue with understanding the concept of a single mother is one of the many epitomes of cultural misogyny.