Living in Los Angeles has made me ultra alert to the dreamers who are out there. It seems like everyone in Los Angeles lives in dreamland.

Okay, not everyone. That is a bad word to use, and I shouldn’t generalize. So I’ll just say this: In Los Angeles, there is a very high percentage of people over the age of thirty who are still living in dreamland.

A friend of mine recently was dating somebody like this. I will not use either of their names, so as to protect the innocent . . . and the guilty.

Anyway, my friend had been dating a dreamer for awhile. She is around 40 years old and has two children.

That alone is a tough thing, because her life is dictated by her kids. In future blogs, we’ll talk about dating with kids in your 30’s and 40’s.

We’ll also talk about the topic of how much say your kids should have in your dating life. Your own gut instinct about someone you’re dating is great, but often kids are very angry about you not being with their dad (or mom) anymore, so they will poo-poo every person who comes into your life.

We’re not going to discuss those issue today though. Today, we’re going to talk about the dreamers out there.

How many of you, regardless of whether you’re a woman or a man, have met someone who is perpetually searching for that dream they should have gotten twenty years ago — that dream job, that dream situation, or that dream whatever they want to do or have in their life? In Los Angeles, these folks are everywhere.

I always make the joke that if you ever get a parking ticket in Los Angeles, that the meter maid (or meter man) is likely an aspiring screenwriter. The only reason they are writing tickets is because it’s the only writing job they could get that pays money.

You go to the gym in LA and meet a lawyer, and the lawyer will tell you that he does divorce law, but doesn’t want to do it all the time. Then he’ll tell you that he has a reality television show in development.

You go to the bank, and the teller behind the counter actually wants to play a bank teller in a movie about a bank heist. So as they sit there collecting your money, they are actually dreaming about having John Travolta point a gun at them during a ‘stick up’ in a bank robbery movie.

Los Angeles is a town full of dreamers. The problem with being in a town full of dreamers when you’re dating, is that it’s hard to sift through them to find the non-dreamers.

This is especially true when you’re over a certain age and dating — particularly if you’re a woman (or man) with kids — and you are looking to date someone who is grounded and who has certain values. You only want certain kinds of people to be around your kids.

So what if you’re a woman who is dating a man who is a dreamer? Here is this guy who is dreaming away in front of your kids, and you worry that your kids may start to think it’s okay to dream and flounder around until they’re 45 years old.

This is something you need to watch out for when you’re dating, and if you live in Los Angeles — the land of dreamers — you have to REALLY watch out for this. The buses arrive every day full of young screenwriter and film producer hopefuls who will be sucked in by the Hollywood limelight. The problem is that only about one percent of people who come here with that dream actually make it.

You just don’t see this many dreamers anywhere else in the country. If you go to Chicago and meet a banker, he usually really is a banker (and not a wanna-be film actor).

I really feel for the women of Los Angeles. I alway have. I’ve lived here for ten years, and I have always felt like they were getting the short end of the stick.

Then again, a lot of the men in Los Angeles also get the short end of the stick. There are a lot of men in Los Angeles who are stuck meeting women who are dreamers. They are meeting women who want to whisked away to live in a huge house in the Hollywood Hills, have a live-in nanny, and have someone basically take care of their every whim and desire.

If you find yourself dating a lot of dreamers and your kids have been less than enthusiastic about them, then maybe your kids’ instincts about the people you’re dating is right on. Maybe they can’t articulate very well exactly what’s wrong with the people you’re dating, but they know things aren’t right with these people.

A lot of single women tell me, “My kids won’t accept a lot of the guys I bring home to meet them.” Kids may not always be able to articulate themselves perfectly, but they are sometimes very astute when it comes to reading people.

If you listen to a kid tell a story, there is usually no real beginning, middle and end. The story just kind of goes in no particular direction. This is why parents tend to tune out their kids when they start to tell them something.

If your child doesn’t like who you’re dating, though, look deeper into why. Your child may not say to you, “Mommy, I don’t want you dating a dreamer,” but they may be feeling something that doesn’t feel right to them.

Kids are very instinctual. Your child may pick up on some kind of weird energy when that person is talking to you. You never know. So if your child senses something off, it is worth it to see what they might be seeing that you aren’t seeing.

Because there are so many of these dreamers in Los Angeles, I really do feel sorry for the women in Los Angeles who are trying to date and find a good guy. They have much more of a challenge than women living elsewhere.

To the women reading this, how do you feel when you date a guy who is “the perpetual dreamer” — the guy who is constantly relying on new venture after new venture to be “the thing he’s been waiting for?”

And what about all of you guys out there? How do you feel when you’re dating a woman who is a dreamer?

My mom was always a dreamer. She always thought that money would just come to her without her doing anything different. It’s like that book that was out a year or so ago about ‘The Shortcut.’ Guess what? There isn’t one.