You control how folks approach you, pure and simple.
"Thanks but no thanks." "I am not ready. Thanks for the compliment, though." "My focus is on my kids now. Is that a bat in your hair?"
And it is a raw hurt to feel like you're in a fishbowl and an object of pity.
Guess what. Your attitude determines how folks approach you.
I have to think that single men, good men, are in short supply and fresh meat, so to say. And you have nothing against women but you'd rather choose your interactions.
As a child a big ole Mac truck smacked right into the car door where I was sitting resulting in a six week hospital stay being forced in a prone position and a month in a full body cast (looking oddly like a dog bone). The process of learning to walk again was ungainly and painful especially since I'd always been athletic. People looked at me in pity or looked away. But the folks I appreciated most were the ones who made the effort to approach me.
I had not asked or wanted an impact that shattered glass cutting my face and getting embedded in my head, breaking a femur and clavicle, being hit so hard that I was unconscious as they had to dismantle the car to extract me. It was what it was. To make matters worse (in my child sized brain) a younger boy in my room had had the same injuries, only worse, and his mother had died in the crash, something his family kept from him until the night before he was discharged while curing in his full body cast.
Your attitude directs how folks approach you, what they say. People always seek and respond to direction. And, what other people say about you is none of your business.
With that said, my heart goes out to you for the uncomfortable situation your found yourself in. It's a step by step process finding your way.
Divorce begins in the mind. A marriage works because as a team each individuals' strengths and weakness balance out. Your wife didn't have to develop those 'mom' skills because you took the yeoman's share... but she made big bucks which provided a greater ease of living for the family. Being forced to be a single parent changes the perspective.
Well.. I ramble, my friend, with my perceptions. You can do whatever you want. You are where you are for a reason. And like an egg cracking you can choose to be scrambled, fried, poached or a chick (baby cock?) emerging.
