Jennifer Lopez Open to Dating and Thinks Maksim Chmerkovskiy Is Super Hot—but She's Being "Very Careful"

Source tells E! News that there have been some PG-rated dates and plenty of texts

By Natalie Finn Jul 30, 2014 1:53 AMTags
Jennifer Lopez, Maksim ChmerkovskiyGetty Images

Cheryl Burke is all ready for Jennifer Lopez and Maksim Chmerkovskiy to get down to business, but J.Lo isn't quite ready to throw herself into a new romance.

She and the now former Dancing With the Stars pro "have been talking a lot and she thinks he is great, but she is being very careful," a source tells E! News. "She does not want to get her kids involved in meeting another guy yet."

After seeming on the rocks for a while, Lopez just broke up with Casper Smart in the spring, the news not getting out there till June but the two having apparently called it quits a couple of months before that. And Casper seemed to have spent quite a lot of time with Lopez and her children, son Max and daughter Emme.

As far as Maks goes, "this is so new," the source added. "There has been a date here and there, but really they are good friends before anything else. Maks asks her for advice and she thinks he is super-talented and very hot. Obviously that is hard to ignore."

So there is chemistry, not that we couldn't have guessed. Maks was among the revelers at J.Lo's 45th-birthday party in the Hamptons last week and, though he didn't arrive until the wee hours, they "seemed really happy to see each other," an insider told us after the shindig.

And sure there have been some makeouts—but all very PG-rated! 

"They do text and communicate and she is open to dating in general right now," our source said. "She still believes true love exists and wants to find that someday." 

"Look, I don't love being alone," Lopez told InStyle for its April issue. "I don't. I can't beat myself up for that. What I have to do is figure out why I don't like it...But where I am now, what I've been through, there are no rules. There are just lots of ways it can turn out instead of just one."

Even more so now than then!