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~I'm as warm as a marble countertop. This is evident, or so I'm told.
~I'm been described as "severe" and "off-putting."
~I neither have nor desire "game." I reserve manipulative tactics for matters of career/school, money, and family I can't stand...not a potential love.
~I'm "focused." I'm at my task (grocery shopping, library, gym, etc) not on the hunt.
Advantages:
~Full financial and temporal independence. I never have a girlfriend demanding my presence or castigating me for choosing a social activity that doesn't include her.
~More time for friends.
~One less Christmas/birthday present to buy.
~One less relationship to maintain. I pride myself on loyalty to family (the ones I like) and friends...so I invest in those relationships. And it can be draining.
Disadvantages:
~It's bloody lonely.
~As time wears on, you can associated with the cadre of perennial romantic "failures."
~It's a blow to the ego to be "undesirable" over a protracted period of time.
~Something is "missing." The love, the lust, the sharing of yourself etc etc.
Just a few thoughts.
P.S. I hate articles like this. My guess is that generalizations run rampant as it is. I can't stand when such "magazine" quality articles on human psychology/behavior reinforce the idea that "men" and "women" are monolithic groups which adhere to behavioural stereotypes.
Question for Amelorn: You're self-described as cold, unfriendly and offputting. You also describe yourself as having friends, and note that being single allows you more time with them. Do your friends find you to be cold, unfriendly, and offputting? If so, how is it that your friendships are successful?
I did not see that one. I never have weapons in my dreams. I'm always running, hiding, or pretending to be a zombie so I fit in with the crowd to avoid getting eaten. In my last dream I was protecting my dh and dragging him all over the place. That dream went on for days in my mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JetJockey
I've noticed that too... Men want women to look good, then they complain about the time/money spent on getting to that point. They want a woman who won't make them get rid of their 'toys', yet a woman who is into cars is too masculine. They want a woman who loves sex, but want a woman who is close to virginal.
I would love to get married someday, but I simply don't see it happening.
Yea, in that sense some guys are impossibly picky.
A few questions though? Why is it that most men report a sharp decline in sex after saying the words "I do?" Why is it that most men can say they haven't received "head" since before their honeymoon?
After three life partners and decades of observation of the relationships of others, I've come to the conclusion that, despite the fact many women will vigorously protest to the contrary, women don't truly give a fig about sex, not in a way at least that's compatible with how men care about it. Women care about sex only in so far as it validates them and makes them feel cared for. Men, as Billy Crystal famously said, don't need a reason for sex, just a place.
In my most recent relationship she took me to bed early and often and very creatively and then one morning I made a pass at her and she said "do we have to do this EVERY day?!" and it all went downhill from there. I think we last had sex in June, under very special circumstances. When it gets to that point it all starts feeling like a pity f_ck to me and then even I quit caring.
I think men's need for sex is far more primal and basic and simple than women's needs which are wrapped up in a lot of nuanced, subjective notions that to most men seem cryptic, oceanic, mysterious. At any rate I'll be 55 in a few months, she has approach-avoidance issues around certain aspects of intimacy, and by the time she gets that pried out of her head (assuming she even wants to try, which I see no evidence of) I'll be a pucker-butted old fart who can't get it up anymore anyway. So for me it's all over but the shouting. I'm not leaving her just over this, I do love her, and I don't have it in me to start over yet again only to find some other thought-structure lodged in some new partner's head that will be just as vexing to work around.
You never hear women complain about lack of sex, only lack of flowers or lack of being listened to or some other proxy. Men's concerns are much more direct. In software developer's terminology we are "much closer to the bare metal". Men often don't understand that attentiveness and flowers often lead to sex and women most certainly don't understand that sex often leads to more attentiveness and flowers. So it goes. After all these years I'm tired of it and have just sort of capitulated to the natural order of things. Fortunately at my age testosterone levels fall off and combine with life experience to where you can't even come up with plausible fantasies to beat off to anymore.
Sex is like a whole lot of things in life, just something that's there, not for your enjoyment, but to be just effective enough to guarantee the species carries on. We waste a lot of energy trying to make it be something it refuses, for the most part, to sustainably be. We do that with a lot of things in life.
I would not make the mistake of blaming sharp falloff of interest in sex being due to marriage -- that's just a piece of paper -- or to familiarity breeding contempt -- thought that IS a factor -- it's really just that for the female of the species it's ultimately not an urgent concern, especially once she's got a good gene donor / provider roped in and enough babies to occupy her time and energy. (That's a whole other topic, what a romance-sucking thing having children is).
Besides, there's a lot to a relationship besides romance. My fiancee and I share a home, a checking account, a business, and the benefit of each other's perspective and expertise in parenting our (grown) children (four of them between us). She has immeasurably improved the quality of my life in other ways, and I hers. We're good for each other. It's just hard some nights, staring at the ceiling trying to go to sleep, to let other parts of the dream die. All part of dealing with the fact of one's mortality, when it comes down to it. We all go through life passages and our ultimate dissolution, in the middle of an incomplete story that we wanted to finish and couldn't, or wanted to finish differently.
I won't lie that I made my husband go see Sex and the city with me. It was a horrible movie and he was traumatized lol. But, I can't tell you how many zombie movies I've had to sit through...alone because he falls asleep at the movies. I happen to have an irrational fear of zombies. Really, when I have nightmares it usually involves zombies.
My reasons for being single:
Disadvantages:
~It's bloody lonely.
~As time wears on, you can associated with the cadre of perennial romantic "failures."
~It's a blow to the ego to be "undesirable" over a protracted period of time.
~Something is "missing." The love, the lust, the sharing of yourself etc etc.
Yeah, I agree. That's why I'd rather be in a respectful relationship that is passionless than in no relationship at all. I'm a 110% kind of guy. My partner is not a fungible commodity to me. I have yet to meet a woman who feels as strongly as that about me, and that part is STILL depressing, but after my 2nd wife died I found that I was not really cut out for the single life. I need relationships to keep my head out of my rectum, to give me focus. My fiancee comes with two interesting kids (not always in a good way, but then what do you expect), two terrific siblings, one of whom is becoming a good friend and whose two delightful little ones already call me "uncle", and all these things keep me out of my head and feeling like I'm fulfilling some kind of worthwhile role in life. Gives me something to contribute to, that gives back to me some, and it all helps pass the time.
I wonder if you've ever considered lowering your standards / expectations and entering into a relationship for what it can actually provide rather than for some romanticized, idealized thing that it really can't. Just sayin'. That said I can certainly respect you for thinking clearly and honestly about what you want and sticking to your guns. If I could stand living and dying alone I would be right there with you. I'm just self-aware enough to know I can't hack it, or at least I am not fed up enough yet to put up with it.
No one is in the background nagging at you to do chores, go shopping, or "grow up."
Staying single means not being forced into buying a 10,000-megawatt diamond ring (so your fiance can impress her friends with the huge price tag) or any of the other bloodsucking financial drains that marriage entails, for that matter. And you won't be stuck having to regularly shell out for the flowers, more jewelry and the other gifts that a wife demands (it's like paying maintenance fees on a condo). By staying single, you're not legally or financially obligated to anyone but yourself. But once you John Hancock the dotted line on that marriage contract, she has you by the balls forever.
When you don't live with a woman, you're not subjected to her never-ending mood swings and emotional storms, or her blaming you for everything that she screws up in her life. And, of course, no fights. As long as you keep her as a casual girlfriend and not a wife, if she gets too uppity you can simply walk away, free and clear.
Your wife won't want you to have these things because they take the focus off her and she feels it's her money that she could be better spending on clothes and shoes.
Being single means you don't have to constantly find a "middle ground" -- meaning, doing what she wants to do (whether you like it or not). This includes being forced to see chick flicks or suffer antique fairs and dinner with her friends. And you'd better toe the line buddy, or you'll have hell to pay and no more sex for you.
This isn't "male speak." This is bitter, hostile, gender bashing speak. Like I said, I find it distasteful.
You like being single. That's fine. However, when someone is truly content in their lives, they see no reasons to put other people down to make themselves feel better. I see nothing wrong with men or women who choose to remain single. I see nothing wrong with men or women who choose to marry. I am aware that all men and women are different and you can't make blanket statements about an entire gender, race, religion, etc. The person who wrote this article does not seem truly content. If he was, he would have left out all of the above.
Yeah, whatever...
Did you not bother to read the first page? The article header clearly states it's based upon how guys talk with each other in private. Clearly state's it's blunt. I see women engaging in the same type of behavior all the time at work.
oh, but it's "sexist" and it's not fair...yada yada whatever.
Did you not bother to read the first page? The article header clearly states it's based upon how guys talk with each other in private. Clearly state's it's blunt. I see women engaging in the same type of behavior all the time at work.
oh, but it's "sexist" and it's not fair...yada yada whatever.
I don't see either gender engaging in this kind of speak offline, nor do I come across the men and women from bridezillas, but that has to do with my social circles.
I've actually been thinking about this, A woman from a culture where women still look up to her man ble.
Look up her man? Wtf? What are you? Her all-knowing daddy?
These kinds of posts about "looking up to" and "knowing her place" and "listening so she can learn something" all points to the same thing. These men are unhappy with 'American' women because they are not deferential enough and don't feed their egos enough.
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