Men & Women as selective? (dates, girlfriend, long-term, marriages)

[mainebrokerman]

rapture, your mother is a wise woman, and you are correct about the "laundry-list"
one of the worst mistakes,or attitudes anyone can have on a first date is "could this be the one" too much pressure and you end up ripping the other person apart (to yourself, as measured against your ideals)

rapture,,,i remember 20 yrs ago, in my early 20's i had my ideals, and was very short-sighted in who id date,,"better to avoid than to be dissapointed"
my ideals were very superficial,,,and even if i got a girl who "fit" them, it doesnt mean at all they are compatable....but being a shallow man at that age, id appease alot,,,just to have a trophy on my arm. didnt take me long to learn, they were very young and self-centered also, but thats how we learn

[Rapture]

That's the other thing my friends do is think on the first date, could this be the one? I always say the only thing that should be on your mind is have fun! If you are being yourself and having fun and hopefully they are, things will happen naturally.

[SandyCo]

This goes back to the idea of basic biology, in which women want a man who can support them and take care of any children, and men want a hot woman (supposedly because they're selecting the best specimen from the gene pool to create beautiful children with).

Men are usually raised to judge women by their appearance. Women do that, too, but not to the same degree. And let's face it, a rich man, no matter what kind of troll he is, can always find some 21-year-old bombshell to spend his money on. The flip side of that is that a woman can usually find a guy to have sex with her, because many men will even pay for sex. I know I sound extremely cynical, but this is what I have seen.

To answer the original question, though, I'm not sure why the men were less picky, unless they were really interested in finding a steady sex partner, and not a real relationship. Or, maybe they figure that if they're compatible with someone else, the surface stuff (age, education, etc.) doesn't matter.

[Cosmic]

Originally Posted by Rapture

Cosmic - funny joke.

You are describing yourself and what you want but that might not be how the majority thinks. It always seems men cared more about looks than women. On the single sites, it seemed the opposite when people had to actually answer questions in a profile.

My major point was it is not about me. The game as played is totally screwed up. In fact, it is the same process as say picking a baseball team, putting together a business project, selecting anything.

You need something like an objective criterion as described by those supposely accessing the available pool to be selected from. Not what happens.

I used the same process I used in engineering projects or business to put together projects. Find the best talent by my observation / knowledge base. Did the candidates fit into the slots and did they bring anything useful to the game without possible conflicts. Might be all men but you use the same general sets of rules and how to manage it to get results.

You can argue that women are just hormone driven walking bundles and bio whatever gets in the way. Some truth that other factors are in play but I could take a group of 50 women, talk to them for a while, look at a spec sheet they had filled out with the basics. Do the same with men, match up the pairs and miss by almost nothing, based on the available pool. In certain cases the answer is nothing in this batch for you.

That is the wild card in any system, be it employment, dating or buying a house. The system limits are defined by the available pool of whatever.

The governing factors are not about how men and women select anything, it is about failed systems in allowing it to happen in fashion that can produce something that could be called satisfactory in most cases.

Present systems present a set of pre-designed choices, you adapt to fit a pigeon hole. More choices do not necessarily mean better results. Zero suitable matches are better in many cases than a mess at the end of a failed one.

Trying to define or make sense of poor or failed systems leads to you guessed it, yup more failures. I would say simply try to educate the available pool to the realities of what to expect and how they might adapt. After all you even got to take some sort of training couse, test to get a license to drive a car.

They even give courses on how to buy a house.

[vasinger]

Well, I'm 27 and I don't ask for much. I just want a woman who can cook me a nice supper and bring me my evening paper and tell me how wonderful and handsome I am.

[HIF]

You are so left-brained! (Not a pos or neg, just an observation!)

Originally Posted by Cosmic

My major point was it is not about me. The game as played is totally screwed up. In fact, it is the same process as say picking a baseball team, putting together a business project, selecting anything.

You need something like an objective criterion as described by those supposely accessing the available pool to be selected from. Not what happens.

I used the same process I used in engineering projects or business to put together projects. Find the best talent by my observation / knowledge base. Did the candidates fit into the slots and did they bring anything useful to the game without possible conflicts. Might be all men but you use the same general sets of rules and how to manage it to get results.

You can argue that women are just hormone driven walking bundles and bio whatever gets in the way. Some truth that other factors are in play but I could take a group of 50 women, talk to them for a while, look at a spec sheet they had filled out with the basics. Do the same with men, match up the pairs and miss by almost nothing, based on the available pool. In certain cases the answer is nothing in this batch for you.

That is the wild card in any system, be it employment, dating or buying a house. The system limits are defined by the available pool of whatever.

The governing factors are not about how men and women select anything, it is about failed systems in allowing it to happen in fashion that can produce something that could be called satisfactory in most cases.

Present systems present a set of pre-designed choices, you adapt to fit a pigeon hole. More choices do not necessarily mean better results. Zero suitable matches are better in many cases than a mess at the end of a failed one.

Trying to define or make sense of poor or failed systems leads to you guessed it, yup more failures. I would say simply try to educate the available pool to the realities of what to expect and how they might adapt. After all you even got to take some sort of training couse, test to get a license to drive a car.

They even give courses on how to buy a house.

[Cosmic]

Originally Posted by hereinfla

You are so left-brained! (Not a pos or neg, just an observation!)

Somewhere here a while back they had one of those tests. Everybody was taking it and posting the results.

I took it and Bang the results were off the chart in the opposite direction. I do not relate to all this left - right stuff. I know I was way different with a score of 17 on the main side.

Is that good???

I actually like how it works.

[HIF]

I spent about a year on match and met a number of really nice guys. Only one that I would consider a dud. One that I was crazy about, but long term it didn't work out. A number of them very obviously wanted to be married and I just seemed to be the one presenting that possiblity to them at the time.

It is complicated for me because I am in my 50s and have two younger kids. Most guys my age have been there, done that and are over it. And I so get that. I would be, too. Or if they aren't over it , why not go for a 30-something hard body? And I am attracted to really smart guys who have a whack sense of humor, who are financially stable, yet don't make a big deal about it. Self confidence is the biggest turn on for me. I haven't dated guys younger than me (by a year or so), and, while I wouldn't rule that out, I can't see myself with a younger guy.

I have no litmus test for looks, although once I was set up on a blind date with a guy who was a dwarf, yet I wasn't told in advance and that did give me pause.

[SandyCo]

HIF, I know what you mean about the kids issue. I always said that I wouldn't date anyone with kids younger than my own. I dated one guy once who was still in the process of getting divorced, fighting for custody, etc. Nice guy, but I didn't want to get caught up in his problems. He obviously wasn't really ready for a relationship, anyway! (And I'm being a typical woman, aren't I, with all of these "I won't date...")

A dwarf? Wow, that would definitely make me pause, too! Not that dwarves should be shunned or anything, but really, that's something you should know about before the date begins.

[Cosmic]

Originally Posted by hereinfla

I spent about a year on match and met a number of really nice guys. Only one that I would consider a dud. One that I was crazy about, but long term it didn't work out. A number of them very obviously wanted to be married and I just seemed to be the one presenting that possiblity to them at the time.

It is complicated for me because I am in my 50s and have two younger kids. Most guys my age have been there, done that and are over it. And I so get that. I would be, too. Or if they aren't over it , why not go for a 30-something hard body? And I am attracted to really smart guys who have a whack sense of humor, who are financially stable, yet don't make a big deal about it. Self confidence is the biggest turn on for me. I haven't dated guys younger than me (by a year or so), and, while I wouldn't rule that out, I can't see myself with a younger guy.

I have no litmus test for looks, although once I was set up on a blind date with a guy who was a dwarf, yet I wasn't told in advance and that did give me pause.

You sort of touch a point rarely mentioned.

1. The intertangled lives as they appear in this century. A while back peeps would have only one wife and sets of bio childern. True for all my grandparents, my parents, there is no divorce in my immediate family prior to my generation. So you have managable relationships, generations to generations, with true blood lines. Problems, yes, but contained within bloodlines. The same in countries like China until very, very recent years. Easy to manage lives in terms of relationships. Everything has a predetermined set of rules in a way.

2. In this country since say WWII, that pattern has become very fragmented. A lot of divorce, a lot of starting again with new families. Some folks have packed 3, 4, 5 or more typical before lifetimes into one lifetime. The joke of "Come quick dear, your kids and my kids are beating up on our kids."

3. It is not the divorces and out of wed lock childern but the horrible disruption of anything of a control formerly available by direct bloodline. Even if remote a cousin is a cousin, a nephew a nephew. When you start a system of half or totally non bloodline offspring, you have management problems potentially coming out of your ears.

So putting together relationships after a while could be like navigating a deep mine field. Especially after the normal child bearing years for both men and women. Men as you say of your age probably are done with that exercise too. I really never truly desired it. I came from a large family, being in the middle maybe had that urge beat out me. Plus my lifestyle in climbing out a rather poor family situation meant it would have had to come later because of trying so many careers early on. I was in no position to support a family, a bit of a struggle to lift my own self for a while. Same for a number of my brothers and sisters. They had their share of mistakes.

I think you have to accurately define what you want in life, at whatever stage. Like where do want to live, what type occupation / career, lifestyle, what type of relationships and all that brings. I never saw marriage as the only option. Only ever really thought serious about it once. If I had married every SO, what would that have been 8 - 9???? What a mess I could have had. As was, they all happened, nobody really got hurt, some folks got helped a bit, I got no scars or long term negatives. I feel no hostile feeling toward anyone and I hope the same with all of them. Everyone parted on reasonable good terms, none where hostile. No childern, AFAIK. I am not in a pickle trying to put something together now. Basically a free slate.

So as applies to you, I would try to adjust to that type of thinking. Large age difference relationships can work but into days World I would be careful, especially going older woman to younger man. The guys today are so different, especially in that willingness to use and mine their partners in a financial sense. If they are SO only then you do need some ability to maintain a sort of arms length type relationship. As I have outlined in a few posts, it can be well done. Lots of peeps doing it.

Both of my experiences with large age differences where very positive but neither happened on a spur of the moment. I think both were quite careful in objectives and how we treated each other. Lots of ways to skin the same cat. But the World has changed and things are more tricky than ever. The sad part, as I think demo'd in some of these threads the methods and techniques have not been very creative in adapting to the new World needs.