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The issue is not the trouble dating, but trouble dating the people I trulywant. I have no trouble dating girls who are below my standard, for lack of a better word. I guess one way to look at it is that my standards are too high, but I don't personally think so.
Well, obviously the more picky you are, the fewer dates you are going to have. If you find that you NEVER get dates, though, it might be time to realize that your standards are too high. At that point you have to either lower your standards or be happy with being alone. (Some choose the latter, and there is nothing wrong with that if you are truly happy that way.)
I view it like a Venn diagram. There's a big circle of women I'm attracted to (many of whom aren't attracted to me) and another big circle of women who are attracted to me (many of whom I'm not attracted to). Then there is a small sliver where those two circles overlap, which is the sweet spot where potential partners lie. I can increase or decrease the size of that overlap (and therefore the pool of potential partners) based on how picky I want to be. If I'm too picky, the two circles won't overlap at all, in which case I will be alone.
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I still maintain that there are much more good looking, fit men than there are comparably attractive, fit women. The field is not leveled, and you people can talk all you want but none of you have anything to prove it otherwise.
I don't think that's true at all. I see more women who take care of their appearance and body than I do men-- probably because society puts more pressure on them to do so. Anecdotally, I'm an overweight average-looking man who generally dates women who are in shape and attractive (and no, I'm not rich). I realize it goes in the other direction sometimes, too, but not as often in my observations.
Most people over 30 have been married and/or have kids already.
That doesn't fit my experience at all. In urban/educated/professional circles, 30's is usually when women are just starting to look to settle down and have kids (if they want them).
Most people over 30 have been married and/or have kids already. Hence, the "baggage".
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This varies tremendously by region. It's not true anywhere, where I've lived on the West Coast. The 20's are pretty young to be having kids, and a lot of people wait until after college and after they've been working awhile to even begin thinking about getting married. Which is a good thing, because by 30+, they're usually more mature, and they're usually solidly into a career and making decent money by then, unless they went to grad school for an extended period.
She's saying women have no more or less baggage than men do.
I had no kids, never married, a very good job and wrote that I was interested in marriage on dating sites.
In other words, no baggage. To my surprise, this turned out to be quite attractive to single mothers.
I doubt it's because I'm so good lookin'... I'm pretty much an average guy otherwise.
I also had no issue with dating a woman with "baggage".
Every one of them had very nice kids. I would've had no problem whatsoever marrying into their family.
I married someone that was divorced with no kids. It just happened to work out that way.
I don't understand these dating theories...at all.
Since when does someone else's life define another person's. Even if your "theory" is correct....what does it matter?? YOU live your life...quit worrying about everyone else's.
Based on basic stats, there are supposedly more men than women among 25-35 crowd. But what makes it a real bummer is that there are WAY too many single mothers. And it makes sense. When couples split up the mothers typically take the kids while dads pay their way out and easily re-enter the dating pool.
It seems like a third of women online these days are carrying baggage from prior relationships. Which means that attractive women without kids end up getting the most attention and there is probably 5 comparably good looking guys for every attractive woman.
Any thoughts? The numbers are complete guesses, but you get the idea..
OP, it would have been helpful if you'd added the caveat "--in my area" or "in rural areas". Then the thread wouldn't have spun off into arguments about whether it's true or not that there are too many single mothers in that age group, which is awfully young to be dominated by single moms.
Your concerns would have been better addressed, I think, by titling the thread something like "the challenges of rural dating", which is a good topic that does come up here from time to time. I feel for you--it is challenging. I asked you elsewhere if there's a town or city within a reasonable drive of where you live (1 hr., say), whose dating pool you could plug into...?
Then there's the issue you point out, that online, you're able to find child-free women looking to date, but they don't respond to you. That, at least, indicates that there ARE single women in your area, a good amount of them, apparently. So the question is: how to meet them IRL, rather than online, so that you can have a better chance of attracting them with your personality (humor, intelligence, thoughtfulness, etc.), rather than having your photo be the main focus. Since you're relatively new to the area, maybe you could ask some work colleagues what the local events/venues are for singles to meet.
OP, it would have been helpful if you'd added the caveat "--in my area" or "in rural areas". Then the thread wouldn't have spun off into arguments about whether it's true or not that there are too many single mothers in that age group, which is awfully young to be dominated by single moms.
Your concerns would have been better addressed, I think, by titling the thread something like "the challenges of rural dating", which is a good topic that does come up here from time to time. I feel for you--it is challenging. I asked you elsewhere if there's a town or city within a reasonable drive of where you live (1 hr., say), whose dating pool you could plug into...?
Then there's the issue you point out, that online, you're able to find child-free women looking to date, but they don't respond to you. That, at least, indicates that there ARE single women in your area, a good amount of them, apparently. So the question is: how to meet them IRL, rather than online, so that you can have a better chance of attracting them with your personality (humor, intelligence, thoughtfulness, etc.), rather than having your photo be the main focus. Since you're relatively new to the area, maybe you could ask some work colleagues what the local events/venues are for singles to meet.
This is very sensible. A lot of confusion could have been avoided in this way.
There are many excellent and poignant observations in this thread. Being somewhat late, and finding the topic dear to my nearly-recent experience, I'd like to offer something of an overarching observation.
Whether a middle-aged man, or middle-aged woman, or not-so-middle-aged person (regardless of gender) would prosper in the pursuit of dating, or flounder and struggle haplessly, depends very much on the prevailing market. A successful child-free person of 45, looking for a similar partner, won't likely find one in a traditional Heartland small-town. Sure, a fling or superficial relationship may be easy to establish, but a more substantive connection would be hard, because most of available candidates would either be single-parents, or singles looking to become parents. Importantly, it generally happens in such settings, that becoming established and "launched" strongly correlates with starting a family. The more strident go-getters pair off early in life, and start having children. The stragglers generally suffer from grating setbacks, whether from bad luck or injudicious personal choices. And what if one finds, and develops insuperably strong connection with a person who wants kids (assuming that one does not wish to have kids oneself)? Somebody is going to have his/her life's dream thwarted.
Second, persons immersed in their work, in highly gendered professions (such as aerospace engineering or elementary education) would struggle with dating, even in a major city. Why? Because their at-work connections are overwhelmingly with their own gender, and being so preoccupied with their careers, they lack the time or the personal resources to be socially active, whether for romantic pursuit or mere socializing. To overcome this generally requires a reordering of priorities, and this is only possible upon making an internal mental transformation – an awakening of sorts, almost akin to the religious kind. This, as goes without saying, is not easy, and may require as preliminary many years of wild an erratic flailing.
Success in life – money, an athletic body, solid reputation, career-advancement, the making of seminal artistic or scientific contributions – by all means makes one a more appealing romantic partner, but only in a theoretical sense. Theory and practice enormously diverge! Even the most enthrallingly enticing candidacy may fail to garner an offer, be it in employment or in romantic connection. It is also possible to be something of a failure in quantifiable metrics – salary, size of 401K, number of patents, chest-to-waist circumference ratio, whatever – and yet, to thrive and to prosper on a personal level. Relationships defy recipe or practical guide. Our best strategy is to embrace their inscrutability, or at least to abide it.
To the OP, I can offer no practical suggestions, or even some nostrum about relaxing and letting the world just happen. It does not necessarily follow, that dogged patience and warm receptivity will be rewarded, or that a brusque and foolish demeanor can only invite failure. Replacing your smoke-alarm batteries and practicing a family evacuation-drill does not mean that you're safe from dying in a conflagration. Neither does falling asleep with a lit cigarette mean going up in flames. Marathoners collapse from heart-attacks, and slovenly couch-potatoes reach 100. Not even religion offers us a sure delivery of proportional justice – so why should regular life?
But I was too hasty. Here is one suggestion, that merits contemplation: start to consider oneself as a member of the local society, and not merely an observer. It is too easy to start considering humanity as "them", rather than as "us". No, this has nothing to do with the suspicion and mistrust between the genders, whoever intense it may be in certain quarters. Rather, it is a question of the person vs. the group. Fail in dating (or other pursuits) often enough, and it becomes too tempting to retreat into the individual. This is a mistake. But like all mistakes of character, it requires vigorous effort to overcome. I wish you the best.
I thought this was a good thread, if you read it all from top to bottom.
I especially liked SkylarkPhotoBooth's analogy of the Venn diagrams, of overlapping circles of attraction and repulsion.
Look, this is how I made peace with it:
make a list - a very short list
of what you can and cannot live without
cut it in half and throw the bottom half away.
That's all you get. Because otherwise, you will spend your time looking for a white unicorn, with a silver mane and a platinum horn, an 18k golden hooves and then you get mad when she didn't like you back... so what that you FOUND her, Don Quixote.
There are things, that are only interesting to ME of what I compromised/settled on, and there are things TO THIS DAY that I cannot accept, and I have absolutely no qualms about going home alone, with no phone number and no prospects in the short term, and I'll wash my face and brush my teeth, get a good nights sleep and try again tomorrow or next weekend.
No dates? Fisherman isn't catching dinner with a pole, try a net. Then a spear. Then a stick of dynamite. Or you can starve, or learn how to eat potatoes, and claim you never liked fish, anyways.
No one said you were wrong. Only that you took the, long, gender bashing, route to get there hun.
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