Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Relationships
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 04-02-2018, 09:48 AM
 
30,907 posts, read 32,927,258 times
Reputation: 26919

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD View Post
The US Census definition of single is very different from a dating and relationship definition. The census counts people living under the same roof. They’re not asking if you have a committed relationship with someone you don’t live with.
This is a good point. There is a world of difference between married or living together, and just dateless. People don't go from "I'm not dating anybody" to "Will you be my wife" in 24 hours or something.

So in addition to married or cohabitating "stats" we also have to figure in a huge proportion that are dating but not married. I am not sure how that percentage would be calculated but think about the people you know who are dating...there are a lot of dating but not married people wandering around at any given time.

So IOW it's not like "X percent are married (or living together). All the rest are not with anybody."
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 04-02-2018, 10:08 AM
 
641 posts, read 404,677 times
Reputation: 795
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork View Post
The only problem I have with this is, age. I've said it before, I just don't think that the arbitrary invisible line into adulthood of 18 is a good measure of maturity for making life altering permanent choices. I don't like that we send 18 year old boys off to war, and I don't like when 18 year old (or younger!) women are having babies. Our bodies might be ready, but our brains aren't. Bit of a design flaw, if you ask me.
Agree. 18-20 year olds aren't deemed mature enough to have a damn alcoholic drink but can go off to war, buy guns, get married, have kids. It's insane. Of course people get pregnant when they get pregnant but 18 is too young really for any of those things.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork View Post
Putting choices of the weight as you describe, on the shoulders of semi-children...yet ask most men who want a family, no matter THEIR age, and they are often enough looking for women who are younger than 25.
If the man is mature and the woman early 20s wants kids, and is ready to have kids, then this is fair enough. It's no good seeking youth to that extent just for the sake of it though. Personally i'd rather date nearer my own age.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork View Post
If at age 25+, I'd been presented with the person of my ex-husband and the facts of him and had the chance to make a mature, informed decision as to whether he should father my children and be part of my future, I'd have run fast and hard. Even at 18 I knew I didn't really want that life with him, and told him so repeatedly. It was my intention to just have a transitory relationship with him for a time, not something permanent. I did not give informed consent to what I wound up doing. Life just...happened. But he, at age 29, though he wasn't telling me so up front (knowing I'd leave if he did) knew he wanted me to be his wife and have his kids. He played along to get what he wanted from me. Yet now, predictably, it is all my fault he didn't get to spend the rest of his life making mine hell.

I should have chosen better. Sure. But the fact that he played me false in the beginning, and that I was only 18 at the time...I dunno man. Tough to be so responsible at a fairly irresponsible age.
Yeah you were probably both too young, but I made the distinction in the post that I was referring to women who procreate with men who they knew full well were jerks/bad boys/already got kids to multiple women etc and then complain about feckless fathers, or being jilted, rather than take responsibility for their poor choices.

I know that you don't really know how someone is going to take to marriage and/or parenthood until after the fact and wasn't referring to those situations, as there's always a risk involved.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-02-2018, 10:18 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
29,700 posts, read 34,246,140 times
Reputation: 76911
Quote:
Originally Posted by gazzaa2 View Post
Yeah you were probably both too young, but I made the distinction in the post that I was referring to women who procreate with men who they knew full well were jerks/bad boys/already got kids to multiple women etc and then complain about feckless fathers, or being jilted, rather than take responsibility for their poor choices.
Okay, but sometimes, like Sonic was alluding to, the woman doesn't know full well that the guy is a player. She believes when he tells her that he loves her, thinks she's the one and only, and then when she says, "hey, you know how the pill is only 99% effective?" that's when she gets the, "oh, you didn't think we were serious, did you? This was just a little fun."
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-02-2018, 10:40 AM
 
Location: Phoenix, AZ
20,328 posts, read 14,552,431 times
Reputation: 39259
Yeah I mean...everybody's got a story, right?

I know I often respond with these personal anecdotes. But I feel like it's hard to make statements that should be work as general, "this is how it should be" or "this is how it is" and especially where it comes to placing blame and whatever. Man, life is life. For many of us, we're going to look back at a long string of "shoulda woulda coulda" stuff.

I just look at it as everybody's doing the best they can, with the tools they've got. For some folks that's a nice Craftsman set in a shiny red metal box on wheels, and yay for them. For some that's going to be more like a spool of paracord, a roll of duct tape, and maybe an old hammer. At some point we've got to let go of the linkage between responsibility and blame. The questions about who deserved what, and whether they got it.

I'll go ahead and say something pretty harsh here, and take whatever heat I might get for it.

I love my kids, do not get me wrong, and they probably saved me when I needed saving, they forced me to grow up, gave me a purpose. But if nature had not imbued me with the temporary hormonal insanity, the brain chemical altered state, that happened during my first pregnancy and early motherhood, I would not have kept my first son and I never would have had my second. I'm pretty sure about that.

But I was so nutty with love for my baby during pregnancy, that although we were dirt poor and I didn't even want kids, I had to have him. And I was nutty with love for the baby I had, and would have wrestled tigers and bears to keep him, protect him, have him and save him, when he was born. Thanks, Nature! I went hungry so that he could have everything he needed, I literally did, I got down to 98 pounds within a few weeks of giving birth because I hadn't enough food. I was ready to make any sacrifice. Staying with a man I didn't really want to, making my best go of it? Small price to pay, for whatever that baby needed.

Now if I'd been the man, and feeling as I did before I got pregnant, and if Nature hadn't pumped my brain full of love-chemicals, if I'd felt I had some way out, of running away from it, who knows. I might have done differently. I might have felt, "Hey, I didn't want kids and she's gonna have one, I didn't consent to this life, I'm outta here." Especially if I was 18 years old, you know?

Everybody's got a story. People do what they do.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-02-2018, 03:45 PM
 
651 posts, read 406,547 times
Reputation: 807
Quote:
Originally Posted by gazzaa2 View Post
In my experience women are usually in a relationship with someone and rarely single for long. A woman single in a bar tends to mean she's just split up with someone.

Just in terms of the large office I work in, mostly women, pretty much every woman over 40 is married if not divorced, the 30s women are usually married or in a committed relationship and the 20s women usually have boyfriends. This is right across the spectrum in terms of looks/weight/personality etc.

Out of the few single ones, most are in their 20s and either enjoying playing the field on Tinder/OLD, or just very picky and have impossible standards.

By contrast there's a lot of single guys working there. This make up has been the same at every place i've worked. There's always a much higher ratio of single men to single women, same in college and school. Even though there's more women in the office there's more single men.


I think bachelor women tend to be either divorced women who are now happier alone after a bad marriage, or widow's.
This is also very true about the place where I work and I cant really reconcile this paradox.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 04-02-2018, 09:05 PM
 
639 posts, read 374,954 times
Reputation: 655
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle View Post
It's the feminist movement that's causing men to abandon women whom they've impregnated and the resulting children from these encounters? It's telling that you're blaming the single mothers who are doing the work and raising these kids in a less-than-ideal situation for the downfall of society, but not the sperm donors who pumped and dumped them.
you can save the victim mentality for someone that buys it.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Relationships

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:40 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top