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Old 02-20-2009, 08:59 PM
miu
 
Location: MA/NH
17,764 posts, read 40,059,279 times
Reputation: 18068

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chanteuse d' Opéra View Post
Still I wonder though, when is the right time to actually "give it up"? Because it's like the more the guy is waiting, the less impatient he is...at least w/ my limited experience...
You only want to "give it up" to a guy that you are in love with and who loves you back, not because of your date pressuring you because he is horny and it's the 3rd or 10th date. It's not the number of dates, it's how you both feel about each other. And a guy that really loves you and respects who you are will wait until you are ready to "give it up".
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Old 02-20-2009, 09:36 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miu View Post
I just asked my boyfriend if his friends were being snatched up by their fellow female classmates for marriage, and he said no. In addition, I really feel that the nice quality guys are either too busy with getting their education OR they are discouraged by their parents from getting engaged too early in life or to the first girl they go out with.
Well, I'm not talking about marrying at that age, just finding a marriageable partner. I've advised my stepdaughter, don't go out with anyone who isn't marriage material, and dump a guy as soon as you find out he isn't. But yes, getting married is generally not a good idea at that age.

Quote:
It's more the women that want to marry their first love, not the guys. College boys live for going to spring break bashes and getting it on with as many different girls as possible.
Not all the guys, not by a long shot. And many of the guys who aren't like that are concentrated at the colleges, ripe for the picking.

Quote:
And at 20, guys are still young and developing. Picking out a good 20 year old man to marry would be like buying a pig in a poke.
I disagree. Yes, they're still developing, but if at 20 he's smart, compassionate, loving, fair, confident, hard working etc. etc., how bad is he likely to get down the road? Mostly likely he'll just get better, and some woman's going to snatch him up--not necessarily to marry him but to retain him & enjoy him in a LTR--while another woman is working on herself until she's 30. If the guy gets worse or differences become irreconcilable, no problem, the first woman can just dump him and then she's in the same boat as the second woman, except that the first one better knows what she needs from a relationship, for choosing the next guy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by miu View Post
You only want to "give it up" to a guy that you are in love with and who loves you back, not because of your date pressuring you because he is horny and it's the 3rd or 10th date. It's not the number of dates, it's how you both feel about each other.
I somewhat disagree. Love isn't necessary, or even desired. True love takes years. If you mean infatuation that could lead to love someday, then I agree.

Quote:
And a guy that really loves you and respects who you are will wait until you are ready to "give it up".
I totally disagree. That's hardly different than saying "a guy that really loves you and respects who you are will wait until you are ready to see a movie". Maybe a few weeks is okay. Not months. There's no good reason to withhold sex from a relationship for long. The women who do it are brainwashed by religion, extorting for marriage, or some other bad reason that gives even the decent guys the big red flag to run.
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Old 02-20-2009, 09:43 PM
miu
 
Location: MA/NH
17,764 posts, read 40,059,279 times
Reputation: 18068
Well I'd like the O.P.'s first time to be more romantic, than just because her date needs a physical release. And even when I was in college, and it was a good one, none of my friends had any thoughts about serious relationships or getting engaged. Even talking with the college students I work with, both sexes are planning to travel after graduation and then relocate to whatever city they need to in order to start their career. And there is not one guy that I knew in college that I would have wanted to marry, not even John Kennedy Jr. And the same goes for my 27 year old boyfriend and his friends of the same age. They aren't languishing over any of their former female coeds, and the one guy that married his college sweetheart is now getting divorced because she fell out of love with him.
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Old 02-20-2009, 10:02 PM
 
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First time sex with someone can be romantic, or at least not just a physical release, even if it's after just a few weeks. By then she can have a good idea that the guy is amenable to a LTR.

Yeah plenty of people work on their careers exclusively, or travel or whatever, and don't think much about a marriage partner until they're in their late 20s or 30s. Especially college folk, the future professionals. That's a relatively recent concept, and I think it's a mistake and a big reason why the divorce rates are now high. The older one gets, not only does the selection of mates get smaller (even if other people chose the wrong partners), but also the more set & less flexible one becomes in their ways (e.g. "you must love my two Great Danes, my babies!"), which causes friction in a relationship. Just my opinion, no science here. In the most rock-solid marriages I've seen (even arranged East Indian ones), the couple met in their 20s. Of course there are no guarantees for any relationship, formed at any age.

Last edited by Heiwos; 02-20-2009 at 10:15 PM..
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Old 02-20-2009, 10:55 PM
 
Location: Chicago
38,707 posts, read 102,855,938 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Heiwos View Post
Not all the guys, not by a long shot. And many of the guys who aren't like that are concentrated at the colleges, ripe for the picking.
I can tell it's been a long, long time since you've spent quality time on a college campus. Maybe you're thinking about MIT or Stanford. As for your average flagship state university... forget it. The kind of guy this lady is looking for are slim pickin's on your average college campus, especially now that female college enrollment outnumbers male enrollment on on average by about 3:2.
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Old 02-21-2009, 02:03 AM
 
Location: Portland, OR
9,855 posts, read 11,886,224 times
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Miu, picking out a good anyone to marry is like buying a pig in a poke! Even if you wait until you are 40 you could possibly blow it. Listen to Heiwos, s/he needs rep points and I am going to send some that way. I am 50 and I feel like I am 25, but I am 50. We just don't want to face our ages ever but 20 isn't 16, its 20. Not time to marry exactly but it could be, its legal certainly. It is definitely time to have an idea of some candidates. The ones like you who want to see how the offerings develop will get whats left. 3/4 of the Iraq fatalities are men under 25. 95% were married and had at least one child or one on the way. A LOT of men and women mature enough to move out and start living as adults in their teens. In the northeast where you are from there is an artificially long adolescence but all that has led to is a huge population of single men and women who expect so much that they are paralyzed by the choices they have. If it were that easy to pick off a good one at 30 there wouldn't be so many 40 y.o. never married w/o kids posting on Match.com and Craigslist still with the 21 point checklist out wondering where all the good guys are. Your boyfriends classmates aren't being snatched up for marriage at 2x and neither was I. The girls my age were all busy dating their professors or other older guys or not dating anyone at all. That doesn't mean that your boyfriend or his friends will forgive and/or forget that they were ignored all through college and the girls only come back at 30 when they have decided to settle down. For every woman who successfully does it your way ten others wind up single for life. My GF is 44. All of her friends her age are single. We are talking about six women here. Educated, smart, pretty, nice and they want marriage and babies in the worst way. They are on EHarmony, Match, JDate, whatever, they are desperate, they have had thousands of dates between them. You may know what you know but I have lived this stuff and I continue to see it unfold through my GF's friends. Heiwos and I are right and you are not. Childhood sweethearts, College sweethearts have very good chances for long lasting success and just like people who bought Microsoft stock when it was $5 a share sometimes that gawky kid in the chemistry lab turns up with a career at Pfizer and guess who gets to go to New York with him. The women sitting in the bars in Midtown waiting for someone just like him to marry them grew up in the same town he did but they left town early to do all sorts of things none of them as important in the end as finding someone decent for the long haul.

H
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Old 02-21-2009, 08:33 AM
miu
 
Location: MA/NH
17,764 posts, read 40,059,279 times
Reputation: 18068
There's a huge difference between my suggesting the O.P. wait until she graduates from college and sees where her career puts her geographically, and telling her to wait until 40 to marry. She's going to do better at school (which is very expensive) by not mixing her studies with dating. That's why there are still a few single sex colleges left in the US. Chasing after boys, or having them chase the girls is just a bad distraction if one is serious about their academics. And I think it sad that you would try to make the O.P. feel a sense of urgency about finding her future husband while still in college. That air of desperation can be detected and the guys can tell. Either that desperation vibe will turn off the guys or they will try to play her.

And all I know is, that I've never had a problem finding a nice boyfriend at any point in my life. And I could have married all of them if I wanted to. I did marry a guy when I was 32, but he was a tradesman type I guess (a pet store manager) and two years after marrying him, I fell out of love with him because he was so boring and lacked ambition. He hated our house mortgage and longed for the old days of renting. He didn't want to work a job that caused him stress. He was a closet alcoholic, while his dad and one of his sisters were recovered alcoholics. His family were all still renting and sharing the same large apartment. My mom divorced my exdad over huge disagreements over our educational path. I'm so glad that we didn't stay in NYC going to public schools. My exdad was a civil engineer that worked for Bell Labs. His idea of reading a good novel was signing up for the book of the month club. Academic women and tradesmen don't easily make for a good relationship couple. Tradesman husbands usually want a traditional stay at home wife and they want a lot of kids. Academic women want a career and to be a part time mom. Tradesman husbands don't always take well to their wives making more money than them or being more successful career wise. And most likely their moms were stay at home moms or only worked mothers hours at an unskilled job. So what happens to the O.P.'s academic skills and career then?

And also, the O.P, should only seriously date a guy that she feels romantic towards. And I don't think that she should marry her first boyfriend, or be another guy's first girlfriend and then marry him. I think that there is a lot of important things to be learned from a failed relationship or a few. We learn what's important to us in a relationship, what's worth fighting over and what's not. What I want in a s/o now is a lot different from what I was looking for when I was in my 20's. When I was young, just like many other young people male and female, his having good looks was on the top of my list. Now, having good looks is somewhere in the middle of my list, but brains, personality and a sense of humour are very important. Plus having common hobbies so that we are also best friends with each other. And what about having kids? Most young people don't know what kind of family they want to create. What if the O.P. really loves her career and only want one child or none but her husband wants a big family and a stay at home mom? At the age of 20, it's too soon to know these things. And people don't change who they are, so her marrying her college sweetheart will likely become a situation later of of that guy not being what she needs in her life mate.
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Old 02-21-2009, 02:25 PM
 
960 posts, read 1,157,658 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miu View Post
And I think it sad that you would try to make the O.P. feel a sense of urgency about finding her future husband while still in college.
No urgency needed. There's 4 years there, 2 years left for the OPer. And it's just try. It can just be one priority in addition to study, to spend some time on each week.

Quote:
What I want in a s/o now is a lot different from what I was looking for when I was in my 20's. When I was young, just like many other young people male and female, his having good looks was on the top of my list. Now, having good looks is somewhere in the middle of my list, but brains, personality and a sense of humour are very important. Plus having common hobbies so that we are also best friends with each other.
Yep. This is why parents can help a lot. Look at the success of arranged marriages. (Not all great, but from what I've seen there are lots of good ones.) Parents tend to know better what will work in the long run, for their son/daughter. This is why I say the solution is to grow up a little earlier, and listen carefully to parents/elders, just like the arranged-marriage partners do. Although in our culture they need not marry too young. Just a LTR is okay at first.

I think a couple can be great friends with only a few hobbies in common.

Quote:
And what about having kids? Most young people don't know what kind of family they want to create. What if the O.P. really loves her career and only want one child or none but her husband wants a big family and a stay at home mom? At the age of 20, it's too soon to know these things.
Not really. Here's what women need to know when they're in their early 20s: almost all women, 90+% I say, end up wanting children eventually. One is not preferable; not good for the kid to have no sibling. Three+ is not preferable; this greatly exacerbates overpopulation (replaces more than just the parents), so it's not fair to future generations. Two is perfect.

If the guy wants a big family, he probably has an idea of that during his college years; he probably comes from a big family. Nobody should be having big families these days, so the woman should detect & avoid these guys. Common for a college-age man to want no kids. He usually comes around after a LTR. The best she can do is make sure he's not dead set against it, during the early days of the relationship.

Now, age 35+ is about the line for having kids. After that age, even if the kids don't have Down's syndrome, the parents are older & weaker. The kids will have their parents for 10 years less, on average, than the parents who had kids at age 25. So time is of the essense for having kids. But there is still plenty of time for a woman to make it happen, if she doesn't ignore the situation until she's 30+. At 30+, guys are starting to clue in that they're desired in large part as sperm donors.

As far as who's staying home with the kids, or whether there's daycare while mom works on her career, I think there's no doubt that it's best for one parent to be at home for the kids, at least while they're not in school. Parents who can't make that work should seriously think about not having kids. Call that Cave Man if you want, I call it Reality. If mom wants to be the breadwinner, and hubby's ego can handle that, fine. However, I observe that the majority of career women want a fun career, not a tougher one that brings home the bacon necessary to pay for a family. A couple doesn't need to discuss these details when they start dating, 5 or 10 years before they have kids.

Quote:
And people don't change who they are, so her marrying her college sweetheart will likely become a situation later of of that guy not being what she needs in her life mate.
People certainly change, but it shouldn't be counted on. This is why she should eschew the men who quite likely will end up to be losers later. College-age women really know that the loudmouth stud is not the best choice, but they go for him anyway. Leisesturm points out the best candidate: it's the guy who is a tad nerdy but can still hold up a decent conversation. If he has all the other basics I mentioned (fair, compassionate, etc.), he's probably going to go far in life.

Last edited by Heiwos; 02-21-2009 at 03:03 PM..
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Old 02-21-2009, 02:55 PM
 
960 posts, read 1,157,658 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover View Post
I can tell it's been a long, long time since you've spent quality time on a college campus. Maybe you're thinking about MIT or Stanford. As for your average flagship state university... forget it. The kind of guy this lady is looking for are slim pickin's on your average college campus, especially now that female college enrollment outnumbers male enrollment on on average by about 3:2.
You could be right. I doubt it though. I think the type of guy she should be looking for is there, and all but ignored by the women. I bet I could pick one out if I was there for a day! Take today's good members of society, who have strong marriages, and go back to see what they were like in college. They're mostly nerdish. Until the women are older they just don't realize the value of these guys. By their late 20s, usually, these guys are cleaned up & getting established in good careers.
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Old 02-21-2009, 04:20 PM
 
Location: Fort Bend County, TX/USA/Mississauga, ON/Canada
2,702 posts, read 6,009,360 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miu View Post
There's a huge difference between my suggesting the O.P. wait until she graduates from college and sees where her career puts her geographically, and telling her to wait until 40 to marry. She's going to do better at school (which is very expensive) by not mixing her studies with dating. That's why there are still a few single sex colleges left in the US. Chasing after boys, or having them chase the girls is just a bad distraction if one is serious about their academics. And I think it sad that you would try to make the O.P. feel a sense of urgency about finding her future husband while still in college. That air of desperation can be detected and the guys can tell. Either that desperation vibe will turn off the guys or they will try to play her.

And all I know is, that I've never had a problem finding a nice boyfriend at any point in my life. And I could have married all of them if I wanted to. I did marry a guy when I was 32, but he was a tradesman type I guess (a pet store manager) and two years after marrying him, I fell out of love with him because he was so boring and lacked ambition. He hated our house mortgage and longed for the old days of renting. He didn't want to work a job that caused him stress. He was a closet alcoholic, while his dad and one of his sisters were recovered alcoholics. His family were all still renting and sharing the same large apartment. My mom divorced my exdad over huge disagreements over our educational path. I'm so glad that we didn't stay in NYC going to public schools. My exdad was a civil engineer that worked for Bell Labs. His idea of reading a good novel was signing up for the book of the month club. Academic women and tradesmen don't easily make for a good relationship couple. Tradesman husbands usually want a traditional stay at home wife and they want a lot of kids. Academic women want a career and to be a part time mom. Tradesman husbands don't always take well to their wives making more money than them or being more successful career wise. And most likely their moms were stay at home moms or only worked mothers hours at an unskilled job. So what happens to the O.P.'s academic skills and career then?

And also, the O.P, should only seriously date a guy that she feels romantic towards. And I don't think that she should marry her first boyfriend, or be another guy's first girlfriend and then marry him. I think that there is a lot of important things to be learned from a failed relationship or a few. We learn what's important to us in a relationship, what's worth fighting over and what's not. What I want in a s/o now is a lot different from what I was looking for when I was in my 20's. When I was young, just like many other young people male and female, his having good looks was on the top of my list. Now, having good looks is somewhere in the middle of my list, but brains, personality and a sense of humour are very important. Plus having common hobbies so that we are also best friends with each other. And what about having kids? Most young people don't know what kind of family they want to create. What if the O.P. really loves her career and only want one child or none but her husband wants a big family and a stay at home mom? At the age of 20, it's too soon to know these things. And people don't change who they are, so her marrying her college sweetheart will likely become a situation later of of that guy not being what she needs in her life mate.
Miu, thanks for being one of the most understanding posters about my "situation"...& yes, I have experienced unrequited love (lol)...also, I faced a situation where I went on a few dates w/ a grad student, we were friends first but that's all I wanted to be: friends. He was 26 & made it very clear that he liked me, but I wasn't really attracted to him or his lifestyle (he was a little too "free-spirited" if you catch my drift). It just seems like what are the chances of finding love but then again, what are the chances of anything? Life as we know it could take a downturn at this very moment.

Just addressing other posters (mostly Heiwos & Leisesturm), one can only see so far using the lens in which you view the world. At the college which I attend, there is a culture where if you don't have the "ring by junior spring", hope is gone. A friend of mine got married last December & she's 20, she & her husband attend my church. Another friend is 22 & got married last year & now she is pregnant so you can see while I kind of feel the way I do.

At the same time, two of my older female cousins both graduated college--one is a veterinarian & the other is an engineer & neither of them dated, much less had serious boyfriends in college. They are in their mid-late 20s now & are in what seem like solid relationships so I'm aware that all is not lost once you leave undergrad. One cousin met her boyfriend through a mutual friend & the other at her jon.

I am planning on attending graduate school after I graduate (in May 2010) & it has never been in my nature to actively pursue guys, 99% of the time they have pursued me & the events have mostly fallen when I have least expected it...I tried to pursue one guy once & failed miserably...I doubt I will do that again. About the bad boys/nice guys, I'm so aware of that social stigma & it's evident who they are here as well.

It's funny though because it seems like the bad boys seem to be attracted to me much moreso than the "nerdyish" guys, nothing wrong w/ the "nerd" types, I'm an English major so I'm surrounded by plenty of them, myself included.
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