I posted a long, insightful post describing my situation.
The Hamsters ATE IT!!!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
96 Degree Temps, frustration & the steroid injections my MD gave me are driving me squirrely!
I will try to respond calmly later.
I married a 32 year old bachelor with no degree, debt, and a so-so job who spent the previous 14 years living paycheck-to-paycheck, working 2 jobs just to keep himself fed and sheltered. Knowing he was facing middle age alone, he started to change things for himself. When we met, I asked him if he wanted me in his life AND all the changes he’d have to make. What could he offer me?
His time, his attention. No more all-night gamer parties, nerd fests and coming and going as he pleased. Being accountable to me. Thinking in terms of what’s best for US. Being dressed like a Ken doll, being dragged (without acting dragged) to family events and social gatherings.
I married him because of the Bosda-like statement he made about coming home to a wife would be like Paradise* and* he would do whatever it took to make that happen.
My family thought I could do better but now they see that nobody could do better than I have. I am the envy of my friends, spoiled beyond even my own wildest fantasies. He is thoughtful in ways their husbands never consider because he is so glad to have a nice wife.
Wow. This is what I love about the SDMB- where else can you get truthful conversation about topics most don’t talk truthfully about (thank God for anonymity)! Bosda echoes feelings in me, though it’s more that I see them on the horizon, than actually living in them. I’m 30, somewhat successful, but alone. I’ve found that I live my life waiting for something, not sure what, but something. It’s like there’s something out there that’ll pass my tracks at the right time and I’ll be scooped up and life will become great and exciting. I’ve felt this way about my professional life and romantic life. And know what? It ain’t going to happen unless I work for it! As an example: I started college at night 10 years ago, while working a very demanding, but very unfulfilling job. A few years into it I decided what it was that I wanted to do with my life. I then switched schools and jobs and pursued it. That first fall was one of the happiest of my lives. That Christmas, for some reason, stands out as the best I ever had. A few years later I started work in that field, and have been successful at it.
Then after a few more years I became less and less driven by what I was doing. About this time I began dating more and more. It was weird that I thought if I could only find the right person, then I could tough it out at work, feel happy with that person, then something would somehow come along that’d replace work and I’d be happy. And so I dated. And dated. I tried to use dating and the search for the perfect companion to make up for everything else not right with me. I had a few short term relationships, but I always walked away from them when that same unhappiness came back. So basically I found great relationships, but I was still miserable with life. It’s like the saying that you can mail a peice of shit to a better place, but when it gets there it’s still a piece of shit. I haven’t dated now in over a year. It’s weird, but I have no interest in dating these days. I’ve been pouring myself into my job to see if I can get some happiness back from it. I can honestly say that I have. I once again love my career and feel fulfilled by it. I’m concentrating on school again, too. I plan to take on a heaping class load this fall and see if that feeling I had so long ago from the Fall of '99 will come back. This all makes me realize that, although someday I hope to meet someone who will complete me, I know that I need to fix some things in me first if I want any happiness from a relationship. Otherwise, I’ll just be wasting the time of someone else. And the best part is, I’m pretty content these days. I only hope I can keep focused. I can see myself, years from now, living alone and feeling the emotions that Bosda’s post brought up in me.
Don’t give up hope. I know there’s women out there for every man, you just have to know where to look.
In Dallas, there is a bar called Spankee’s. They get a lot of swingers and BBW (fat girls), and on most nights the desperation there is palpable. I’ve seen hideous socially inept losers get picked up by desperate women who sense they are down to their last couple dozen irregular ovulations and ready to settle down. I’m sure there’s places like that in every city, you guys just need to find one and start spending time there.
I don’t agree with that. When we were in college a friend accused me of being narrow-minded because I said I couldn’t see myself marrying someone who had never gone to college. It’s not money. Hell, my degree is in English education, which practically guaranties a lifetime of working for non-profits, so I’m never going to get rich off of my education. What a degree (often) proves, though, is that he wanted something enough to work for it 2-4+ years. He also finished something he started. Drive and persistence are a lot more appealing to me, anyway, than simply being wealthy.
Now that I’m several years older, I realize that there are other ways to show drive and persistence, so I wouldn’t necessarily rule out a smart guy who hasn’t obtained a degree.
Hmm where to start. I realize I’ve been a lurker here a long time, (so feel like I know many of you) but have a sparse posting history, and nothing from start of subscriptions until last week. But I have a few thoughts on the subject.
I considered myself an “undatable”. I married to save a failing relationship (Surprise! That didn’t work) and ended up separated with a 6 month old baby. Never had a huge string of boyfriends, and had never dated anyone in my home town. Back living there, I figured I might as well give up and not think about dating again. Confirmed spinster at 35.
A friend basically forced me to check out the internet dating scene, I tried it for six months and mostly I met guys a few years older with grown kids and an expensive divorce. Not interested in a mom with a baby, not willing to go through the whole thing all over.
At the point of giving up I met “The Current Love Interest”. A 40-something man who had seldom dated. Had persued a whole bunch of NEAT hobbies instead. Has more interests and activities and meetings to go to every week than I have in a month. He works about 5 jobs (some are three hour contracts, some is respite work etc) and runs a small but showing a bit of profit business. No kids, never married, not a huge dating history either. He’s the kind of guy who everyone wants as a friend.
I probably out earn him by about 20-30%, but hes self sufficiant and pays his own way. He makes enough to support himself and put some money away for retirement. He owns his own house (something Im trying to do currently) and has long term goals.
I met him the conversation hasn’t stopped. Talking to him is like talking to myself with a different perspective and similar but not the same opinions. Its been almost eight months of dating, and not a fight or a serious problem yet. Its the healthiest relationship Ive ever had, mainly because we are very much two equals coming together. Do I imagne marrying him? We’ve talked about it, we aren’t “there” yet, (and I’m still married!) but we see that in the future. He loves me and my son and my son (now a kingly two and a half year old) has a major crush on the Love Interest. It is such a happy happy situation for all of us, and something neither of us thought could be.
I dont mean to brag, but seriously, nothing is impossible. I know my Love Interest thought he would never have wife and family, and thats very quickly becoming reality. He’s smart, although not well educated, employed, but not at one great job. It doesn’t matter. i wouldnt be without him, I don’t want to be without him. (Although for the next two weeks Im a theatre widow, but thats a whole 'nother story)
Hope this wasnt too dull a story from a neophyte…
For those of you who feel that wanting a man who is financially secure is shallow, I used to feel that way, too. Why should a man’s bank account be a measure of his attraction? After all, I have a moderate income, too, as a working single mom. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about your character, and character is what’s really important, right?
Then I dated a poor guy. He’d show up at my house a few times a week for dinner. Even though he ate as much as my kids and I together, he never brought anything or offered anything. He drove a 20 year-old beat up no A/C pickup, lived in a bedroom in a friend’s house, and complained for a week after he took me to dinner and it cost him 35 dollars. He had no ambition, no savings- literally nothing to show for having worked for at least 20 years as an adult. I had to end it after about two months.
My standards for dating are now that he has to have at least as much as I do, which to be sure, isn’t much.
By the way, I’m a woman in my late 30’s looking for a husband in his forties, and I actually know a lot of other women in the same situation, so while the overall rate of marraige is declining, for sure, I’m not so sure that the individual chances of a man in his 40’s are low.
LOL!! Jesus, sweetheart, you just never quit, do ya? I really hope you find a way to come up with the membership fee. You crack me up.
Shit, you just may talk ME into doing it. I’d like to go somewhere fun and interesting with much history.
Hm.
You should so get a job as a motivational speaker.
Meh. Now you’re just being a jerk. I see you’ve already racked up two previous warnings–it looks like you’ve overstayed your welcome.
Good-bye.
Hi! How’s it goin’, eh? 
ahem
Well, on the internet dating sites, I got the strong impression that Turning Forty Makes A Man Unattractive. I may have to reconsider this. Certainly it’s not necessarily true for women.
I may take you up on that offer as well. So far, in the potential overseas search area stakes, Brazil, Eastern Europe and the East are fighting it out in my mind… but that’s Plan C.
A couple of years ago, I read an overseas dating site that did a great service by emphasising just how much work is involved in finding someone at a distance, over and above the work involved in a relationship at all. It started off by giving the advice, “Make yourself into a good husband first. And be yourself–but be the best of all your possible selves.” The site succeeded in dissuading me from pursuing the overseas option until I was in much better shape, but I’ve taken that advice to heart and work on it every day.
So true. And so hard to learn at times.
Also very true. And damned difficult to get out of. And worth every minute of struggle in getting out of. The worst prison is your own mind.
And Robot Arm, thanks for the birthday greeting!
In my posts, I always specified that a man should be able to take care of himself. I never said being a moocher was okay. A man doesn’t have to have a big bank account, if he’s willing to work and pay for what he wants to have. Obviously, that man wasn’t willing to do those things.
Oh, I wasn’t directing that specifically at anyone, Mississippienne, just towards the idea that some people, not specifically Dopers (ie some of my friends and coworkers), have that as long as a man just has a job that a woman shouldn’t even consider how much money he makes. I consider it my biological imperative to attract a mate that is able to provide for a family, even though I work and will continue to do so.
And Sunspace, if you promise to come home at night sober and not to beat me, I’d marry you in a minute. Course, you’d have to move here because there’s no way in hell I’m going back to the frozen North.
But… but… I don’t even drink alcohol! I come from a family where the contents of the liquor cabinet would gather dust and every year before Christmas someone would have to dust them.
And the only time I’d beat you is if you wanted it… and I’m not sure that would happen because I probably wouldn’t. 
You live in the Southwest, don’t you? I’ve always wanted to see a desert. They tell me the colours are unforgettable.
I’m just waiting until the 2008 election occurs, then hopefully I’ll feel more secure about going to the States. Too many people I know have had problems crossing the border for me to quite trust things as they are. And that’s a damned shame. Because I have friends and relatives I haven’t seen in years there, and I miss San Francisco intensely.
38 year old, never married male here, with about 7 years of college (no degree, though), a technical certification, no prospects (at the moment) for a romatic relationship, and with a propensity to discuss the torrid details of his mental state on this board, and I’m going to say that the article is a load of fetid dingos kidneys. Anybody remember 20 years ago when Newsweek came out with an article stating that a woman in her 30s had a better chance of getting killed by terrorists than she did of getting married? It turned out to be a load of crap (though it took Newsweek 20 years to admit that they were wrong).
Let’s look at some facts, shall we? First of all, males in the US die at such a great rate that by the time they’re in their mid-30s (assuming they’ve managed to live that long) women outnumber them by a wide margin. Next, what’s the big deal about marriage? Yes, I’d like to be married, but come on, if I meet someone, fall in love with her, and all we do is shack up for the rest of our lives and never get around to formalizing it in the eyes of the state, is that a bad thing? Hell, no! Not if you love someone. When I proposed to one of my ex’s, she pointed out that her first name, combined with my last name would sound kind of weird, I told her I didn’t give a shit if she took my last name or not. What mattered to me and should matter to anyone in a relationship, is the level of commitment to one another. In the original Yours, Mine, and Ours, Henry Fonda makes a great speech about what love is (IMHO, it’s the only worthwhile thing in the film), I don’t remember the details, but the it boils down to love is being willing to be there for someone when they’re oozing disgusting stuff out of their orifices. Finally, given the choice, how many of us would rather be alone and old, than stuck in a dead marriage, where the only reason you’re still together is that you’re afraid of being alone?
I know plenty of people who are in absolutely shitty marriages, but won’t leave them because they’re afraid of being alone. Yea, gods! I can’t imagine too many fates worse than that. Why would you tether yourself to a ball of shit like that? My eldest brother’s fat fuck of a wife one day looked at him and said, “I don’t think I can live with it any more.” then packed her shit and left. My step-mother and father can’t believe how calm my brother is about the whole thing, mom and I know that he’s better off (Lord knows that her spendthrift ways nearly put him into bankruptcy dozens of times in their near 3 decades of marriage). Hell, he could have killed her and buried her in the backyard, and even her own mother wouldn’t be that upset (no shit, she’s told my brother [or so he says] that his ex-wife was a fool for leaving him), and I have no proof that he didn’t kill her, and I ain’t looking for it, either.
My father and step-mother really have a difficult time grasping the fact that I’ve not settled down, but for christ’s sake, I’m not going to shack up with any female biped. I utterly hate most forms of country music, so if I picked some random female in this area, odds are she’d be a country fan. Now, I’m not kidding when I say I find the shit physically painful, so how I could I subject someone who didn’t like the kind of music that I like to it, when I can’t stand the stuff that they like? And, hell, I’m going to admit that I’m not really ready for another relationship, I’m still unscrambling my brains after the last one, still, I know I’m going to have to put forth some kind of effort here fairly soon, since I’m getting a bit rusty on the relationship thing, but I’m not looking to settle down until I get some things in my life sorted out.
My advice for my fellow singles who are feeling bummed out about their situation is to do the following:
Look up people you knew in high school and see how they’re doing. Yeah, some of them are going to be doing better than you are, but as I discovered, some of them are going to be doing waaaaay worse than you. I stumbled across the myspace page of a gal I went to high school with that in my weaker moments I kicked myself for not nailing when I was in school. She looks like she’s freakin’ 80 now. One guy I went to high school with, who was a pathetic fuck then, is even worse now. How do I know? He’s using his senior picture on his myspace page (it’s the only photo on his page)! Also look up people you thought were hot, but wouldn’t give you the time of day. Odds are, if they’re still married, it’s a shitty one (which they’ll be more than willing to admit). In fact, their relationship will be so shitty, that they’ll probably dropping hints they’d like you to bang 'em. You can either grudge fuck the hell out of them, or point and laugh. (I say grudge fuck the hell out of the ones who still look good and laugh at the ones who’re ugly, YMMV.)
Oh, and I expect that I’ll be having a meltdown some time in the near future (and I’ll probably have more to say on this subject when I sober up).
There’s someone out there for everyone. Maybe more than just one “someone.” My advice is to stay out there in the world. Cultivate interests, attend events, and let people know you’re interested. As many have attested to, when you least expect it, expect it. I’ve never valued income as much as I value fiscal responsibility. The security of knowing your situation and living within your means is more important than the fabricated fairytale some people strive for.
Some guy is using a twenty-year old picture? :eek:
Geez, doesn’t the early 80’s hair style give it away?
Nah, he didn’t have any fancy 'do, just your basic ‘parted to one side.’