Is my friend's race preventing her from finding decent partners?

In My Humble Opinion
101

I kind of regret that I introduced this part into this discussion.

While this trait of hers may cause problems in future relationships, I don’t think this is the only part of the picture. Plus her social graces have been improving, and there are people who aren’t bothered by the things she says. Her sense of humor and kindness, overrides her occasional obnoxiousness for some people. Everyone has an annoying trait or two, if she meets the right person I don’t see it being a huge problem.

There’s something in her physical appearance or body language that is repelling people, even before she opens her mouth. She says it’s race, people in this thread says it is age. I will kindly tell her to dress older, and we’ll see what happens.

102

I still think it is her body language, and that may change with time. If you put out the signals of “Don’t get near me/ I’m scare around people”, mostly guys lacking in social cues themselves (or at least not the “classy” ones she want) will be attracted, while most of the more normal ones will go look elsewhere. Been there, done that, slowly improving.

And tell her to stop with the “unambitious” thing. She has a long list of qualities she wants… what if she just decides to go with one who may be all of those, save one? She may have the time of her life, and decide that that extra quality is not that important, after all.

103

There’s really no reason for there to be a binary choice. There are a lot of people who post relationship questions like this about themselves or some friend the details of whose life they know with uncannily well. In those cases I think it makes sense to probe and eventually discovered that apparently the girl is annoying and lacks social grace.

But you could just as easily have a thread called “Generally speaking, is it harder for dark skinned women to meet college educated professional white men?” or “Is it detrimental to her dating prospects for a mid-20s woman to look 16-18?” I think the answers to those questions would be “yes, probably”, and “absolutely yes”, respectively.

It turns out this particular woman is obnoxious too, and probably is doing a lot of harm. But it doesn`t rule out other issues.

104

Most of me is saying Yay! Thank you for speaking up on that.

Part of me, though, still believes that materialism is the oil on the hinges to the door that opens a woman’s heart…that there’s some biological mechanism that squelches the female arousal in the absence of the male drive to Compete and Provide.

But I hope to hell not.

105

It’s really not quite a list. It’s a pretty mundane list. It’s a list of things any normal person would mention. If you take away socially awkward people, old people, unattractive people, and unambitious people, you seriously think you’re left with Brad Pitt?

First of all, she’s 26. Brad is too old for her.

Second, they’re all totally reasonable qualifications. Nobody has defined what her threshold for any of them are. Maybe she wants someone who makes a quarter million a year, maybe she wants someone with a definable profession and a plan to advance in it. Maybe she wants someone absolutely gorgeous, maybe she wants someone approximately as attractive as she is. Without specifics there’s nothing at all unreasonable about any of her list.

106

No, it’s not the only part of the picture–but it’s first part people like the “water”-drinking guy in the bar see. And to be totally blunt, after a first impression like that, most people aren’t going to stick around long enough to unearth the kindness and sense of humor. They’re just not. Seriously, if you didn’t know a guy and he approached you like that, would you spend enough time with him to find out he’s funny and kind? The right person would stick around, sure, but that person is going to be relatively rare, and the odds of him also being smart, attractive, educated and employed enough to suit her, etc. are rather low. It’s just like doing a database search–the more search qualifiers you have, the fewer results you get that match everything.

I have a quasi-friend from college who is a lot like the way you describe your friend, aside from the ethnic background. She’s no model, but she’s very striking, tall with Kate Hepburn bone structure, great skin, beautiful hair, and a reasonable figure. Always very well-groomed, all that sort of thing. Smart, good sense of humor, would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it. But, and I say this with all possible affection and kindness, socially she’s an Augean stables-level chore.

She’s not naive, per se, though maybe a bit sheltered. It’s more that she lacks a sense of perspective and a brain-to-mouth filter. And things that don’t immediately pertain to her just…fall off her radar pretty much immediately. It’s not that she’s callous or selfish, she just doesn’t internalize these things. So she does a lot of things like the examples you give of your friend, with similar results. And then she has not one clue why people are so rude and dismissive toward her, other than they’re big poopy-heads.

I don’t think she’ll ever find the guy she’s looking for, honestly. Because he not only has to be an overall good guy who is attractive and hard-working, and have similar education and earning power as her, he also has to be willing to overlook the things that come out of her mouth on a regular basis, the things that range from clueless to “OMG, who says that?” I feel bad for her, but she’s never asked for my input into her dating woes, so I can’t really say, “you know what your problem is?”

107

A couple of things come to my mind, in addition to a lot of what has already been suggested. In case it affects your perception of what I have to say, I’m a 28 y.o. married, slightly overweight woman with crappy social skills.

I think your friend is a What Not to Wear candidate, and perhaps a How to Drink In Social Settings candidate (if that show were to exist!)

You mention that she wears khakis and button shirts, and never wears revealing clothing, and I really think this would affect how people who haven’t yet met/spoken to her might react.

To me, khakis and button shirts are office wear, though particularly stuffy and conservative office wear (I realise that KC is probably more conservative overall than Montreal, so it might not seem so extreme there!), and if someone in a social setting (bar or even school) dressed like that all the time I would think that they didn’t really know how to dress appropriately for the event, and they never thought much about how clothing can make them more attractive.

When you say that she never wears anything revealing, what extent does that go to? To her, is it “revealing” to show too much arm? shoulder? a bit of chest, like a v-neck shirt? cleavage? legs/knees? clothes that flatter her form/curves? If her clothes are loose and boxy (I’m imagining also not very colourful shirts), that could be a major turn off for people, and they might not even be able to point to that and say “it’s her clothes”. What’s wrong with wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt once in a while? Or a sun dress, or slacks and a flattering blouse?

It sounds like she’s (possibly) just not doing anything to make herself look good, and then stands around wondering why people don’t look at her. It also sounds like her standards are high, so when she’s at a party/bar watching people, she might have a judgmental look on her face as she evaluates the suitability of their clothes, tattoos and teeth. So here’s this awkwardly dressed person making superficial determinations of others - that really doesn’t come across well!

About the alcohol; she sounds really juvenile about that. Did she just recently start drinking, and is still in the “look at me, I’m cool, I’m drinking alcohol!” phase of learning to handle her liquor, because that’s what it sounds like. I’m going to guess that when she drinks, she likes to get hammered. Asking why others aren’t drinking, teasing strangers for drinking water; these are things new drinkers and drunks tend to do. It is incredibly Not Cool and I can’t blame anyone for wanting to get away from that. People can see that she has a drink in her hand, she doesn’t need to ever be talking about it. Drinking only things like Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a little weird too, but I’m a beer and wine drinker and I enjoy a good martini once in a while. Alcohol doesn’t make a party; the people do, and she needs to understand that.

And learn to flirt. And smile more - smiling at people is generally a good way to get them to at least smile back (I know you’ve said nothing about her smiling or not, but it’s a fact anyways).

108

Having read this whole thread, two things come to mind. One is, as **mnemosyne **says, unless your friend is a 10+, button-down shirts and khakis are not a girl’s best friends. She needs to dress like a woman, not a gender-neutral office-borg. That doesn’t necessarily mean frills, or cleavage-baring tops, but something appropriate.

The other is that I’m begging her body language is closed off. Next time, try to notice how your friend is sitting. Are her legs crossed like you’d need the jaws of life to part them? Are her arms crossed? Does she make eye contact? Does she smile? Or does she sit there and look out at the room like she’s daring anyone to approach her?
FTR, I met my wonderful husband when I was 26, and for a lot of years, I dressed like your friend, and I was so insecure, I’m sure my body language was off-putting. When I stopped being all uptight about whether or not some guy was going to like me, guess what? One (the right one) did!