It’s not the world’s job to make it easier for you to meet someone. It’s your job. Quit your cryin’.
Zenster, you still haven’t explained how a married guy talking to a single woman at a party limits your access to her in any way, shape, or form. You do not have to wait for a woman to be standing by herself, looking forlorn and vunerable, before you are allowed to go up and talk to her. This is how it works:
Zenster is walking backfrom the drink table at a party. He walks by Married Guy (MG) and Single Woman (SW) at party. He overhears . . .
Married Guy: I think that she must have been crazy to have killed those five kids. No one could do that and be rational.
Single Woman: Susan Smith was rational. I think it is naive to think that people can’t be evil. They certainly can be.
Zenster stops, turns to face both of them and says: You know, one thing that I was suprised to learn about this case was . . .
See? And with the nature of mingleing that goes on at parties, one of these two people will leave this triad within five minutes. You have a 50/50 chance of being left with the woman in question. Practice this technique with married couples.
Also, it dosen’t matter if you are loking for sex or marrige: either way you are looking for something and they may well be looking for something, and as long as that is out there it adds a certain tension to any conversaion between two people who are potentially lovers/spouses/fuckbuddies. That tension can be alot of fun, but people like to take it in small doses: talk to potential mates for a while, talk to non-potential mates for a while-and so on and so forth.
If you take a peek at my recipe thread you will see that I obviously like to cook. I have thrown hundreds of parties in my life and been to many more than that. This is just an observation from five years ago that I see continue to this day. I no longer give a flying fig about such things and now focus my attentions upon the dear friends that have the good taste to like me.
Interesting thread … I guess there’s no room left in the Pit, huh?
What a difference a day can make. You’ve come so far!
I think we have a case of a kind of projection where you see other people’s motivations for their actions as being related to your response to them. It’s like when I was burglarized. I felt violated in a way, enraged that someone would violate my privacy that way. I was extremely angry at the burglar, and then I started wondering why. I was imagining the burglar as someone who had a loathsome disrespect and dislike for me, who burglarized me just because he wanted me to feel this way. But that didn’t make sense when I thought about the times I had stolen from people in the past - there was no real maliciousness towards the victim, I just wanted to get what I wanted and get away without being caught. The way I saw MY burglar had more to do with the way I felt than the way things really were.
I know where Zenster is coming from. Many times I’ve been talking to some girl I liked when someone else ‘stole’ her attention from me, and I felt like they were doing that just to hold me back, to rub in my face that I couldn’t get a girl, to keep me away from her. I’ve also been in the situation where I want to talk to someone but can’t get their attention without seeming like a total geek because I don’t know how. You feel excluded, and you start imagining playground-like cliques of people who intentionally keep you out for their own amusement.
There probably are a few married men out there who might intentionally foil a guy’s attempt to talk to a girl for some kind of sadistic pleasure, but I think that’s probably as rare as other forms of serious sociopathy. I know there are a cases where a guy might intentionally try to keep a girl from talking to someone else because they think the woman needs to be protected from someone, or they were asked to (either by the woman or a concerned friend or relative). I think the vast majority of the cases the OP is talking about are neither, and it’s just a case of people chatting at a party because one of the reasons they go to parties is to socialize. Do what several posters above suggested, and try working your way into the conversation. If at that point the guy gives you a look and tries to snub you, then get mad because he probably is an asshole, but don’t assume that until you’ve tried talking to both of them.
No, what a difference it makes when you disconnect from all of that game-playing horse puckey.
What seems to have been lost these days is any sense of gallant conduct. People are so narrowly focused on their own personal gratification that they find it nearly impossible to put themselves into another’s shoes. It’s not a matter of projection as you generously attempt to suggest Badtz. It’s a matter of people being intentionally or unintentionally cut throat when they just plain don’t need to and shouldn’t be.
I’ve seen enough of it to know. There’s sufficient breakdown in social cohesion represented just by people not using their turn signals to guarantee that men will no longer do their brothers a favor. The people I’m talking about often corner the woman in question so that it is impossible to join the conversation. Such gymnastics now merely bore me and nothing more.
Just for the record, most of my girlfriends have routinely been amazed after hooking up with me. They would often tell me they couldn’t believe that I was single because of how happy I was all of the time. So don’t hand me this “Desperate Single Guy” garbage. I’ve been told to stop trying and then everything will come to me so many times I’ve almost puked.
Ya know, Zenster’s OP reminds me of a little anecdote.
[anecdote mode on]
There I was, sitting around a boring old hockey game (or sumpin) in the company box with my pals. Desperate, desperate men they were, and did they drool when the women sitting below us asked who we were, why we had the box, and so on and so forth. Being desperate desperate men, they invited her up, and gallantly lifted her over the seats until she was eye to eye.
“What’s your name?” pants one of these desperate desperate men.
“Kali,” she says.
“Oh,” says I. “The Hindu goddess of destruction.”
Suddenly I am laid low by a foul blow out of left field. A hand has smacked me upside the head on my blind side. As I sit on the floor, clutching my aching jaw a voice from above sez “Quit flirting, you’re married!”
[anecdote mode off]
Chill out Zenster. We ain’t trying to cut in on your potential action. We’re just looking for some good conversation.
The story above has been modified for dramatic license. Barbarian has never actually been laid low, has no blind side, and come to think of it, is immune to punches from minor mortals.
Chiming in as an Middle-Aged Married Guy, I must laugh (HAH-HAH-HAH!) in the direction of pathetic rogue males who obviously lack the social skills and charisma to attract just ONE mate, much less a harem! You are doomed to spend your lives ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN! Go back to your lonely lives of complaining and drinking to excess and don’t return until you think you are tough enough to challenge us REAL MEN for pride leadership!
Okay, here’s a question for the longer-married men.
I’ve been married less than two years. At a party or somesuch social function, I enjoy, just as others, to talk to other women. I’m not giving out any signals, I’m not “protecting” the single women from other guys or anything, it’s just enjoyable to talk to women. That’s what attracted me to my wife–she’s a woman and I like talking to her. I’ll admit it’s also nice to have the attention of other women.
My deal is with other men doing the same thing to my wife, especially single guys. Whenever I see a strange guy talking to my wife, I still get a twinge of that neanderthal, possessive thing…“I know how guys think and that guy is thinking that about my wife right now, the bastard!!!” I’ve told her this and she thinks its kinda sweet that I’m still protective, but I don’t want to turn into one of those guys who won’t let his wife talk to any guys. I know this is a double standard in my benefit, so is there any good way to deal with this? or does it just get better with time?
[hijack] Daniel Sugar,
[crude mode on] Look at it this way. They are priming the engine and you get to take the car to the finish line! [/crude mode off]
Seriously, though, you’ll just have to learn to get over it. If you trust your wife, a little harmless flirting at a party is not going to hurt anyone. It may even help you later in the evening. 
Ixnay on the aremshay, dropzone! :eek:
I’ve been at functions, and dudes I didn’t know were married would be talking to me. I’m just standing there drinking my drink and talking to them, when up comes another woman, and I figure out by her behavior that she’s the wife. Okay, maybe I’m clueless or the alcohol I consume at these functions impairs my judgment, but I don’t clock said dudes as being married right away, until jealous wife comes over. Then what I find myself doing is getting into a conversation with the wife and later extricating myself from the husband-wife tangle. [sigh] What I wouldn’t give for some intelligent conversation from a single fella. Don’t you single guys know that what tickles a lady’s fancy is his brain and how well he uses it? I know that for me personally, what gets me all hot and bothered is how well and how honestly a fella can express himself. [giggle] Of course I must admit that I got a good laugh out of blur’s suggestion that the single fellas go talk to the wives at the social gathering. I’d LOVE to see which jealous hubby shows out first. Now THAT’D make a very interesting party.
Don’t worry! See previous post—I got that one covered!!
Hmm. I don’t see much difference between, “must talk to women because I want a quick lay” and “must talk to women because I’m searching for a wife.” Seems a little goal-obsessed either way. Howza bout just, oh, talking, and seeing what develops, without viewing every conversant as either potential sweaty fun partner, or potential romantic life partner, and viewing instead as, the person I happen to be talking to right now?
Wandering more offtopic, I’ve found that, when you’re firmly attached/married and your SO/wife (as the case may be) makes a quiet beeline back to hover by you, brush imaginary lint from your shoulder, hang on your arm, and so forth…they really don’t like it when you grin brightly and ask them why they just don’t have done with it and pee a circle around you. They especially get exasperated when you snicker at the resulting glare. Speaking from a limited sample rate, that is. I’m quite certain the same applies when behaviors are reversed.
Chill dude. There ain’t no married guy conspiracy to keep single guys single. Sheesh, man, you’re treading dangerously close to the thin ice of “if I had ___________ (choose one: blue eyes, black hair, more hair, bigger muscles, mercedes, smaller cell phone, this dang married guy horning in on my action, etc.) then I would be getting laid tonight.”
I’m not your problem. Actually, if you’re cool about it, I would even happily help you break the ice with some potential serious love muffins. Or I would refer you to my wife, who likes hooking up two singles that seem like they are Darwinian in motion.
When you’re mingling at the party, just talk with people. If she’s hot and single, well you’re in the batters box. If she’s married, either ask for help or try be a little suave about it (I’m usually shy around single women, but you’re easy to talk to. What kind of approach worked with you?). If it’s a married guy, you should be HAPPY. Jesus, we generally aren’t competition. Get me on your side and hell I’ll go talk to the lady and see if she’s single and then work you into the conversation.
If you give it the “hey you bald married loser, back off, I’m single, on the prowl so get out of my way” to me, that pretty much guarantees I WILL mess with your chances.
Zenster, take a zen approach and you’ll be fine.
Deliberately breaking off an interesting conversation at a social gathering just to help some single guy in his quest for a potential wife strikes me as very ungallant, to the woman in question.
It’s a party, not a wife-hunting expedition. If I’m talking to anybody at the party, it’s because I’m trying to be sociable. And if that person, single woman or no, has decided that I’m interesting enough to have a conversation with then I’m not going to fob them off the first single guy to wander by just because of some vague fraternal obligation you think I should feel. She has decided that she wants to talk to me, and that’s her decision, and it would be rude of me to break off the conversation just because I (or you) think she should be talking to someone else.
Now, not letting anyone else into the conversation: that would indeed be rude of me, and I do something that crass feel perfectly free to barge in and shoehorn your way into the conversation. Heck, interrupting me mid-sentence would probably be okay if I was deliberately trying to exclude other people from the conversation. (An elbow to the gut might or might not be crossing the line.) But don’t expect me to slink meekly away just because you think I’m a “lecherous polecat” for daring to speak to a woman other than my wife.
Vinnie, that post ROCKED!
Cock-blocker. LOL
That should be “if I do something that crass” of course. I really have to improve my previewing…
Zenster,
I think you’re having a problem of perseption here. Not up to your usual standards of class that I have come to expect. I’m sorry you feel this way, and am frankly amazed to hear you say anything like this.
Hope it gets better.