Men how you feel about being quizzed about your "3, 5 and 10 year life plans" on a first date?

In My Humble Opinion
81

While I would NEVER ask a first date (or my husband) about his 3, 5 and 10 year plan…(although with my husband, it might not be a bad idea, we just started a business and are both self employed), there is an important point here.

It isn’t just women who go looking for a sugar partner. I’ve been married for a long time, but I remember a lot of guys looking at me and figuring I’d be the one earning money and they could move out of their mom’s basement and get sex and still have someone do their laundry - UPGRADE!

Figuring out what a guy does, and what his ambitions are keeps you from wasting time. And it isn’t that I want someone to support me (although I HAVE called myself a trophy wife for the past year and it was SWEET) but that I want someone who is going to hold up his end of responsibility - a marriage is a partnership - and like I wouldn’t go into business with someone who was going to let me run it while he went fishing every day and took 50% of the profits, I wouldn’t marry someone who was happy delivering pizza to fulfill his WoW need (but other women might be). And, after about nineteen or so, I didn’t bother to date guys when I discovered I wouldn’t marry them. Why bother? (Sex is really not worth the bother, unless the guy in question was super hot - never met one of those - it was easy enough to find with guys who are more sympathetic to my life goals).

Now, subtlety is important. And a powerpoint presentation on goals is NOT subtle.

82

Oh, and the source of this “advice” is some cheesy-looking “women’s magazine” called Grand Ascent. They look like a Cosmo-wannabe, and taking any advice from women’s magazines seriously is rather questionable.

83

Uh, 1957 called and wants it’s stereotype back. I told them they might find it under the bridge.

84

I put it on the level of asking a girl if she’s into anal on the first date.

85

Women learned very early that they have power over men because of the magical something between their legs

86

Too much like a job interview. Suggests a cold personality.

87

I’d feel like the date was over at that point and that any 3, 5, or 10 year plan would not include that woman.

88

Your comment was that you want to know if your date is “sponging off their parents forever”. That sounds more like a financial concern than a concern about being “well rounded”. Feels like you’re backpedaling now.

It’s not really what’s being asked that’s offensive, it’s HOW it’s being asked. I think pretty much all the men in this thread agreed on that. People don’t want to be interrogated on a first date. There are more subtle and less creepy ways of asking questions, you know. What’s wrong with having a normal conversation where you say things like, “What do you do for a living?”, or “Where do you live?” You could get your information without coming off like an overly enthusiastic high school guidance counselor.

I guess this all shows the difference between how men and women look at dating. I think men treat a date as a chance to get to know someone and see if you get along well, whereas women seem to treat it like a job interview, where they immediately want to see if the man will meet their lengthy list of criteria, so that the woman isn’t “wasting her time”.

89

You’ve made your point clear by now. Don’t post in this thread again if you’re going to continue it any further.

90

Personally, I’m not offended by the idea of discussing what my future plans are, but I would certainly be turned off if I were just straight-up asked what my five-year plan is. Other than making sure you don’t find eachother physically repellant, perhaps the most important part of a first date is how we communicate, because it doesn’t matter what we do or don’t have in common if we can’t even do that. That means that we can have a decent conversation without feeling like one is grilling the other, it’s just a series of generic questions, one is rambling on and on about something the other doesn’t really care about, or just a bunch of awkward silence.

And yes, I get it, a date is reasonably equivalent to a job interview, and I certainly expect some basic grounds to be covered, and I feel much the same way. Sure, if it’s some job with a dozen applicants and each one gets 15 minutes and they all get asked the same questions. But an interview isn’t just about answering basic questions and it’s not one way. Even for a job interview, the interviewee should be asking questions to see if he really wants to work there. And the interviewer should be asking follow up questions and getting a sense for more than if that person is qualified, but what sort of personality that person has and if he’d get along with his potential future colleagues, and what kind of work ethic and all of that.

One of my rules is generally that I’ll end up learning a lot more about a person just from general conversation than from anything else. And even when we do ask questions, I learn more about what they choose to talk about or what types of questions they ask than in the specifics to their answers. That is, for instance, let’s say the whole five-year plan thing did come up, you’ll learn a lot more if you pick up on what stuff the other person focuses on in their plans. I bet you if the first thing someone mentions in their plan is their job they’re a very different person from someone who mentions family or where they want to live or an artistic endeavor. And this is exactly why general conversation is so much more effective, because they’re talking about what’s on their mind and what’s important to them. So if you’re on a date with a guy and he starts talking about his job, working hard, getting promotions, you don’t even need to ask him about his five year plan, because I bet he’ll mention the same stuff.

So, please, please, don’t ask me canned questions. Even if it’s a first meeting off a dating site, at least read my profile and maybe have something more directed and specific to me. And regardless, I don’t think good conversational skills are substantially different when talking to members of the opposite sex. You should know where your general conversation skills are from how you communicate with friends, family, and coworkers.

91

Well, men actually don’t seem to want to know if they get along well - because if they do and there is no chemistry, few are happy to get regulated to the “friend zone” Lets face it, most men are looking for sexual chemistry - perhaps in addition to “do we get along well.” For women, there is often a third criteria - does this have long term potential.

I have friends, and my experience with dates is that if we get along great, but I’m not willing to have sex with you because I’m not feeling it, I’m not suddenly going to be your movie buddy despite having lots in common. So why would I waste time if you didn’t have long term potential? It isn’t like he’s going to waste time with me if it obvious I’m not going to put out.

92

It was intended as a sarcastic one-off remark to 7e42, who was classing up the joint with his remarks about us gold diggers. Don’t take it that literally. I was backing up even sven who was advocating for a much milder, mellow, ‘hey, what are your dreams for the future’ approach. (I found my husband in college, where nearly everyone asked everyone else regardless of gender “what’s your major” and “do you know any good parties this weekend,” and not necessarily in that order.)

And as I noted in a follow-up post, this is from some lame-ass “women’s magazine” that I’ve never even heard of, so I wouldn’t bet 99.99% men would hear questions about their X-year plans from women unless they’re in a job interview. Much ado about clickbait, which is equally offensive stuff to either gender.

93

I don’t agree that the “sponging off your parents” thing is primarily financial anyway.

94

Agreed. Between basement dwellers, failure to launch, and helicopter parenting, you can get a ton of messed-up people. I know a late twenty-something woman with a husband, house, baby, dog, two careers and making a ton of money, but she can’t even be bothered to figure out how to get her own car fixed and (literally) screams at her parents to solve her problem. When she didn’t graduate in time from college due to her overlooking some requirement and not dealing with the problem, she again literally screamed at her parents because it was somehow their fault. (Her mother currently claims she gives in because she doesn’t want to lose seeing grandchild time to the mother-in-law. I’m thinking she doesn’t want to admit to what coddling their kid resulted in.) At least - so far - her husband seems to at least tolerate this, so maybe they’re a good match after all?

95

Most women are gold diggers but they can’t say it because it would make them look bad.

96

Not really. Most women are uppity and highly motivated and often outperform men because they want to be successful.

I don’t blame these women for not wanting to date guys with no ambition and little career prospects.

Of course, marrying for the above reasons is foolish, as they often discover 20 years too late.

97

I think its stupid for a woman who wants my college degree to match my line of work when everyone knows how bad the economy is

98

[QUOTE=7e42]
Most women are gold diggers but they can’t say it because it would make them look bad.
[/QUOTE]

“Food for thought; not valuable food, but food.” [ Some sitcom. ]

99

Good point. Would you say that women are assessing chemistry as well? It’s been my experience that they usually are.

Sure - it just seems that men are more willing to flesh that out over time without awkwardly forcing the issue at their first meeting.

You seem to be saying that men are only interested in brief sexual encounters, and women are only interested in long-term relationships. Do you really think that’s true?

100

How would you define the word “sponging”?