# The Ongoing Online Dating Advice Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 27, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978 "2010-05-27T18:50:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 112
**Author:** ![Mauvaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mauvaise/32/11084_2.png) [@Mauvaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauvaise)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2222 "2011-09-07T20:00:12Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > I’m 45. Is it reasonable to not want to date _grand_mothers? I hear you, brother! I’m 41 and I run into the same internal ‘ick’ factor if a profile mentions grandchildren. I just feel (whether it’s factual or not) that I’m too young to date a grandfather. I don’t put that in my profile, nor do I put the fact that I’d rather not date someone that has children in there either. I don’t put it there for two reasons: 1. It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when people have a list of all the things they don’t want in a person, so I would not want to do the same. Like IC mentions above, there are better ways of getting your point across. and B) You never know. There could be that one person that is a perfect match, even with kids or grandkids issue, and I would hate to preemptively rule them out. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2223 "2011-09-07T20:19:29Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > “I’m looking for someone without kids” would probably do a pretty good job of ruling out grannies" Being willing to date a single parent is a whole different story than dating a grandparent. > [@Mauvaise](#): > > B) You never know. There could be that one person that is a perfect match, even with kids or grandkids issue, and I would hate to preemptively rule them out. I used to really want to be a dad. Now I’m very ambivalent. If I end up with a woman who already has a kid, or having kids is very important to her, then I’m willing. If I end up with a woman that doesn’t, that’s fine with me too. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2224 "2011-09-07T20:52:02Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > The teacher I mentioned above used to come in with his guitar and sing “The Calculus Blues” I was thinking more along the lines of Shellac. > [@](#): > > OR, that’s really how she felt, but she still liked me anyways since I was married when I had the kid so it didn’t count against me. Sounds like something along those lines–she’s just too stupid to properly articulate “guys who’ve had unplanned kids outside of marriage” and shortcuts it as “single dads.” ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2225 "2011-09-07T22:11:20Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Sounds like something along those lines–she’s just too stupid to properly articulate “guys who’ve had unplanned kids outside of marriage” and shortcuts it as “single dads.” Meh, I never really gave it much thought anyways, the first time I stumbled across her profile I almost sent her an unsolicited message to tell her that _some of us_ aren’t to stupid to use a condom but blah blah blah…but then it seemed like a waste of energy and it just became entertaining as she kept popping up with new profiles. I was honestly shocked when she saved me as a favorite, I was sort of waiting for her to send me a message just to see what she had to say. Maybe I should have asked her why she would favorite someone with a kid. Doesn’t matter, even without that line, there was still plenty of other vile crap spewing out of her profiles. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2226 "2011-09-08T00:01:29Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > I’m 45. Is it reasonable to not want to date _grand_mothers? I’ve got a note in my OkC profile that reads “Please don’t be … a grandmother”, and I’ve had a few women write just to ask why I wasn’t considering grannies. The big issues for me: I’m nowhere even near that stage in my life yet, and the bulk of grandmothers in their late 30s and early 40s tend to be … well, “rustic”. I’m open-minded towards dating older women, but again there’s life stage issues with grandmothers in their early 50s. I don’t think that a 45 year old grandmother is necessarily trashy. That’s two generations having kids at 22.5, which is young but not talk-show material. Or it’s one person having a kid at the perfectly reasonable age of 25 and one getting knocked up young at 20. Or it’s someone who had a kid at 30 and whose kid had the rotten luck to become a teen parent. What if she was a hip Juno style teen mom back in the day, her child is now independent and happy, and that was all a long time ago? What if her 20 year old son knocked up some pro-life girl at college through plain old bad luck? I just don’t buy that all younger grandmothers are trashy or ultra-mature. My mom had me, raised me, and by 40 was ready to have all the fun she missed in her 20s without any burden of a biological clock or marriage-fever. If anything, she was a lot freer and younger-seeming than people still in the thick of raising children. I can get a visceral reaction to the idea of dating a grandmother. I get that whenever I see a guy in his 30s, despite being 30 myself. But its usually worth it to get past that and look at people as people. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2227 "2011-09-08T14:22:21Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > But its usually worth it to get past that and look at people as people. > [@even\_sven](#): > > I find it hard to think about guys more than a few years older than me as all that datable…balding, paunchy, etc. is not my thing. :cough: ---
**Author:** ![Mauvaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mauvaise/32/11084_2.png) [@Mauvaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauvaise)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2228 "2011-09-08T15:55:02Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > :cough: I love you. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2229 "2011-09-08T16:21:57Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > :cough: Ooh, ouch. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2230 "2011-09-08T18:51:39Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I don’t think that a 45 year old grandmother is necessarily trashy. That’s two generations having kids at 22.5, which is young but not talk-show material. Or it’s one person having a kid at the perfectly reasonable age of 25 and one getting knocked up young at 20. Or it’s someone who had a kid at 30 and whose kid had the rotten luck to become a teen parent. > > What if she was a hip Juno style teen mom back in the day, her child is now independent and happy, and that was all a long time ago? > > What if her 20 year old son knocked up some pro-life girl at college through plain old bad luck? My peers tend to be educated professionals. If they marry or have children, it tends to be well after college or grad school. The single moms I’ve met tend to have had their kids when they were in their late 20s or 30s; 40 year old mom, 10 year old son or daughter; 46 year old mom, 13 year old son or daughter, that kind of thing. While they’re probably out there, I’ve never come across the hypothetical late-teen mom who went to school to better herself, whose daughter also had a child in her late teens; or the hypothetical educated woman from a culture where arranged marriages at a young age are the norm. It’s always a haggard country woman, or a woman who’s … oh, say 48, but going on 65. Some of the country girls in their late 30s or early 40s will mention how they have three or four grandchildren, which to me is downright frightening. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2231 "2011-09-08T18:54:12Z")
> [@Mauvaise](#): > > I hear you, brother! I’m 41 and I run into the same internal ‘ick’ factor if a profile mentions grandchildren. I just feel (whether it’s factual or not) that I’m too young to date a grandfather. Exactly. It’s a visceral feeling, as much as it is thinking abut how such a relationship would be even more complicated than dating a woman with one or two children. I can’t disconnect “grandmother” from “little old lady”. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2232 "2011-09-09T16:53:43Z")
Well, I really did it this time. And as long as I’m sitting here waiting for one of my employees to get ready for me to delivery something to the shitty part of town, I might as well tell you about it. I was looking at someone’s pictures last night. She had a dog with the same name as my dog’s. Seemed like a good ice breaker right. I started off my email by mentioning it and how we both likely named our dogs for the same reason then went on to a few other things and hit send. A little while later I was about to go to bed and as I was closing out my firefox tabs I took one more look at her pictures. Fuck fuck fuck, no dog…Dammit, the dog belonged to someone else. The email was intended for the person I sent it to, I just thought she was the one with the dog. I sent her another email to apologize. I assume I won’t be hearing back from her. In other news. I probably won’t be hearing back from the girl with the dog either. My 1:00 in the morning brain though it was a good idea to start off her email by telling her I sent someone else part of an email intended for her. Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. OTOH, they both specifically say that they won’t date people that smoke, so I don’t really have high hopes for either of them. OTOOH I have gone on dates with people that have said that. I do mention in my email that I really don’t smoke that much. We’ll see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2233 "2011-09-09T17:10:54Z")
Go look at the Annals of Online Dating until you feel better about your relative level of fuckup. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2234 "2011-09-09T19:52:47Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > :cough: Eh. Physical attraction is a pretty relevant thing to the moment. A status that may or may not have any actual real-life bearing on the near future (“Oh, yeah, I raised a kid, she just finished college, had a kid, and bought a house in New Jersey. Maybe you’ll see her at Christmas”) seems a lot less relevant to me. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2235 "2011-09-09T20:11:19Z")
More a comment on the fact that you’re implying that every man more than a few years older than you is fat and bald, the same way that whoever it was was implying that all grandmothers have a mindset/personality he’d be incompatible with. 😃 I just thought it was funny. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2236 "2011-09-09T20:27:01Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Go look at the Annals of Online Dating until you feel better about your relative level of fuckup. I also had a glaring had a glaring editing error in the sentence not meant for her which I apologized for. I probably should have just ignored that since it was pretty obvious what happened. I felt like Robin Scherbatsky when she had to come up with a sign off…for which I can’t find a youtube clip of to help make my point. (yes, that was on purpose) ---
**Author:** ![JessMagic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2237 "2011-09-10T16:04:59Z")
OK, update from SDMB Online Dating Club (Singapore Section). Today I met up with a girl that I’ve exchanged some emails with - I mentioned her up-thread. It was a very pleasant evening. We met in Chinatown, without a plan, so we just grabbed some food, than had a wander round the street markets. We ended up buying a couple of those wee plastic helicopter things that you ping up in the air and they hover down. We played with them for about half an hour, mixing and having a laugh with some kids who were doing the same thing. This was a godsend, because we had something to concentrate on, instead of just staring at each other across a table. She’s from S. Korea, about which I have snippets of info (my company does a lot of work there) which stood me in good stead, and speaks English, but the Korean version. It was difficult to make myself understood at times. I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker though. She’s very pleasant company and pretty damn hot too. She bailed at about 10pm, and there was a hug but no kiss. I asked her to text me when she got home - she did so, and said “next time we go to Sentosa or night safari”. So, looks like there’ll be a next time. This online dating lark is a piece of piss. Mind you, I am a white guy in Singapore… ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2238 "2011-09-13T00:52:13Z")
I’m officially too fucked up to date. I should just prepare myself for a lifetime of celibacy at this point. 😃 I don’t want to disable or delete my OkC profile. Answering match questions, taking tests, and browsing other people’s profiles are good time wasters. I get good music, movie, book, and podcast recommendations too. I just added a podcast section under my favorites(Grammar Girl, Savage Love, TED Talks, Star Talk, and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. No guilty pleasure yet.) I don’t want to delete my profile text. I’m wondering if I should add something about how I’m not in a state to date right now. If I ever get my shit together, I’ll want to try online dating again. I don’t want to scare anyone away permanently with my craziness. It’s not like I get too many unsolicited messages, so I might just leave it as is and ignore any I do get. I still get horny and lonely. I don’t want just sex. If it was just horniness, I can that myself, if you know what I mean. I would like some female companionship still. FML ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2239 "2011-09-13T01:03:57Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > If it was just horniness, I can that myself, if you know what I mean. If it was just horniness, I can handle that myself, if you know what I mean. I accidentally a word and messed up my joke. I didn’t see it in time to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2240 "2011-09-13T03:58:24Z")
So just be honest in your profile. Put in that you’re keeping it open so you can do the tests and answer match questions, but all you’re looking for right now is companionship, but you don’t think you’re in the right place to date anyone. ---
**Author:** ![JessMagic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978/2241 "2011-09-13T08:47:58Z")
Hmm, not sure there’s a definite line between “companionship” and “dating”. **Invisible Chimp** - you say you want female companionship, but you’re also considering ignoring any messages you do receive? I suggest that you respond to any messages you get, even if it’s just “thanks for taking the time to contact me - I’m not interested in dating right now”. Who knows, you might get contacted by someone who’s looking to just hang out together. I wouldn’t shut yourself off from any potential friends/partners. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978.md?page=111) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ongoing-online-dating-advice-thread/540978.md?page=113)