Sandbox Romants: Wooing and Problems

Luck!

how did n/n's ladyfriend find out about this guy's thoughts?

he told her, I think. It was a load of InstaGossip, which was just incredibly childish.

so he can't even bring you into it that way?

what a knob.

Dude FB blocked me after all this before I even met him, so BZZZT.

Just to be clear: it was OKCupid guy who ran this shit, my house mate was a sitting back going "wtf just happened" person as I was.

3rd date with an OKCupid gal went well

nice!

i signed up for this meetup thing to meet new people but my work is having an impromptu happy hour, and one of the ppl going is quite attractive.

ditch the meetup?

otoh, this thing w/cowkr is never gonna go anywhere, so i should probably just not go, right?

but it'll be fun...

help me decide!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2611318715_1e0db32614_z.jpg?zz=1

haha.

what i should do vs. what i want to do.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/174888_146267212113179_1729155_n.jpg

One of these days, I'll catch on immediately that Trayce isn't talking about the Sooner State.

Haha :)

I had a perfectly lovely weekend with veganboy (that looks alarmingly like vengaboy) strolling around gardens, taking pix, Metalocalypse marathon, Mitchell & Webb, then mucking around on the Wii all day today, nice!

metalocalypse and mitchell and webb = dream date city!

Haha I know! I wasnt sure he'd be into either: I've had a dreadful time tryng to work out shared taste with this guy (he loves Blackadder but hates Black Books wtf?) but he loved both shows which made my weekend :)

Fuckin love Metalocalypse. Where is man who aims being like Skwisgar.

'No Crazy Chicks': Eight Red Flags I Learned from Online Dating

See also: Men who refer to women as "females."

The "im a nice guy, why do women only date jerks?" guy is the WORST. I have known a few guys like that, bitter and resentful and full of passive aggresvive insistance that the fact they dont get dates is TOTALLY everyone ELSES fault and NEVER theirs.

See also: Men who refer to women as "females."

I hate this so much.

not to pick at scabs, but that article is really kind of judgy and awful

that article was pretty bad. this one is particularly true though:

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

i see this SO MUCH.

most of those things really are bad news but kind of obvious? i am guilty of the capitalization carnage (and i'm sure guilty of a bunch of other red flag to most people, such as excessive love of cats).

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

Is this a sex thing?

The author of the article seemed rather eager to establish that she was only dabbling in online dating and looked upon the whole process from a lofty ironic distance.

She takes this controversial position: "Offline, women are socialized to Be Nice (or at least to be polite and respond to advances)."

in every online dating article ever:

i'm just doing this for purposes of JOURNALISM, guys, swear

not to pick at scabs, but that article is really kind of judgy and awful

She does disclose early on that she is a judgmental bitch.

apparently she lives in my zip code?

i'm a nice guy; i should ask her out

I saw that line about being a judgemental bitch early on in the article and I mentally inserted the unspoken "haha, you see what a good sport I am about it" after that sentence.

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

Is this a sex thing?

I don't know what you mean by a sex thing? It says to me that they won't consider being partnered up w women their own age, all applicants must range from inappropriately young to "still enough younger than me not to be threatening/to make me look successful for catching a young one."

that's about what i meant. control? sex? somewhere in the nexus of disturbing.

Status, at the very least, and control issues also somewhere between possible and probable.

If I tell you my age bracket on OKC, as a 40 year old, was 27 to 42, is that as much of a problem? (curious)

(I'm not on there anymore fwiw, I find the whole thing pointless tbh)

It doesn't function the same way in reverse, because young men and the public control of their sexuality/fertility have not (generally? ever?) historically been status symbols for older women.

as long as the age bracket at least HAS your own age in it and doesn't dip under 21 it's usually fine.

yesterday i got a message from a 49 year old with an age range of 23-47...who then admitted to lying about his age in his profile (but you'd never guess because he's so youthful!) NOT fine.

that is really sad. like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them. ugh, so unfortunate and also depressing-making.

Well thats true but there is also the problem that as we get to this age, the pool of available people of the same age is DRASTICALLY reduced. If you then also factor out anyone who has major baggage, or has kids from previous marriages, you're left with fuckall to work with, tbh.

Not that I'm at all defending men who go after young tail and continually do so all their lives, thats just crap.

like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

This is a thing that makes me curious - i feel like there are two rival extreme positions on men who date significantly younger. On one end there's the idea of "has succeeded by landing a younger and therefore smoother-skinned/less fettered by responsibilities/more conventionally desirable gf". The other extreme is "isn't emotionally mature enough to value and sustain a relationship with a woman his own age". I sort of feel like one leans toward one position or the other and the two can't really coexist -- if you find yourself thinking less of one man for dating much younger it bleeds into your opinions of every other man you meet whose situation feels comparable.

the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

This happens, but I think sometimes it's simpler than that: dudes have learned from society, media, wahtever, that a "good" girlfriend is a younger-than-you one, and they feel like that's their right, if they're going to have a gf, she's going to be a "good" one. So they codify this ideal with a reduced age-range.

like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

Just want to add this consideration -- when I was 18, I was (generally speaking) sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; when I was 28, I was sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; when I was 38, I was sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; now I'm 48 and I'm sexually attracted to women in their early 20s. How fixed or movable should an erotic ideal be? Who I'm sexually attracted to is just not applicable anymore in the real world, but as a thought experiment...my erotic ideal is not going to get older along with me, no.

That said, if I were suddenly to find myself dating again, I'm smart enough to know that the sexual component is an ever-shrinking (hurr hurr) part of the equation that includes companionship, shared intellectual and cultural interests, etc. I'm sure a lot of guys in their 40s con themselves into thinking they have more to offer than they do.

my erotic ideal is not going to get older along with me, no.

This is what I don't understand. My erotic ideal has MOST CERTAINLY gotten older along with me, to the extent that trying to think erotically about much younger men now feels unpleasant, like perving on children or someone you're related to.

My relationship or romantic ideal has aged right along with me, just not my erotic/sexual ideal.

I might think a younger man is attractive in the same way I might find a woman beautiful or attractive, that is, in terms of hypothetical adherence to a set of standards.

I kind of am also in a smilar boat to you Rock. Like when I was 16-25 I was interested in and dating guys fair bit older than me (20-28), but as Ive aged, that 22-28 age range has stuck fast as "guys I notice most". Its weird. I also guess I dont feel confident enough to date a guy my own age who acts like an Actual Middle Aged man? I'm still watching cartoons and playing video games and seeing bands ffs.

so are a lot of Actual Middle Aged men!

and not just the shlubby ones, I'd wager.

my "erotic ideal" (looool) has definitely gotten older right along with me, but i suspect that it may stop doing so at some point