While people are free to start whatever threads they wish, I hope that we won't divide the singles' thread by age. I have a couple of reasons for feeling this way.
1. The management of Free Republic has never been entirely comfortable with having a singles' thread. I think we've done a good job of making this thread into something that is a credit to the site. While I personally think that there's nothing wrong with a "hook-up thread," the management seems to have some great fear of that kind of thread developing. If we split by ages, there will be more of an appearance that we're creating "hook-up threads" either by design or by accident. Furthermore, if managment is uncomfortable with one thread for whatever reason, management will be even more uncomfortable with two threads.
2. I don't know, nor do I particularly care, how old all the members of this thread are. I think we have a good group, and I'd hate to see this group split. We have enough "dead thread alerts" as it is. I think splitting the group will just mean two dead threads instead of one.
3. Another problem with splitting is that all of us are in different situations and will have different things in common. When it comes to experience in relationships, I'm less experienced than most of the college students. If we split by ages, the "older" thread could easily become a place where people sit around and talk about their kids. That's nice for them, but that's a conversation that offers nothing to me. Without the continuity of being in a basic family unit, all singles will have a different mixture of things in common and things not in common. Any kind of division takes away from what the thread could be.
4. I don't expect to find romance on Free Republic. I don't come to this thread or any other thread trying to check out the women as possible partners. Even without that expectation, a chemistry developing from regular conversations would be nice, and I don't want to close the door entirely on that possibility. However, I'd strongly prefer to marry someone quite a bit younger than I am. If we split the thread by age, the thread is less likely to be a place where I might meet someone who would be right for me. I don't like the idea of reducing my chances by splitting the thread that way.
Bill
Just wondering why...
I agree with you, WFTR. We've had enough run-ins with the mods in the past and I don't think making two separate threads would help that any. Also, I don't think there are really that many younger people on the thread, we just tend to talk a lot. And anyway, I'd be really disappointed if I didn't get to talk to everyone. There are people on this thread that I never see anywhere else on FR. I'd be really sad if I didn't get to talk to them anymore. :( Oh, and one last point: separating the threads would be imposing a rule on the singles' thread which is something we've avoided doing. Everyone is welcome here and I think we should keep it that way.