Posted on 02/14/2008 6:25:05 AM PST by reaganaut1
About six months after my son was born, he and I were sitting on a blanket at the park with a close friend and her daughter. It was a sunny summer weekend, and other parents and their kids picnicked nearby—mothers munching berries and lounging on the grass, fathers tossing balls with their giddy toddlers. My friend and I, who, in fits of self-empowerment, had conceived our babies with donor sperm because we hadn’t met Mr. Right yet, surveyed the idyllic scene.
“Ah, this is the dream,” I said, and we nodded in silence for a minute, then burst out laughing. In some ways, I meant it: we’d both dreamed of motherhood, and here we were, picnicking in the park with our children. But it was also decidedly not the dream. The dream, like that of our mothers and their mothers from time immemorial, was to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I think that is so unfair to say. I am 40, college educated, have a good job, and I am told I have good taste in clothes and no my personal habits are very good (I ask people to always be honest with me if I am committing a social faux pas). I am also in good shape, have all my hair, and told I am good looking by several women.
As for egos, by just saying the above probably makes you think I am. But I know who I am. I have been told I want “9s and 10s” but I date all kinds of women.
Do you think it is fun knowing a sister has “the grandchildren” as a pull whenever there is a family get together? Is it fun when there is a couples event and of course I can’t go? Is it fun when I am the “third wheel” when people are coupled?
I think you are vastly unfair to single people.
“Women demanded equality and got it.”
My opinion is that they also mis defined equality, to mean equality of tasks and work respect. As a result, they no longer focus on where their real talents are and then tell men that they should not be appreciated for the nurturing talents that they have.
This has confused a whole generation of men, and as a result these men are no longer willing to take the risks.
(Present FReeperettes excluded from my opinion.)
Well good luck on your marriage.
Mostly I responded because of your hilarious “soylent squirrel” tag!
She should tell them not to be feminists- I am a male, and in my generation too many of the young ladies are either blatant (or because of the mass media/education environment feminists by defacto)! Well I intend in being a Victorian era male where I am a the head of the household, no question, but I WILL be the protector of my woman/wife even to the POINT OF DEATH. I will respect her and her opinions, but I am the leader the Knight in shining Armor, and she is the damsel in distress. Any woman that tries to take my authority is NO MAS to me, I WILL NOT marry a feminist no matter how beautiful!! If she doesn’t like it, then we will just have to move on.
As a recently divorced person and entering the dating scene, I think partly right. Not so much the personal habits, but more so the unwillingness to work at a relationship, and a little of inflated ego.
“You’re right about women now being the aggressors, which for a traditional, romantic gal like myself, makes dating kinda hard when the guys expect to get jumped within two weeks of dating (if not the first night).”
I wish I could meet a gal that believed this and behaved in that manner. I am sick and tired of the pressure that sex, and expectations of sex, place on the individuals involved in simply dating. However, I’ve had some women break it off very early because I wasn’t acting fast enough.
At this stage in my life I have simply given up and am pretty ambivilent about the whole dating thing. Working Dave Ramsey’s system helps a lot in not really missing it.
LOL!~
No, even with online dating, it is more difficult to meet people than even 10 years ago. Thanks to sexual harassment, men and women are on eggshells in the office, and just saying you look nice today could get you fired. Bars and clubs...meat markets, get an STD. Some friends just do not “set up” their single friends, they fear if it does not work out their friendship will be affected. And joining activities? Come on, who has time for that? You end up going to Barnes and Noble and pray for just that “Sleepless in Seattle” accidental bump into one another leading to asking for a number.
Not only do they not know how to be choosy,
they’re taught that being discriminating (ie, choosing the better over the worse) is a “sin” in the politically correct times that we’re in.
If you don’t go out with the guy that has his pants hanging around his thighs, you’re being intolerant, or perhaps even racist.
are you serious?
if there was not such thing as bad sex for men, there would not be such thing as GOOD Divorce.
Heh...well, and I’d hope that if the right person comes along (and by right, I don’t mean perfect, but I do mean right), I won’t come back to these threads and post “single people are *messed up*!!” messages. ;-)
I’m out of popcorn today, though...
Women want “bad boys.” You know, popular culture demands the popular with the ladies kinds of men to be players, cocky, and arrogant.
I always tell people that you can find a lot of women who like “bad boys”....over in the battered women’s shelters.
That’s not true.
Pick up any chicklit book in the store...or download any ebook from an erotica sight.
That’s all the books have are uber-masculine, super-protective, ultra-male men. Even by very lib authors, just about every alpha in these stories would make John Wayne look like a pansy. Any yea, soldiers, special forces, warriors...so flags and patriotism of any century is a real turn on.
The kicker is, they actually love women, adore their females....and want them to be happy.
Wow, what a concept/ sarc
Oh, and they happen to be incredible in bed.
Sorry to hear about the divorce, KC...
Check this out for a better “pool”:
http://www.equallyyoked.com
We lose sight of our mortality. We forget that we, too, will age and become less alluring. And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children. Which is all the more reason to settle before settling is no longer an option.
Paragraph after paragraph, this article was like the above; excellent post. But I must offer a few comments:
Not one word was put to the issue of what 'marriage' is for. The assumption is that it is to banish lonliness, that settling is a smart strategy to avoid that fate. Yet, if women were taught that marriage has a far greater purpose than that, articles like these wouldn't have such a following.
Marriage is religion's bugle. Inescapably, religion, pick your flavor, including secular humanism, drives the model of marriage government. Marriage is, quite loudly, that religion's most visible instrument of 'over here! over here!'. (And as the decades go by, one would suspect, Secular Humanism is in deep trouble, because looking at those marriages is like looking at a Jackson Pollack painting - who, really, wants to be an artist like that? But the REAL issue is that the religious alternatives are not up to snuff, yet.)
Christianity is popular for a variety of reasons, but a big one is that Christian marriages, executed according to Christian principals, build boys into the kind of men women don't settle for .... these types are chased.
So, the whole article is a religious pep talk to like-minded humanist women, who may happen to be young and unmarried. And 'settling' is encouraged, because years of chasing secular humanist men will always prove a point: such men are quite selfish, and will largely remain selfish during the marriage as a rule. But it's better than being 'alone' she says. To any of those women readers, consider this: you do the man you settle for, and your culture, a big disservice: you REWARD their selfishness, by settling for them. Then, when you have their sons, and they watch how Dad treats you, you are culpable in reproducing such selfishness - and you doom your daughters to the same culture.
What she could have discussed, however briefly, is how her parents set her up such that she would be positioned to write such a depressing, and flat out wrong, article in mid-life. She could have discussed any of these women's parents roles in the matter. But true to the religion, not a word ... because in that religion, once you are of 'age', you are on your own. What sad bunk; what a sad fate for her son. He'll read her words some day, and aspire to .... what? A man worth settling for? What utter, distilled bunk.
No, the deep, not pretty truth, is that this article, as with so much other nonsense out there, is the fault of Christian men of generations past who instead of taking their faith seriously, abused the positions that faith dictates, and abdicated on the duties that faith requires.
And so God, who reportedly punishes, punishes now, across generations, the faithless Christians and their neighbors alike.
So, until the jails, which are filled with fatherless criminals, become crowed with visiting faithful men who visit them, readers of this article should expect to see more 'advice' regarding how to rearrange the chairs on the Titanic.
In short, the Christian men, not overly picky silly women, are to be blamed for articles like these.
You never met my ex.
My ex decided apparently that she liked her men younger and latino; which can be an issue when you are married! ;) The worst was that her paramour was a communist too! Had a whole thing for Che Guevarra...I am not kidding.
Dating and the rest of my life is going well.
Ahhhh - my favorite trait in a woman: low expectations...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.