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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To tactfully mention that my friend may appear desperate?

113 replies

IcouldstillbeJoseph · 24/09/2012 17:41

This is not a question from smug married woman here but I have a friend, a few years younger than me who I've just had to listen to sobbing about having been dumped by yet another bloke.

I have known her a good few years now and it is always the same. Meets man (either dating websites or fixed up through friends normally as we work in predominately female job), goes on few dates, has sex quickly (I'm not judging!), is ALWAYS very keen on man. Texts him lots.

The next bit is hard to articulate - but she has already picked out where she would ideally like to get married. Has firm ideas in her head about how many children she would like, including their names etc. She will happily mention this on dates. She told me she had been for a walk with latest man and said "thats where I want to get married".

Few weeks in, man goes cold, she texts even more and then he calls the whole thing off. She has just been dumped again and has already text him asking if he wants to go to her house and chat things through.

It is making me cringe. I feel like I should say something now. I have said before "don't text him, just let him do some leg work etc" but she always ignores it. It breaks my heart to see her upset so much but I can sort of see it from man's pov. I think I'd be perturbed by similar behaviour.....

My friend is 24 btw

OP posts:

CoteDAzur · 25/09/2012 09:25

Let's not split hairs. You know what I mean.

Would any of you like your DD to be a mum at 16?

Proudnscary · 25/09/2012 09:26

We've all got one of these friends

Yanbu

CoteDAzur · 25/09/2012 09:29

Horatia - Was it not clear that I am re reducing age of consent?

That would be ad absurdum, by the way.

expatinscotland · 25/09/2012 09:32

Tell her to join a church, particularly one that frowns on sex before marriage.

She'll be more likely to find someone who wants to get married and have children in a relatively shorter time frame than some in such a place.

expatinscotland · 25/09/2012 09:33

I saw this show about Moonies the other day, and some of them were marrying complete strangers at the age of 20.

She could strike it up here and get married in no time.

MadameOvary · 25/09/2012 09:37

OP, I wasn't quite that bad but I had no notion of what a successful partnership involved. Now I'm happily single and very fussy so there is hope!

MadBusLady · 25/09/2012 09:39

I've seen this happen and I think the other person gets put off because they don't feel special enough, not because they're being smothered. Your friend may think of herself as highly emotional and really into them etc, but let's face it she can't be being that discriminating, can she, if she does it with all of them? I wouldn't like to be prop-of-the-month in someone else's fantasy either. If someone pointed out their preferred wedding venue to me a couple of dates in, assuming there weren't already massively obvious fireworks between us, I'd assume they were more interested in getting married at all costs than getting to know me as a person, and I'd be off.

Dunno whether this would be any better a thing to say than "you're desperate" tho

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 09:39

Blimey cote - I don't think what you said was patronising, I understand what you were trying to say, I can see why you said 24 is a baby, in lots of respects it is. And if you can spend the rest of your 20s pissing about and being selfish, that's probably better than desperately trying to find someone to settle down with.

Not to say that young women don't know their own mind - of course they do - but I remember being that age and thinking SHIT I am in my mid 20s I am running out of time (to do the things I wanted to do) and wish I could go back and give myself a gentle shake at various times of my young life.

If you want a baby at 16 and think you are the ideal candidate for motherhood then there is something missing in your life - 16 years olds should want more than that imo.

By the way I am just about to hit my mid life crisis in my mid 30s so am planning to be a sad act dancing on tables ANY TIME NOW.

MadBusLady · 25/09/2012 09:44

Bwaha. Yy, the "shit I am running out of time" thing.

Does that ever stop actually?

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 09:44

No.

Back2Two · 25/09/2012 09:48

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn due to privacy concerns

Hammy02 · 25/09/2012 09:51

YANBU. I never understand it when people get all serious and reveal everything about themselves in the first few weeks. No wonder her dates all run for the hills.

Paiviaso · 25/09/2012 10:00

I think all you can do is drop hints that is being overwhelming to her dates.

My mom bought my sisters and I each a copy of "He's Just Not That Into You" which is a fab book and very very true. A read of this may help her view her dates reluctance a bit more realistically...

At the end of the day though, she needs to stop hungrily man hunting, and just live her life, which will make her much more interesting and attractive!

I knew someone who intensely wanted a baby by 30, and was hunting for a man, any man, to be her husband and impregnate her. It was bizarre to watch someone date as if she was a hungry shark...she did get engaged in the end, quite suddenly to someone she'd known as an acquaintance for years, though I don't know what happened after that as I'm no longer in touch with her!

HoratiaWinwood · 25/09/2012 10:17

-um, is it? Fair enough.

I must have missed your Devil's Advocate smiley, because it looked very like you were arguing for a reduction.

CoteDAzur · 25/09/2012 10:40

I was just trying to be tactful and let people come to the conclusion themselves that 16 is an absurdly young age to be a mum. Maybe I should just go back to my steamrolling in-your-face ways

CoteDAzur · 25/09/2012 10:42

Back2Two - I'm 41 and just got called "a baby" today by a 50 year old friend. Oh it felt good

(Note to self: Hang out more frequently with people much older than you)

CoteDAzur · 25/09/2012 10:48

GetOrf - I was so NOT thinking about getting married and having kids in my 20s. Maybe that is why I can't understand the thought process behind a 24 year old "desperate" to get married & become a mum.

These girls don't seem to realise that when you have a baby, your life is OVER, for a good number of years. Then you have another baby, which effectively means that your 20s are gone bye-bye. Even when you get to the stage when they can be babysat so you can go out for dinner & drinks, it is NOT the same when you know you will be up at 6 AM on a Sunday morning with the kids.

There are careers to be made, places to be seen, adventures to be lived when single and free. I don't understand how it can be anyone's sole ambition in their early twenties to settle down and be a servant 24/7 to crying/whinging little people mum.

GoldPedanticPanda · 25/09/2012 10:49

I'm 24, I have a DS who is 5yrs old and pg with a 2nd after trying since the start of the year. I have just finished Uni too. I done my partying and staying out all night from 15yrs to 19yrs old, I can still go out now even though I'm a parent, and I think being a parent is fun - a lot more fun that partying till 5am IMO.

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 11:05

Having a baby so young is such hard work, I wouldn't want it for my dd. i wouldn't say your life is necessarily over, but you have to really shift your priorities. I never had a social life until my very late 20s, spent years simply not going out (because of having a baby, work and studies to complete).

The flipside is now that it is great having a nearly-independent daughter in my mid 30s, but it is strange being out of kilter with what everyone else is doing. Most people my age are having their first baby and thinking about that, not what their child is studying at A level.

I don't regret it for myself, but as I say I do NOT want dd to makes those choices, and hopefully her upbringing has given her the wherewithal to take her time and concentrate on herself rather than the selflessness of motherhood from such a very young age.

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 11:06

I am really sorry for hijacking this thread.

It is difficult to know what (if anything) to say to the friend, I think most of us have friends like this who are desperate to meet someone, have the whole fairytale wedding thing.

Laquitar · 25/09/2012 11:07

Madame you must be very old at 300yo .

I loved the typo.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 25/09/2012 11:12

It is, I think, a known thing that teenage girls who've had various upsets in their childhoods often do have babies earlier.

I can see what is being said, that if a 16-year-old wants a baby, there is something missing in her life. And I can see that even the best 16-year-old mother is going to have a tough time, because as a society we're not geared up to it at all.

But, it's tricky, isn't it? Even if you can't understand the visceral feeling that 16 year old has in the same way, you can surely feel it's not her fault if she's in a demographic that has babies earlier. There's presumably something there, something going on, that is beyond her complete control.

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 11:14

That's a good post LRD, I agree with that.

GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt · 25/09/2012 11:15

God how pompous do I sound.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 25/09/2012 11:15

So long as you promise to call me a baby frequently in the run up to my 30th (which is not impending, thank you, DH, I am firmly mid-20s ... honest ...), I really don't mind how patronizing you are.

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