Ready for backlash with this one...

[Netflixandaps]

AIBU to expect on dating sites for men around my age group 40-50 to be able to write a sentence like an adult rather than it being like I am communicating with a 12 year old on Snapchat..... They still write 'u', 'wot', '2', 'ru', 'ere', 'b', 'cud' (I could go on)... My absolute favourite is the question 'wot u up 2'.. Surely to goodness I'm not expecting too much?

OP I agree with you, and in my dating days, lazy grammar and abbreviated text speak, was a total turn off.

My now partner of 14 years gave me the opposite problem, as he was a sub editor for some huge magazines, and his job was to correct grammar before they went to print. He's now an author. In the early days of dating I was overly conscious, when I replied to his emails, that I'd made mistakes!

I had a family member who sent texts that were so abbreviated you couldn't tell what they meant. Turns out they thought you were charged per letter.

Old and general messaging to communicate with eg service providers has highlighted for me how many people in the UK and Ireland have poor literacy and spelling.

This is not intended to be snobby in any way but there is often a correlation between their literacy and the jobs they are in IE they ended up in jobs not requiring decent literacy because they don't have it .... And also, their jobs and what they do in them day to day are not going to improve that literacy, because it's not required.

There is obviously a range, with some people in manual etc jobs having good literacy and spelling, but there is often a correlation.

In addition to poor literacy & spelling in the general population, I think the use of abbreviations and text speak on old is because they don't have time/don't choose to make time for communicating. They have a scatter gun approach and it's all about hooking and reeking in someone (one of many) quickly and not "wasting" time on it. So it's all a bit off the cuff and frantic.... They are trying to get and keep contact with multiple people going so they're just dashing off messages and using their lines.

I got into a relationship with a man with very poor literacy whose texts I sometimes couldn't decipher because his spelling was so poor etc (and who would then phone me being exasperated and patronising that I couldn't decipher them, as though I was slow and the fault was at my end. I am a history & politics graduate and taught English for a while).

In retrospect I seriously doubt I would've got involved with him if I'd met him on old and had the chance to see his messages before we started seeing each other. As it was, we mostly phoned and only exchanged short, functional texts sometimes.

Old is therefore actually a good thing in that regard. At least you are seeing their literacy before you get involved.

In my neck of the woodx people habitually use just "looking" instead of "looking for" so they often write things like "lookin woman" as part of a short but rambling sentence with, usually, zero punctuation, just a stream.of words. It is real fanny bear trap stuff.

When I started school, I initially learned to read and write using a method called the Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA). Just as I got my head around that, I then had to convert to traditional English.

Although I am at the age where I should have learned text speak (160 characters max, 10p per text in my Nokia 3310) along the way , I just couldn’t be bothered to try and absorb yet another subset of English. So I was quite happy to let it pass me by, a decision for which I shall ever remain grateful.

When you say it would be 75% of them, isn't that useful? I mean, if you are looking for a partner you only want one person. Quite reasonable to assume you won't want a relationship more than 1 in 4 men, surely?

@LemonDrop22 I'm a university lecturer and I'm dreadful for getting annoyed with rubbish grammar, in general as well as work and I'm often called snobbish. My cousin is one of the smartest guys you can meet, immensely good at DIY and practical stuff, has a perfect house and garden but his grammar is crap. He left school as soon as he could and became a groundsman at a stately home and more recently works for a company basically digging up roads managing a team of people. He'd never have been able to get to university but then I couldn't do his job!

I agree with all you say.

wat u up 2? How idiotic! If they truly wanted to save time typing they should shorten it further to wuu2.

The second indicator as to whether there is a reasonable match, is whether they have bothered to complete their profile. In fact, that's a massive sign of their commitment to dating. I have just skipped those.

To be fair, half of the posts on Mumsnet seem to be in text speak.
DH, DD,PFB, LO, HTH, AIBU, YABU to name a few.

It's understandable on the relationship etc forum.

My main problem with it is that the dh and dp do rarely deserve the d.

*so rarely deserve

How true that is.

This post is hilarious because it shows the self delusion a lot of women in the UK have.

I am in my 40s, I work out daily, and I am a professional with a batchelors and masters degree. Ok… so what. But my other half’s profession or level of literacy never came into it when we met. People on here would be surprised at the ‘disparity’ with us. My OH is severely dyslexic.

There’s so much snobbery on this forum from a group of people chasing 20% of the male population, but from a starting position of their own that is way, way out of their lane. Most in the UK are averagely educated, physically average, spell “lose” incorrectly, and yet they act like they are eligible to meet Harvey Specter.

please… make it stop.

Yet you have just highlighted all of your achievements. Why the need to do that? You're setting yourself up on a pedestal.

As part of a more general overview of a person, their willingness and ability to communicate effectively may impact on the quality of a relationship going forwards. There are so many unhappy posts along the lines of ‘my partner won’t talk to me’ or ‘I can’t discuss this with my partner’ which suggest that communication skills or the lack of them may be pretty important in the long run. Someone who can’t, or can’t be bothered, to express themselves clearly at all the start of a relationship, when they are trying to impress, is unlikely to be a helpful talker when things go downhill.

I agree. I cringe when I read threads of women dissecting early dates and what should they say etc. Because if you need a bunch of strangers on the Internet to work out what to say in the early days, then lord save you when it comes to dealing with the big stuff later.

No pedestal inhabiting over here, my OH would see to that!

im trying to point out the complete fallacy of the snobs earlier this thread who bang on about education in messages and completely overlook dyslexia, or anything else

and yet statistically not all of these people are going to be in the top 20% etc, so as usual it’s a big swathe of people chasing a few 6 foot + highly educated and highly remunerated guys, but then complaining why they can’t meet anyone ..

Back when I was single I was on a dating app and a guy in his 40s, apparently successfully messaged me and within 2 messages asked me “are u flicking ur been?” I blocked him on the spot😂 not only did the shorthand give me full on ick but he didn’t even spell “bean” correctly in the context of how it was meant. Vile.

batchelors

So you have a Bachelor's degree but can't spell Bachelor.

Couldn't spell bean .... Bean!

It's a fucking 4 letter word.

Primary school kids can spell it.

Should've replied "I might have been but your spelling being worse than a 6 yr old kid's had just turned me instantly off.

On the plus side, at least he was aware of the existence of the clitoris and didn't presume all women masturbate by shoving a vibrator inside themselves.... That does make him better informed that about 90 per cent of men I've met.

Don’t get me started on grown men who use “lol” in messages…….

Yes.