To think a lot of women are “dating down” just to avoid being alone?

[ThatPeachLemur]

I’ve seen too many brilliant, beautiful women mothering dusty men and calling it love.

I'm in my late 30s but same here.
I don't like how society portrays being single tho.
Everything is pairs often and geared for couples.
I'm OK making male friends only as the alternative is men being creeps.
But this seems impossible now.

I agree with pp who have said far less women are doing this nowadays. Statistics would suggest so as well.

Most of my friends are either happily married or single and refusing to settle. Only a couple were in mismatched relationships where the man didn’t pull his weight and most of those have now divorced. I don’t know if this is typical though or more a reflection of the fact I don’t really attract the kind of female friends who will do anything just to have the title of “girlfriend” “wife” etc .

I’m late 30s and was briefly dating a guy in his mid 40s. He was the type who I think is secretly avoidant and is constantly trying to make a woman jump through hoops and prove themselves to him when he is far from perfect himself. We were talking one day and he expressed surprise that I said I’d rather go into my next decade and beyond single rather than settle with someone I don’t think is amazing.

He said what if the guy isn’t amazing but he’s not awful either. I said yeah no lol 😆 living with a man I don’t think is amazing = awful. So there’s no middle ground there.

I’m not going to compromise my space or independence or potentially risk my safety for a man, who I don’t think is something special just because he “isn’t awful” !

He looked quite put out by my reply, think it was a wake up call to him that he can’t rely on women being desperate to tolerate his crap. He was what I call a modern misogynist - wanted to be the dominant one and wear the trousers AND also be the princess who is pursued and wooed lol . Didn’t realise initially but once I did I stepped away.

What sorts of traits/ person would be amazing for you?

I dated a lot in my mid 20 to early 30s. Then gave up for various reasons.
Esp cos there is only so many weirdos online..

But I never met anyone I thought was amazing.
Liked a few and be became attached at most probably.

Loads and loads of women are still dating and marrying losers. There's just such an enormous glut of losers, there's not enough women to accommodate all of them.

I don't think it's as simple as fear of being alone. Society (i.e. men) has done a number on women, for centuries or more, and ingrained the belief that we don't deserve any better.

We're slowly waking up but we have a long way to go, and probably something of a fight ahead of us before there's real change. The current flavour of international politics and media (especially social media) is pushing us further backwards.

I’m seeing this less these days.
And I am happily single by choice too!

To me amazing is someone with a really great and admirable character that I click with! And by character I don’t just mean sparkling personality. Personality to me is like the cover of the book but character is the
substance of the person. I have met many men with fun personalities and great charisma who are lacking in character!

A few important character traits I can think of the top of my head would be : humility, confidence, kindness, has integrity, honest, principled, empathetic, transparent, strong communicator (listening and expressing feelings).

I do like a good personality too although these things are less important to me than character, so personality wise - funny, shares a few similar interests to me, adventurous, good conversation skills, is a foodie, well read. Being ambitious would be good too.

And obviously I’d want said man to think I’m amazing too!

I thought the guy I mentioned was “amazing” initially but slowly his misogyny began to show and I saw he was using me as an ego boost plus he tried to trauma dump which I now see was probably in an effort to manipulate me.

Because they except garbage behavior. The guys left are the rejects and for some reason women think they’re won a prize. He’s not a prize. He’s a cast off. And a disgusting human being. He’s the man who left his wife with no money or car and then complains about being broke so you pay.all the nights out and his kids are suffering bc he thinks he’s a prince among men. Nope, he’s a piece of shit

Dele

🙄
Rude.

I’ve almost given up because the men online are so awful. I have a friend who said to me “you’re running out of time to get a man” despite the fact I don’t want kids.

This same woman puts up with a mean loser who repeatedly called her bipolar when she was 6 months pregnant. He went to McDonalds on his own on Valentine’s Day and didn’t do anything with her like he promised.

I had to bite my tongue so as not to reply “I’d rather stay single than have your relationship.”

Far more women now are staying single which is great we often more financially secure and more women are saying I’m happy single and this gives other women confidence to stay single

I do have friends my age looking and it’s grim

I often get told by non single friends that someone will come along or it often happens when you are not looking 🙄

I simply don’t care and not interested

so few men are worthy of my time I realised this in my late 40’s and even if they are I just cba I find men and their egos tedious

Friend's mum married a guy after knowing him less than a year. She's now 59 and he's 53 ... turns out to be an undereducated, bipolar, angry little man with massive chips on both shoulders. She has an art degree and comes from a family of academics and computer experts. He's a racist London cabbie who can't bare being wrong about anything, has screamed in the face of her sister-in-law - a retired SEN Teacher - when her husband wasn't around of course.
My friend is stuck their as he's special needs himself, and can't really live by himself. Luckily he has a full time job to get out of the home. His younger brother cut & run after a year living with the wanker and relocated to another continent for work. Friend's Mum knows it will end in disaster - he's put them under huge financial strain during pandemic as he didn't work in the previous two years to get more than a pittance from the government during lockdown.
Her pension fund is drained, but he still whines if she doesn't get him the lasted iPhone at Christmas. Guy would make a good soap opera villain except for being so utterly pathetic and childlike. His two kids from his previous marriage went no contact in they're teens and he doesn't know (or probably care) if he's a grandfather or not. Only positive thing about him is he's so repulsive that no other women will give him time of day - and he stinks like his three dogs as well which have taken over the two front rooms of the house.

With luck he'll rant or loose his crap to the wrong person and end up in jail. He's refused help for being bipolar, so probably the only way for him to get psychiatric treatment is it to be forced into it 🤦

I am in early 40s and I just stopped dating. Once I got over the paralysing fear of being alone forever, and the shame of no-one wanting to build a life with me and the letting go of wanting children (all last year- it was intense) I became am alot calmer and focused.

I absolutely would love to have a partner, but honestly I recommened being on your own for a bit.

When I was in my single dating days I was desperate to be partnered up, I would compromise on all the things that mattered to me, would think “I can put up with x”. They ended up dumping me regardless 😂. Then I stopped compromising and realised what actually mattered to me, met my DH, who really is my person. I don’t think I’ve traded down at all. He’s a wee bit bald, I can happily live with that. I will say I finally relaxed on dating and getting hitched when I turned 30 and mentally accepted I might not have biological children. Once that mental clock stopped ticking,I focused on myself and everything clicked into place.

I’m glad there’s a pattern now of women not settling. It’s about bloody time.

I agree so much with this!!

When I was dating it was so rare to find any man that wanted to date with a view to marriage. Most just wanted sex.

I was on my own for most of my 30’s. I realised I was incapable of having a relationship and that I was the problem.

Now I’m in a relationship I really miss my independence and having time to myself.

I used to do whatever I wanted, went shopping every week and slept in every weekend.

Now my time is not my own. I feel trapped and alone. I thought a relationship would give me stability and peace and I found that it hasn’t.

There are expectations put on me and I find I’m constantly trying to placate this man so that I can avoid drama.

What are you going to do. You can’t live like this? Dump him and go back to your lovely independent life

My best friend definitely did this. She was in her early 30’s and wanted children. They’ve been together 15yrs now, 2 DC. I always think that one day she will leave him. I know there’s someone she fancies at work and she would be off in a flash if he asked her to. I get it, the hormonal urge to have DC, and now she doesn’t want to upset the DC’s childhood by leaving. She has been engaged for years and when I ask when the wedding is as I want to be a bridesmaid (she has always said I will be, not just inviting myself) she says never! I guess there are many women like her.

I myself got together with someone as I thought he was a really decent guy, which is what I really needed. I didn’t even really fancy him, but he was very into me. Turned out he wasn’t quite as nice as he seemed, and it was a mistake getting with someone who you have zero chemistry with.

If he can work full time driving a taxi then surely he is capable of living alone. Either way, that wouldn’t be her problem. I’d encourage her to leave.

He isn't capable of working full time which is a major issue. He won't eat in the mornings, goes out in his cab at 7am, eats a chocolate bar and has a bottle of water and that's it. By midday he has a massive headache and goes home to 'rest'. He's been told by multiple doctors that source of his headaches are probably down to not eating - often since dinner the previous night - but he won't listen. She's even made him packed meals and sandwiches which get untouched. Even suggesting fruit is a minefield as he believes in old wives tales like 'banana bung' being made constipated by eating bananas with is complete bollocks.
He rarely cooks even for himself and she's expected to do it when she comes in from her job - despite him lazing on the sofa for over 4 hours, on his tablet, despite only working 3-4 hours that day due his 'headaches'. It's a joke.

He should move out but he's likely only to go if dragged out by men in white coats or police with taser.
Friend's mum has tied herself to him and he's taken full advantage of the financial situation to do things his way only.

That’s like saying ‘I don’t see what she sees in him’- people aren’t obvious as relationship choices to other people, you don’t know their sense of humour or the conversations/ connections others have, it’s like on mn when people say ‘why are you with this man’ - um because they clicked in some, or many other ways! It’s also assuming the woman is perfect just because she’s intelligent/ pretty, we all have our moments, our little things that others would assume to eg be called warning signs or flags, it’s not ‘perfect woman- idiot/ bastard men,’ something I see eg on the relationship board ‘the man I’m dating does (insert something they is not huge in the grander scheme of things), should I ‘bin’ him’. I always think ‘we’ll he could say the same for you but he’s probably too nice to say it!!’

I’ve a few friends in their 50’s who aren’t finding joy dating and ping back to men they have already rejected because they are lonely. They are all actually doing well with great social lives but just miss having a man around, none of the men behave in a basically decent manner though. What is wrong with them? I think the men only date as the women bring so much to them but they still don’t put in the effort themselves. I’m in my second marriage, pretty happy actually but I won’t be having another relationship if this ended for any reason. I’ve got my children and nobody looks after me better than myself.

I went to a wedding once and cried driving home from it for this exact reason.

The woman was a professional earning 150k per year and owned a 500k home. She was lovely and from a lovely family. Never married no kids.
she married a divorced guy who had no money ‘due to his divorce’ he asked my friend to marry him the same month as his divorce. Hes s piece of work, works in some sort of assistant at a law firm. Bald. About 5ft 4. Nasty - always leaving her.

I was single at the time of attending this wedding and was so triggered by the whole thing.

I guess it was me being shown what potentially I would have to ‘settle for’ if I chose to settle as you say. and really if her new husband had been in her situation I know for a fact he would not have settled for his male equivalent.

I found the whole wedding sobering and highlighted the above

Actually, statistically women marry up in terms of income and education. BUT there are increasing numbers of women who are better paid and educated and the pool at the top of the income/education pyramid obviously gets pretty small.

Oh for god's sake!

Stop using facts to prove your point! You can use facts to prove anything that's even vaguely true!