Mothers of straight young men 25-35YO - what are your boys up to?

[SleepRelay]

Asking for DD (26) and at least 3 of her girlfriends… All good, beautiful, smart, professional young women with family values, none can find love. Men spend a few weeks wooing them, get what they were after and ghost them immediately or come up with some story why it would not work. One is still a virgin as she has seen enough of that and does not to “waste” it. Occasionally, they meet men through work or social contacts, but mostly on dating apps.

She came home last night and started a serious conversation about freezing her eggs.

So, my question is where are the decent, working, respectful young men? They are not in gyms, mine is full of much older or much younger. What are your boys saying about dating scene? Are they on apps? Sorry about the rambling, I just would like to know what it’s like on the other side.

My son met his partner aged 18 snd they are still together, I met my DH aged 20, maybe the good ones were snapped up

All my brothers and brother-in-laws (and husband!) fall into that category (or very slightly above), so there’s 6 total;
4 are married with children (three 10 year + relationships and one 5 ish years)
1 is baffled he’s still single but he’s still acting the exact same way as he did at 18; out with the same friends, drinking in the same places etc etc
1, well, you’re lucky to see him in daylight hours, unless he’s at work. Gamer, but the sweetest, kindest person you’d ever meet

In my experience, they have the same amount of heartache, cheating partners, difficulty finding the right person as the girls do. If they are lucky they meet someone nice that they click with and they've mostly wanted to do that. The ones I know have experienced all of these scenarios.

My DS is 23 and so is his friendship group. About 4 of them including my DS are all working and are all decent polite young men. Apart from working all week they spend most of their time gaming. My team leader is early thirties, lovely young man but apart from working all week and going to the football on a weekend spends most of all his free time gaming.

Mine is in a long term relationship with a girl from his work. Having multiple holidays and is in the gym 5 evenings a week.Making the most of his time before settling down.

Ds age 31. He’s an NHS professional, sociable, lots of friends and hobbies. Loves his job, quite a positive person. But finding it really hard to meet “the one”. No idea why but I get the impression it’s just difficult these days 🤷‍♀️

I think the problem is assuming that the men are “in the wrong” and behaving badly- some will be, of course. But it could be that what your DD and her friends are looking for is not what young men of their age are looking for right now? I imagine that many men at the younger end of that age spectrum are not looking to settle down, and perhaps the majority of those that are looking to do that have already done so. Neither is wrong, just looking for different things.

Most apps are realistically more likely to be used for finding casual sexual partners. I asked my DD and her friends- both said they wouldn’t rule out having a relationship with someone they met on most of the apps, if they hit it off, but they primarily think apps are where you look for hook-ups/casual relationships.

Most young men I know well are either in long-terms relationships or focussing on work and/or hobbies.

I asked one who is here right now your question- his answer is that he finds women of his age looking to be in serious relationships want quite a lot of commitment, reasonably quickly. He feels they can be quite intense from a very early stage, and seek quite a lot of reassurance/ demonstration of commitment to them (e.g. over friends/hibbies/previous commitments) after a very short period of dating. They don’t want to “waste their time”- as he has had it out to him- and want almost promises of approximate timeline/future plans. He says those women aren’t really happy to go with it and see what develops as they get to know each other. He is very into his chosen sport (many of his friends are also into this), which he does to a high (though not professional) level, and does not want to give up time doing it at the moment. Mainly because he won’t be able to do what he does now, to that level, forever and he wants to make the most of it whilst he can. He also works quite long hours and between that and fitness programme he has to follow, there isn’t masses of time left over. He absolutely accepts this limits the dating pool available to him to those who are also very busy/happy with a casual relationship and “see how it builds” and more casual hook-ups. He says if he met someone who he did fall for, then maybe some of that would change- but right now it’s not something he is looking for or prepared to make lots of compromises to find. I can see both sides- why waste your time if you are 100% sure you want children, but the man you have started dating does not, for instance. On the other hand, at 25 years old I had ideas about what I wanted but plans changed- some by choice, some from necessity and flexibility is important too. I think going in demanding curtailment of hobbies/significant compromises after only a few dates, for instance, is a bit odd.

He thinks the women he meets casually understand the situation and he isn’t trying to pretend about what he is looking for/able to offer- but of course he is “nice” to them when they meet up. Not because he is trying to pretend he’s looking for long-term relationship, but because it would seem pretty odd to meet someone you are hoping to have a bit of a fling with- or perhaps met on an app and it’s clear this a one-night thing- and be anything but nice, charming etc. He said that he doesn’t ghost women, but he says there are a couple of times he thinks it has been very clear that he is not looking for anything serious, but the woman would like it to be more and he has cut contact when they’ve been persistent. I suspect, as with most things, there will be times where one party is at fault for miscommunication/wishful thinking/downright dishonesty and times where both parties are in the wrong.

So, I would guess it is a mix of factors: some young men not being ready to settle down, whilst your DD and her friends looking for a different type of relationship; those young men who are wanting to settle down already having done so; a proportion of men better off being casual hook-ups only (or avoided, if casual sex is not something you are comfortable with). I doubt they are all “just after one thing”- though of course there are some men who will be unscrupulous and I suspect many might be happy to have sex with a young woman who seems keen without too much thought of her longer term plans

S2, 23 tomorrow, is living with the girlfriend he met at school and planning his wedding for next summer. She stayed here for uni, he went away, but they stayed together.

S1, 26, is living with the girlfriend he met through a niche hobby at university.

S2's fiancee's BiL, 32, has been married for several years to someone he met at school and has a 6mo baby.

Colleague G, 27ish, is living with the girlfriend he met at university - in this area for her PhD.

Colleague S, 27ish, is living with his girlfriend, not sure how they met but I think they're both locals.

Going by my admittedly small sample, it looks like the ones who want to settle down do so pretty early.

Had this with my son though. He's 35 and only met his girlfriend in the last year. She’s 24. All girls nearer to his age seemed to be married/living with their partner.

The other young men I vaguely know are students in the niche hobby, so are rather less likely to be part of whatever the dating scene looks like - it takes up a lot of time and attracts the weirquirky folk

Great post by @jacks11
I agree with so much of that - apart from the 'Apps' bit.
I know a few long term couples / young marrieds who met through dating apps and others who are looking for a relationship not a one night stand.

Do they all have lots of one night stands? Because if none of them ever have a girlfriend, even for a few weeks or months, and they're in their early twenties, what do they do about sex?

Obviously it's your son's friends, so you probably don't know, but it does make one wonder about the huge rise in porn use and the apparent expectations of some men about sex when they've never experienced it with an actual woman.

II think another problem is that boys/young men are terrified of making a “pass” due to the metoo movement, so often relationships never get over the line!

Millions of people are single.
They aren’t all porn addicts or picking up people for one night stands
How did everyone deal with sex before they had a partner ?
Men and women. After all, being single is universally not just a male thing and nor is porn

Well said @BrownTroutBluesAgain

What an odd leap you made there @ExOptimist

Well my eldest is none of these but he is very shy when it comes to romance. I don't think he's ever had a girlfriend who didn't ask him out or at least make it really obvious that she liked him. He has plenty of friends, male and female, he has a good social life but he's definitely not on dating apps or in bars trying to chat women up.
Thinking about it, his father was the same.

Oops! Was that meant to be a lovely experience leading to marriage and kids…or after marriage! Missed that memo.
just get it done!

I have 2. One is engaged, living with his fiancee, going to work, playing football, doing his hobbies, planning their wedding.

One has a girlfriend he met on a night out, goes to work, does voluntary work in the community and sees his friends socially almost all of whom are in relationships with women they met in real life as opposed to on apps.

My DS 24 lives in rented accommodation and literally spends most of his time working so doesn’t belong to a gym or have many hobbies. He’s had the same girlfriend for 3 years . He met his girlfriend as she was friends with a school friend of his.

Long term girlfriend.

In a long term relationship and about to propse!

I have two ds, one is within your age range and one is a year older. Both have been in relationships since their early 20's. One lives with his partner of 15 years, both are in professional jobs. They met in the sixth form, went to different universities, did post-grad qualification and started their careers before moving in together around seven years ago. The other met his wife at his Saturday job and they moved in together a few years later. Since then they have married, had two dcs and DS has changed career and studied for his degree.
I met DH when I was still at school and we have been married almost 45 years.
I think that it's true to say that for DH and I, as well as our dc's, none of us were looking for a life partner when we met. We all met our partners almost by accident and the relationships grew naturally, rather than making a definite attempt to find a long term partner.

I think it must depend on factors like where you live and particular groups. London seems to have an awful lot of young people in it. From my experience, some will have started a family by the age of 30 but only the minority. Equally some will be in serious relationships but a lot of these do go wrong, unfortunately, and certainly plenty haven’t settled down.
It could be that a more serious issue is that the young men are working really hard on their careers.

Bollocks.

Perhaps if they tried just speaking to women rather than making passes at them, this would be less of an issue.

Whilst some men seem to really struggle with this, most women can tell the difference between a man hitting on them and a man talking to them respectfully.

DS1 is living with his gf who he has been with for 8 years, since they were in sixth form together.
DS2 has been seeing his gf who he met on Hinge, they were both at the same uni, for just over a year. They are living in separate house shares.
Both girls are delightful and I’m very happy that my boys both have girlfriends at the same time (channeling Jackie from FND 😆).
A lot of people I know (including me) met their partners at uni, it’s a time in your life when you meet an awful lot of other people who you potentially have something in common with.