What do men want?

[Reese123]

What on earth are men looking for when looking at potential partners? I am so fed up of the weird blokes I meet, the men that are so fickle. Is it just me or does anyone else feel like this?

The trouble with OLD is you are giving info about yourself upfront I.e. Photos, Age, job, kids, interests. Meeting someone out with OLD means someone is just judging you on looks and your chat. You could be any age or have any job. I don't like OLD for that reason. People can be dismissed purely on one small thing. For example, I am probably not in many guys search criteria as I'm 41. However on a weekend out last week I chatted to a really nice guy who was 32. It wasn't an issue.
I also hate the 'sweetie shop' aspect of OLD. So easy to be easily swayed by a sweeter more colourful confectionery if your current one isn't as tasty as you first anticipated.
I do appreciate however, that stating your wants/needs in OLD filters through people who are of no interest. Just a shame that your match might be dismissed because he/she doesn't like rock climbing or is 2 years older than you stated.

I think some men want a mother.

Avoid those types at allcost.

I prefer a man who wants a partner.

A lot of people are very selfish expecting their oh to do and be x y and z.

I actually discounted anyone who I didn't find physically attractive, why go out with a man who doesn't do it for me when they expect me to be attractive to them?

Same applies with caring and considerate.

I would say being considerate means you don't expect your partner to do the majority of the housework, they pull their weight with everything. Yet in my experience a lot of men don't apply this logic.

Making me feel loved, special, desireable and totally wanted and respected enough to be able to be totally transparent and honest. That's what I find attractive.

A lot of men are pretty dull bit. I do find it odd that it isn't uncommon for men to live their lives through women. And if include myself here. I haven't known of many single men who've ha a great single life. A few, but not loads.

Women just seem to be more socially programmed, on the whole. They organise more. They plan. Your girlfriend doesn't get on with my girlfriend? We have a problem, and things will not run smoothly.

I think men are maybe just a bit less confident in this respect. In answer to the OP's question, I am tempted to answer "food, sex and silence". It's a bit tongue in cheek, but there's some truth in it.

I could go on. But I do think it's fascinating that women seem to be a bit more natural at living a more rounded life. Generalising of course, but has anyone else found this?

I'm fucked if I know!

I have a decent job, varied interests with probably a more masculine theme (sports, cars, hate chick flicks / lit type of stuff etc, I'm intelligent and can hold my own conversing with different types of people, I'm relatively well travelled and adventurous, I'm up for trying new things but equally happy chilling at home, I'm told I'm quite funny etc etc. I'm not at all needy. I like my own space and have my own life.

However, I'm not slim. I'm a curvy size 16 with big boobs, a big arse and a bit of a stomach although I have a waist. I'm not ugly, but don't think I'm overly attractive either. I tend to have interest from older men but never the men I like. I seem to become mates and there's never any different interest from them.

So who knows??!!!!

Daddy I think you are spot on. Women seem (generalising hugely here) better at maintaining family connections and friendship groups so that when they are single they have resources to call on. Men seem to often just give up when they're in a relationship. (Again generalising again)

Like a pp said, I know loads of fabulous single women. Good jobs, good social life, happy in their own skin. Most of the men I met OLD were just looking for a wife to fill their lives in for them.

I wasn't interested in fulfilling that role. I wanted someone to make me laugh, make my knees tremble and have the same life values as me. I didn't need anyone to look after me or provide for me. Or have children with me. And I think many men struggle to know what their role in life is if it's not to provide and protect iykwim. They struggle to know how to BE with a woman who doesn't need that.

Don't get me wrong, I love being looked after sometimes. And being treated sometimes. It's just that I don't NEED it.

I'm not sure that makes any sense and just my experience. I think many many men no longer know what they are FOR. Which is why they resort to knob pictures and arseholery because they don't know what else to do.

Very true BooP. I find that I attract needy men probably because I'm a fixer. I'm confident in myself and quite capable of living independently and men think "she'll be all right, she doesn't need help so she'll be happy to support me". But I've learned my lesson.

I find this thread interesting though sad.
do men want FWB or fuck-buddy situations nowadays? I have been in a LTR for 10 years but when I was last dating I felt that men always wanted to get close and domestic asap (whether or not they wanted to get emotionally intimate or talk about children etc) - or, in other words, they might be in a FWB sitch in their heads (the benefits including a live in maid) - in the sense that they weren't considering themselves to committed to the loves of their lives - but without the actual freedom and independence accruing to the woman of a genuine FWB sitch.

Or - in other words - do men who want FWBs tell lies about wanting girlfriends? and if so, it is because they think this is how you get sex? Or is it because they think this is how you get someone to look after you domestically?

Men not living well-rounded lives - they tend not to have developed the various skills of looking after themselves, assuming that at adulthood they will be allocated someone to look after them. This is a gross generalisation of course.

I went to college with a lot of high flying men who suddenly, soon post-graduation - say around 25 - many of them fell into a sort of temporary depression, a panic of loneliness. I had lots of young men sobbing on my shoulder around this time because they were lost and lonely and didn't have a girlfriend or any close relationships and were miserable and had no idea what to do about it. They all had great jobs and brilliant financial prospects and owned their own places. In due course it all panned out as they subconsciously knew it would - ie, approaching 30, many sensible women who had over looked these chaps' less-than-rock-&-roll personas, chucked all their sexy losers and married them in home counties churches and had poached salmon at the reception. So these men never actually learned how to do more than do Work, but that was enough as someone else will be arranging holidays and cosy sunday lunches with friends, now, for ever. and they will have been chivvied into having children, and will enjoy that too (while not having to compromise on work at all of course) so it all works out for them in the end.

I think part of the problem is that from a young age boys are taught at a social level that girls 'need' protecting, rescuing and to be provided for. That girls are not their equal. Some adult men simply don't know what to do with a woman who is able to look after herself but wants someone to share her life with.

This is generalising of course and not taking into account any personal characteristics or issues people pick up as they grow up.

I like vezzie's description - right on the money. I've seen a few men have their 20-30s pan out just as you described.

"I think part of the problem is that from a young age boys are taught at a social level that girls 'need' protecting, rescuing and to be provided for."

Yep, I think it's how relationship dynamics are generally expected to be for both sexes. However, a lot of women seem to prefer a taller man than themselves, so are they too being socially conditioned into needing to be protected?

Nobheads and tit-obsessed wankers aside, don't men simply want similar things to women (for long term relationships) ?

"...don't men simply want similar things to women (for long term relationships) ? "

Overall, yes we probably do; it's one reason I hate the shopping list mentality of online dating. Does it really matter if I put kidney beans in my chili con carne; I'm sure I can make do without them. So if a woman likes rock climbing and I don't, I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as we get on well.

Imo men who are well rounded individuals are not single for long as women often chuck themselves at such men so by late 20s there isn't that many left. Then the long term single men are either men who are fine but they don't want long term relationships and the men with relationship limiting baggage shyness, self sabotaging etc.

There are loads of men who are happy single and lead full lives alone the problem is those men often don't want LTRs.

Lots of rather sexist attitudes on display on this thread

Tis a reflection of society AF!

Yeah I think women can be socially conditioned to expect certain things too mademan.

Anna and MadeMan I think you both make really good points.

I don't really care how tall a man is. I'm 5'3 so I like them to be taller than me, but by how much, I don't really care. The chap I've been seeing is about 5'6.

When I was OD I actively wasn't looking for someone one who fell into the high earning, 'traditional' male role, or who described themselves in those terms because I didn't/don't want to have to adopt a 'traditional' female role.

I can remember being quite a young teenager (prob 14/15) and my mother and her friend laughing at my "cynical for someone so young" views on marriage. I thought I was being stupid and pushed those feelings to one side and have ended up with 2 failed LTRs and a few failed STRs. I came to the realisation that I will never find a relationship/man that suits me because I'm a feminist and most men, even those who think they are not, are misogynistic.

I have a friend who is married to a man who calls himself a feminist and the difference between the way he talks; his views and his expectations in marriage and life are different to pretty much any man I've ever met. I think they probably broke the mould when they made him!

So I'm not sure that what men and women want is the same, purely because we are coming at it from different places.

There are some sexist comments I agree. I do think that society criticise women on their looks more harshly than men. An example, on TV you still get overweight ageing male presenters such as Eamonn Holmes but women of a similar look are quickly replaced by someone younger and slimmer.
There are nice guys out there, as there are women, it's just it's a hard job separating the wheat from the chaff.

I think that's what I was trying to say. That I looked for a man whose only expectation was that I would be his equal. Who treated me as his equal and didn't expect me to be anything else.

I suspect though, that most men like this are still happily married to happy women. It's the ones who haven't quite caught on who are back on the market after their long term partners got fed up of them trearting them like shit.

So OLD is actually a self-selecting sample of crap men

I suspect you have hit the nail on the head there, Bit!

I've said this before on MN, but I think that OD is a bit like agency work. Some people do agency work because they don't like to be unemployed between jobs; are trying to find their 'niche'; have moved to a new area... (e.g. valid reasons that will not preclude them from permanent work in the future) and others are doing it because they are virtually unemployable.

I think the same applies to people doing OD. I think that there are more women than men who fall into the former group because we are restricted by not wanting to go into pubs alone or have children so getting out is trickier. I think many men fall into the latter group of being unsuitable for a permanent relationship. Obviously, there are women who fall into that category too, but all the women who are in the former group are largely encountering men from the latter.

I would like a woman who is happy.

Good requirement! Want a happy marriage - marry someone happy!

Jees, I initiated this post and am reading this thread and it makes for depressing reading. It's hard to find someone unless you go down the OD route, but by this basically you are left with all the crap out there. I think I want to cry.

I mean there have to be a few nice guys out there (from someone who only wants someone that is taller than me - I'm 5'2 and the money thing does not bother me - I have a good job and my own house)....

Anyone have any good OD stories just to cheer me up please?

keepithidden indeed it is

still worth pointing it out though

My list of what men want, companionship, love, security, intelligence, children, respect, a kind honest woman, size & looks should be less important than personality, a hug when you come home ,a good cook would be a bonus, There must be dozens of little things individuals would not want, ie: non smoker , not a heavy drinker , not covered in tattoos , not foul mouthed , not had lots of lovers, not a member of Netmums,. (Puts on tin hat & suit of armour)