Where did all the good men go in the UK?

[DadAManger]

I am asking this for a friend - really!

I hear over and over now from my single friends over 30 that there is a massive shortfall in good quality men in the UK?

Do MN users and readers agree? What are your own experiences? Many happily married women on here I'm sure, so what's your view?

One thing I do notice myself - but don't necessarily share with my single friends (I like them) - is that a lot of them seem to have long lists of "must-have/must-be" points for a guy to be up to standard for them?

I’ve been married for 20 years my DH is one of the good ones . He’s 6ft 3 good looking and we have a lovely life style He isn’t perfect but I’m not either .

All of my friends including family members are single and have never married .
They all go for the same type of guy over and over again .
They meet them at similar places

They work in low paid jobs or sign on or deal drugs on the side .
They are cocklodgers, they rarely have their own home and they are abusive assholes .
They have a few women here and there and one main one that they live with
Everyone of them has had a prison sentence
They have a few kids here and there
They never ever ever contribute to anything anything they do as a couple that women has to pay for .

My friends are all reasonably successful women in decent professional jobs
But their taste in men is shite
They have all tried to date
“ boring normal guys 😂 “ but they always revert back to these assholes .
When they have mentioned over the years they wish they were in a better relationship or settled down I really want to say well stop going to the fucking same places and dating the same shitty blokes - that would be a start .

@Wegobshite I'm not sure your experience is typical on the whole though 😆

@Wegobshite where would you suggest your friends go instead?

I do genuinely think I could commit but am becoming increasingly sceptical it will happen. @Oreo01 this is where I'm at too.

@Misty9
Well anywhere else library gym a different type of bar maybe 😂
They all literally go to same clubs pubs & bars same scene - it’s hard to say exactly what mean but pre Covid I know that if I went to a particular club or bar I would be pretty sure of seeing a fair amount of my friends it like they can’t go anywhere else as it’s not what they like - it’s hard to describe 😂
But this has been going on as long as i have known them - they just go for a certain type of bloke and then wonder why they aren’t happy
Isnt the definition of madness doing the sane thing over and over again

@cocoloco987
I don’t know I see this a lot in that women can often have a certain type of bloke - that they like and they can’t seem to move away from it they get into this type of bloke at a early age late teens and that’s it
sort of like What was mentioned earlier Troy with the tattoos and 4 kids by for mother’s
That’s what they want and keep looking for even though they aren’t any good for them
Even when they meet a new bloke they are so similar to the old one
They don’t want Graham the accountant 😂
And honestly they are all women in their mid thirties to early 40s some are even older they all have professional jobs degrees homeowners but it’s like they just want to have this certain type of bloke

@Gwenhwyfar yes, she did find someone! Mid Life Ex Wife was the column. I found her so negative to be honest...I think she was dating for about a year before she met the guy, which really doesn't seem that bad?

Her writing was so negative that it made me worried and depressed and put me off OLD...looking back, I was only 29 at the time! I can't believe I was sitting there worrying about all that instead of going out and having fun. Now at nearly 36 and having wasted 18 months of dating time in the pandemic, I really regret not just going out there and enjoying myself. I will certainly be doing that now!

[quote cocoloco987]@Wegobshite I'm not sure your experience is typical on the whole though 😆[/quote]
To be honest it's typical of a lot of women I know of. The men may not always be the exact type the previous poster described, but without exception are men who are commitmentphobes or don't respect the woman in some way. Red flags that you would see if you're sensible but of course are ignored. Women are often their own worst enemies.

To answer the original thread question:

1. In the first place there's not a big pool of good men who want to commit, or at least not at the same proportion of 'good' women. The casual sex and porn culture that people are obsessed with in the West means many men feed on a diet of selfishness and see women as sex objects whose purpose is to fulfil their selfish desires, rather than people to love, sacrifice for, and commit to.

1. The vast majority of the good ones are married by their mid 30s and are naturally much more likely to stay married, so most don't become available later in life either.

1. A lot of women don't appreciate or wisely choose truly good men who would be good husbands and fathers (i.e not just ones who are charming and fun to be with), or waste precious years with bad ones through their own bad choices, therefore indirectly "rewarding" the behaviours of the bad men.

1. Some women fear settling down "too young" since current society says you should spend years playing the field, and just assume a good man will appear on their laps, like some sort of product, at a scheduled timeframe of their choosing. Therefore may skip over men who they would give their right hand for later in life.

@DateXY
You wrote it better than me 😂 ok they guys my friends go for - not all women will go for them - but there are certain red flags & traits that you can see from the next city 😂 but they still keep going for these sort of guys and then wondering why it goes nowhere .
I don’t want to say on here the exact type of guy they are but it’s really really common with these particular type of bloke from a certain place in my experience that I see from my friends

So the takeaway is we either date someone we're not attracted to or stay single? Great.

That's kinda what I'm taking away from this... I just can't have a relationship with someone I'm not attracted to sad

Well, if "attracted to" = "objectively hot" or "rich" like the PP stated, then, maybe, yeah.

Likewise, neither being rich or "hot", I'm unlikely to end up dating a Lily James lookalike. Boo hoo hoo. Listen carefully, and you might hear the world's smallest violin.

Or maybe... just maybe... I'm a guy for whom attractiveness, like chemistry, is some nebulous quality that transcends shallow concepts such as a certain vital statistics. Maybe, as the PP actually pointed out, growing up not being given everything on a plate actually made me realise the actual value in things rather than them being ego feeds or entitlements. If I'm "nice" (and I'm not convinced I always am, tbh - we all have our faults) it comes from having to empathise with others, through understanding mutual hardships. Not because I think I need to f*ing feign it for a shag.

I appear to be in a minority though.

@TossaCoinToYerWitcher

So the takeaway is we either date someone we're not attracted to or stay single? Great.

That's kinda what I'm taking away from this... I just can't have a relationship with someone I'm not attracted to sad

Well, if "attracted to" = "objectively hot" or "rich" like the PP stated, then, maybe, yeah.

Likewise, neither being rich or "hot", I'm unlikely to end up dating a Lily James lookalike. Boo hoo hoo. Listen carefully, and you might hear the world's smallest violin.

Or maybe... just maybe... I'm a guy for whom attractiveness, like chemistry, is some nebulous quality that transcends shallow concepts such as a certain vital statistics. Maybe, as the PP actually pointed out, growing up not being given everything on a plate actually made me realise the actual value in things rather than them being ego feeds or entitlements. If I'm "nice" (and I'm not convinced I always am, tbh - we all have our faults) it comes from having to empathise with others, through understanding mutual hardships. Not because I think I need to f*ing feign it for a shag.

I appear to be in a minority though.

No, for me attracted to means exactly that, someone I feel sexually attracted to. And I also said (possibly in a different post) that this is the inherent problem with online dating - I can't gauge that level of attraction based on simply a photo, but that's all I've got to go on. So at the very least I swipe yes on profiles I feel some level of 'he's okay looking'. Tbh, I completely ignore the obviously 'hot' guys, partly because they wouldn't be interested in me and partly because they're often catfish. My last relationship was nearly a year after which I finished it because the level of attraction just wasn't sufficient to balance out other compromises.

I think @Misty9 and I are on the same page. There has to be sexual attraction and all I can go by is a photo. The problem is as OLD becomes more widespread meeting someone off of OLD is becoming rarer and rarer which only compounds the problem. Men don't seem to chat women up anymore as they just revert to the easier OLD (I don't blame them - I would struggle to have the nerve to go up to a stranger and start a conversation).

@coronaway

I think *@Misty9* and I are on the same page. There has to be sexual attraction and all I can go by is a photo. The problem is as OLD becomes more widespread meeting someone off of OLD is becoming rarer and rarer which only compounds the problem. Men don't seem to chat women up anymore as they just revert to the easier OLD (I don't blame them - I would struggle to have the nerve to go up to a stranger and start a conversation).

Yes I think there's definitely a lot of truth in that. Other than the most confident why bother when there's a far more easier route. Why risk the embarrassment and potentially being seen as a bit of.a letch.

The only men who ever chatted me up pre covid were married ones...

I online dated on and off for about 10 years. No other options, no male friends I could meet people through, no friend's boyfriends knew any single guys, at work they were all taken, gay or not interested. I volunteer but it's all old people there. Any event or gathering I've joined in has been all couples or women. I'm not unattractive, but OLD was a minefield even back then. My photos and profile was good enough I thought, I'm an interesting person, well travelled, various interests etc. But even with seemingly positive chats and emails exchanged I found that most guys didn't even want to meet. And yes I did suggest it (one guy in particular seemed excited to be speaking to me, was very chatty and flirting and when I eventually suggested meeting after a month of emailing back and forth I never heard from him again). It was all very odd and depressing. On the rare occasion I got a date they were very lackluster, awkward and one man were so tight he wouldn't even grab a soft drink on a hot day. Literally met me for a quick chat when he was out cycling and never heard from him again.

I decided to change tactics and speak to guys I wouldn't normally have gone for. So, the long haired rocker type. Guys who had a few extra pounds, shorter guys. If we had some things in common and they seemed nice enough people I thought why not. Still no joy.

I met my DH eventually and he is foreign. I was on the verge of giving up with OLD. It's not the best relationship, he's got ASD so lots of communication issues and zero intimacy and sex. He's a decent enough guy most of the time but I'm struggling with the "roommate" situation. I'm so lonely and frustrated. But if we broke up I don't think I could go through the OLD thing again, it was awful enough before and that was before all the swipe apps were introduced. Also I'm older now (early 40s) and suspect that I'd be even less popular than I apparently was back then.

@Sunnidayz sorry to hear of your situation. My exh is autistic and I couldn't cope with the constant rejection any longer so did end things. But you're right that OLD is still shite! I didn't end my marriage on the hope of finding another relationship, but I also don't really want to be alone for the rest of my life. It's tricky.

And the most confident are probably just the sort of guys I don't want chatting me up!

[quote Misty9]@Sunnidayz sorry to hear of your situation. My exh is autistic and I couldn't cope with the constant rejection any longer so did end things. But you're right that OLD is still shite! I didn't end my marriage on the hope of finding another relationship, but I also don't really want to be alone for the rest of my life. It's tricky.[/quote]
Thanks, sorry about your marriage ending it's very difficult in that situation, other people don't understand and we need to do what's right for our own health and well-being. So I'm not sure, it's very early days for us still but if I'm feeling like this now after 1.5 years of marriage... If I ended up being single again I don't think I'd bother OLD, it's too depressing. I've never been popular with guys but thinking back there was some opportunities that I didn't take because I was scared/had issues about certain things. It makes me feel sad now. I suspect that I should get therapy for my issues because I'm still struggling to process things and keep making mistakes in life.

[quote Wegobshite]@cocoloco987
I don’t know I see this a lot in that women can often have a certain type of bloke - that they like and they can’t seem to move away from it they get into this type of bloke at a early age late teens and that’s it
sort of like What was mentioned earlier Troy with the tattoos and 4 kids by for mother’s
That’s what they want and keep looking for even though they aren’t any good for them
Even when they meet a new bloke they are so similar to the old one
They don’t want Graham the accountant 😂
And honestly they are all women in their mid thirties to early 40s some are even older they all have professional jobs degrees homeowners but it’s like they just want to have this certain type of bloke[/quote]
Problem being , so often graham the accountant turns out to be just as bad but in different ways
Just take a look around at HOW MANY women married guys who seems great , good job , stable reliable and ‘ kind ‘ turned out to be a porn addict or cheater abuser or some other type of shit
As someone noted earlier there’s simply no dichotomy of good vs bad . The problem lies in the entitlement that so many men feel nowadays
Whether women are attracted to men who outright show this entitlement or those who at first behave in more socially appropriate ways makes so little difference in the end
Overall those who are genuinely not porn addicts cheater abuser a narcissists or whatever are a minority of men overall.

‘1. In the first place there's not a big pool of good men who want to commit, or at least not at the same proportion of 'good' women. The casual sex and porn culture that people are obsessed with in the West means many men feed on a diet of selfishness and see women as sex objects whose purpose is to fulfil their selfish desires, rather than people to love, sacrifice for, and commit to.’

This absolutely !

I'm not sure we can use the words good and bad here though (not necessarily for all cases anyway). Does this not go back to what was said earlier in that men and women are often looking for different things which aren't always communicated?

@Sunnidayz I lasted nearly 11 years but probably felt similarly after 1.5... I did get therapy after the split though (systemic type) and highly recommend it! Good luck, whatever you choose

@coronaway

I'm not sure we can use the words good and bad here though (not necessarily for all cases anyway). Does this not go back to what was said earlier in that men and women are often looking for different things which aren't always communicated?

Totally agree that there’s no good vs bf . We are all grey with some hiking more or the negative behaviours and some displaying more positive Personally I don’t believe it’s as simple as different desires and a lack of communication when we are living in a world where soooo many men are displaying this negative behaviours like abusing , cheating , porn addiction , even the extreme violence we are coming predominately from men This isn’t simply wanting different things and not communicating them This is a wilful use and abuse of women mentality

*Good vs bad

@Oreo01

NoSilence - I understand. OLD is such a draining process. I've done for two years on and off and not sure I can be arsed if it doesn't work with the one I've started dating. I just don't know where I'd meet a woman in real.life in the group we are talking about. As part of a group Ive joined, like a running group, just seems too contrived and unless I stumble across someone in the supermarket or maybe on the odd occasion I'm out for a few drinks I just can't see it.

Im40 now and do wonder if I'll just bumble through my 40s whilst the kids grow up. Ill be 50 when my youngest is 16 and maybe it will be easier then.

It's more just some companionship than wanting a big commitment.

What you're saying makes total sense. I agree, the last thing you need when co-parenting and working is some demanding or angsty relationship, just someone to relax with sometimes when it fits in with the other demands on you both without any pressure. Maybe some weekends or holidays if the timing works out when both not parenting. I do think women in a similar position would be more likely to want what you want.

As for how to meet such people, not a clue I'm afraid! I'm quite happy as I am being single but if I could find a spark with someone uncomplicated and fun and not too serious (who was happy with no prospect of us co-habiting or marrying or involvement with each other's children) then maybe I'd change my mind. But I don't do OLD. And I don't meet many new people generally, so it seems unlikely.