Is this a middle aged man thing or have I been unlucky?

[crochetmonkey74]

Lighthearted but also WTF -So I am OLD at the moment , and I'm noticing that quite a few of the men I'm talking to are so narrow minded and set in their ways.
Current experiences are : a guy commenting on the necklace I was wearing (a spider) and making a big thing out of how it wasn't a normal choice of a necklace, was I a goth etc. (I literally look nothing like a goth and the necklace was from Matalan so completely 'mainstream') Another guy while we were on a date - a little boy came running up to our table, clearly a boy, boys clothes, boys name when the mum called him. Afterwards my date made a big deal of deliberately not knowing if it was a boy or girl - kept saying "he? She? " when I said clearly a boy he replied with "but he had long hair" Are they just deliberately obtuse? Final guy googles everything I say and then says "if I remember rightly, that was built in ..... by ....." as if he knew these really obscure facts. WTF is going on , are they just all tedious old bores or have I been unlucky? (Lighthearted looking for solidarity)

Yeah and they seem to pick up on the strangest things. I have 3 silver bangles on my left wrist, very small and dainty. One bloke acted like I was frigging Jack Sparrow!
(I have also had nice dates,they are not all like this)

I’ve been known to read a book in a (slightly crusty, CAMRA type) pub alone while waiting for DC to do sport training. When I was reading The Lovely Bones the landlord came over to gush about the book 😁 <misses the point of the thread>

I've just recently been in London and cafes were full of people having lunch and reading. It really isn't unusual. I'm totally baffled by people who think it is

I think the contrariness is affected. Its a win win for them.

They get to see if you are docile and compliant and let their ridiculous ideas go unchallenged. If so, good job. If not, they get the added pleased of irritating the sort of woman they have no time for because they're the wrong sort of woman.

I know someone who is intelligent but says these ridiculous things all the time and that's exactly why he does it

100% this.

You sound perfectly normal to me OP.

If a date was waiting for me in a pub with a coffee and reading a book I'd be interested in what they were reading.

I'm in my early 50s and on a few dating apps. I am struggling to find attractive men my age or a few years younger. I did see a silver fox in Sainsbury's though

YABU to say a child was a boy because they were wearing “boy clothes”

Yes &. No, when I go to meet a date, I usually just take key, phone, money, wallet & painkillers, not a book, if I’m early I’ll read the news on my phone,
my date has done the same, I’ve not seen her with a physical book while waiting for me.

If Louise is single, I think the OP knows someone she could hook up with 😜

It sounds like they are (consciously or not) trying to undermine you in order to impose some authority over you and make you more likely to go for them, in a more mature version of "negging".

Oh FGS you know what I mean, I was highlighting that there was no question as to the gender of the child

Yeah I think so, and agree with PP who said they enjoy annoying women. It's like they are angry that they are dating and insecure so they lash out in pathetic ways

But how is having a book rather than a phone different if you have it in your bag? Loads of people carry a book for the bus or tube

I'm 40 and funnily enough I was brought up by a man, a very miserable one at that. And I've noticed that not only am I like him, I am like a man in this way too.

I annoy myself. And yes, I am stuck in my ways. I don't like much new music, I see things repeated and it annoys me. I hate fashion followers.

Miserable old gits you are meeting but surely they cannot all be like this. I'd probably get on well with them. We could moan together.

Maybe it’s because We don’t live in London, I don’t carry a bag, nor did my date, we are out in the sticks, she had her phone & a credit card on her and that was it, in fact she took the piss a bit as I arrived on my bike & had helmet, jacket, gloves etc and my junk took up most of our table ( but no book)

I think it's probably just that people are different..?

I don't live in London either but I have been known to take a book into a pub to read it. What an odd thing to say...

@GreyCarpet
what is an odd thing to say ?

Just wanting to book mark, will post my tales of hilarity later 😂

I think it's just that you are extrapolating that from your date experience in a pub, which didn't involve a book, you think books in pubs are odd. I'm not in London either, but have a book in my handbag for lunch breaks, times when I end up somewhere early etc. If you read the news on your phone it's the same as reading a book or newspaper, none of which is odd behaviour. I was using the London experience to highlight how lots and lots of people read books in day to day life and it isn't odd. Fair enough if it isn't your thing, but it definitely isn't odd. I've been in a coffee shop today in fact with several solo drinkers reading books

I do think a lot of middle men who married young and are now divorced have a very fixed idea of what women are supposed to be / do / act / think and are a bit amazed that we are not like their mother. Almost like we are supposed to all get like his mom was when he left home. That’s his template of womanhood and if we deviate in any way we are odd.

This. It's like they haven't progressed in the last 20 years. I'm going for younger men due to this.

Lone women sitting in a pub drinking beer and reading - target for men who regard themselves as more intellectual who will try amd engage you in conversation about your book.

Put headphones in too. Even if you aren't listening to anything.

@PerpetualStudent No I’d say that was perfectly astute actually.

Yep. I've got a mid 60s retiree after me. He's in my hiking group. I'm early 40s.

Everything I say, he responds with "now you're getting older" at the end of his sentence. So if I say I'm looking at a certain type of car, he'll say "oh yes, good choice, now you're getting older".

I'm sure he's doing it deliberately to make me feel old. I went out with the group yesterday and said (in front of him) that I've got a date with a 39 year old this week. He looked really confused 😂

Nope, I don’t care about people reading books in pubs or coffee shops or anywhere, but specifically going on date with a book, now that I do think is odd, I wouldn’t take a book to date no matter where we were meeting.

I sometimes go to a pub in the daytime specifically for a drink and a read. Didn’t realise I was so fucking wild 🤘

She didn’t take it to read ON the date though did she, she took it in case she had some time to kill before or after.