So fed up and think I give up on men

[Missillusioned78]

I am 44. I would really like a fulfilling equal relationship.

The only man I have met who interests me treats me as someone to ring on the way home when pissed.

I have a full life of work, friends, hobbies and my wonderful children. I am not rich but getting by with my home. We are happy.

I am SO disappointed with men. Don’t know whether to just give up

@Sosillysilly I was talking about the dating game when I said women are just as bad as men.

Unfortunately so am I, dating and relationships is where lots of assaults against women take place

@Sosillysilly and how people choose their partner, you are going off in a different direction. Why don't you set up a new thread. Maybe you could use the title, why I hate men.

Is SittingCat a man? that would explain it.

I read this thread this morning and got a bit lost in all the naval gazing in the middle.

@Luckydip1 you've come on with the NAMALT line- no men and women are NOT just as bad as each other in terms of violence and abuse.

@Missillusioned78 if you are still here after all of that. I think it's down to you to build your own boundaries. If that man is the only man you are interested in, there is something wrong - because he treats you badly and doesn't deserve your interest. My experience is that there are lovely men out there in the dating world. When I first ventured into the dating world in my mid 40s I had no problems meeting men my own age who wanted a relationship with me.

I'm now dating again, and am still getting dates with men my own age and younger. Men who seem lovely and together and sane. I do think it's about not needing a man. About wanting someone who only adds to your life. If you are happy in all areas of your life, it makes it easier to meet a man because it means you aren't going to settle for less.

@itsnotdeep just read my whole sentence before you comment, duh.

I read it, and the previous one. I don't agree that women's abuse is in any way comparable to men's.

I also read the one where you said women are just as bad as men about their expectations in dating - I don't disagree with that view.

But for whatever reason the men definitely seem to have the power in dating, they seem feel that they have more choice, whereas women are told to lower their expectations. To accept that you might have to end up with someone older, or poorer, or less educated, or more encumbered than your ideal wish list. My experience is, you don't have to lower your expectations if you are as happy without a man in your life as you are with one in your life. If you only want someone who adds to it, then you can be happy waiting. That said, I also think that instant attraction is rare, and it's worth giving someone a longer chance. (and for older men and women you need to lower your expectations about looks and bodies a little bit).

I’m not sure why you would assume I hate men simply because I won’t sit back and ignore a statement like women are as bad as men when it’s not true
that’s no different to me saying you should start a thread called why I hate women now is it
luckily I have lots of wonderful men in my life .

And women are expected to just accept that their ''level'' is a man ten years older with either a bit of a drinking problem, so intrinsically lazy and entitled that he'd be an albatross around your neck even if he did settle down with you, or a player, a man with an eye out elsewhere even when you thought you were happy.

I haven't done OLD for a good six years at this point but as an attractive healthy forty something with their own house, job, savings, pension, hobbies and friends, I wanted to find a man ''at my level''. Who had some of the same stability. Wasn't looking for a rich man, a tall man or a particularly handsome man.

OLD forces women in to dating ''beneath their level'' and they still get treated like shit.

There are the lucky ones of course, but for ever one woman saying she met a good man on line there are 99 who met a string of arseholes on line.

I met a man in real life who was six years younger than me, never would have dared to try and date a younger man on line, would have been put back in my place too quickly but in real life, he just liked me and I liked him and it worked. It was the antidote to all of the bullshit I'd been putting up with online.

@itsnotdeep is spot on . Women being abusive in dating is in no way compatible to mens abuse .
Point that out doesng make a woman a man hater and any man who says so needs to really reassess the realities of gendered violence

Also agree with everything also itsnotdeep said.

@Sosillysilly I agree with you. Women are not as bad as men. That is an absolutely ludicrous statement.

I did chat to a man on line years ago and I got an insight in to why some thick men might think this though. He was about my age but definitely a bit older. He was giving out that some woman had given him the my mother in the phillippines is sick and needs xx euro. The woman he'd been ''stung'' by was decades younger. He had just vented to me. That was my only purpose in his eyes. While he pursued a woman who tried to rip him off, and he felt hard done by

So any suggestion that women accept their level or stay single makes me laugh.

Indeed, men who don't date women their own age or a bit older or women with children or women with a few extra pounds are never branded women haters.

It makes me laugh when a man (and there are lots of them) puts his age as 49. When he is plainly late 50s! Do they actually not think they look late 50s? I think they actually don't. And I think they think a 45 year old woman will actually want to go out with a 58 year old man.

@BlueBellsArePretty

Now off you toddle, maybe go and do another degree to add to your collection Mr eternal student.

After doing my undergraduate degree full time as usual, every other degree I have was completed part time, whilst in full time employment. It says more about you than it does me that you think the desire to continue learning is somehow worthy of criticism or being made fun of.

@QueenCamilla

I'll allow @SittingCat to mansplain what we womens like and need instead

Again with the dog whistling and gas-lighting. Its not 'mansplaining' to point out that a woman is incorrect, when she is in fact, incorrect. Women are not omnipotent.

Perhaps the flat-earth society should nominate an all female board and president, then simply called any scientist that provides evidence the earth is, in fact, round a 'misogynist' or a 'mansplainer.'

@BubbleSort

As a side note, could I ask you @SittingCat what are your views are on love ?

Interesting name. Maths background?

I don't really know what you mean, or which part in particular as that's a big question. I think it exists, but probably not in the way books would have you believe. Broadly, I think love is a biological reaction designed to get people to pair bond to improve the chances of successful offspring; to that end, its designed to last for a few years and no more. Boy & Girl meet, its great for a period of time because they are both hiding their bad points, maybe marriage and kids come along, it gets pragmatic but still punctuated with affection and eventually the sexual intimacy and passion disappears, even if what we would consider the real intimacy is still there. I'd argue the timeline varies depending on individual characteristics of the people concerned, but 6 - 18 months for phase 1, 1 - 10 years for phase 2, 0 - 30 years for phase 3. I have many thoughts regarding phase 3 that would probably not be well received on here but I'll keep those to myself.

Do you believe there are also many men that aim too high and are deluded in their aspirations?

Absolutely. Although I would caveat this somewhat - I think if you picture the gap between a persons 'ideal partner' and the 'lowest type of partner they would accept,' that gap is, on average, wider for men than it is for women. So whilst both can aim too high, men are more willing to adjust their standards down than women in the face of market information. That's a fancy way of saying 'most men aren't picky,' which I imagine is widely accepted here.

I do support women and their emancipation from the slavery of men but I think Sitting cat is pointing out that in his view the equality of women has not been condusive to expectations of love .

Ah, now I see what you were getting at with the previous question. Yes, the current dating market is as broken for women as it is for men and I said that earlier. You have probably hit on what I believe to be the underlying cause, that women have, due to the drive for equality over the last 50 years, bettered themselves - which has, unfortunately and paradoxically, led to them competing themselves out of the dating market. But feminists won't entertain an affirmative action programme designed at encouraging more men, and only men, in to higher educational institutions.

I think there are many many unexpected outcomes that have happened in conjunction with the equality of women. For example, wages have lagged behind economic growth since around the time women started entering the workforce en masse (1970ish). Its basic economics that doubling the supply of labour in the market will reduce the price of that labour. Who is really better off if both partners work but spend the vast majority of their second wage on childcare? There was a reason that in the 1950's a family could live on a single income. This is a consequence of equality for women, but that doesn't mean I'm in favour of sending women back to the kitchen; far from it.

The core of my belief is that honest conversations lead to more constructive and sustainable outcomes. However, we live in a society where everyone takes offence at the slightest criticism or suggestion that they need to change in some way. And that goes for both men and women. The feminists don't want the aforementioned affirmative action programme for men because they perceive it as a zero sum game where more support for men means less support for women. This is quite sad, because the original idea behind encouraging more women in to university was that a more educated society is more prosperous and therefore its actually a positive sum game.

@Sosillysilly

Its incredibly difficult for me to maintain my patience with you. You are putting words in my mouth and refuse to actually engage with anything on a factual level.

that sounds uncannily similar to the mysogyny we were hearing from sitting cat

Please point to the misogyny you believe I have posted. I would like a direct quote from any of my posts, not a paraphase or your opinion of what I said; a direct quote.

When you can't provide that, please stop throwing false accusations around.

he raised the point of men only being slightly more disagreeable after the point was raised that men make up 95percent of perpetrators of violence and murders against both men and women

Since you continue to bring this up, I'm going to address it despite it being a tangent to the main point I presented.

Disagreeableness is one of the big five personality traits that Psychologists have used since the 1980s. I do hate to cite Wikipedia, but I feel it may be on your intellectual level;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Disagreeableness has been, widely and consistently, shown to correlate with aggression and violence;

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8323029/

Higher BPAQ [Agression] scores were positively associated with Neuroticism and negatively associated with Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8391956/

The Big Five Model of Personality suggested that five domains largely account for individual differences in personality including (i) extraversion; (ii) openness; (iii) neuroticism; (iv) agreeableness; and (v) conscientiousness [2]. Sleep (2021) [2] stated that low conscientiousness, low agreeableness, and high neuroticism increase aggression, mental distress, and antisocial behaviour among individuals.

This isn't crank or 'redpill' science. Its well established academic fact that has been reproduced over and over again.

As I have said previously, men score ever so slightly higher on disagreeableness compared to women. Slightly. However, small differences in the mean produce large discrepancies at the tail. This is a mathematical fact. I know you can't understand that as you have clearly have no knowledge of statistics, so I'll break it down for you...

Men are 6% taller than women on average, but if you took a sample of the 100 tallest people in a city you would find that probably 95% of them were men. That doesn't mean that all men are taller than all women, nor does it mean that men are 'a lot' taller than women.

For the avoidance of doubt, please re-read the above sentences and replace 'taller' with 'more violent' and understand the point being made.

The fact he hadn’t once acknowledged men are the primary perpetrators of crime against women

I have said that twice previously in this thread. I have now also said it a third time above. For the avoidance of doubt, that is what 'slightly higher mean' indicates.

Another instance of you painting me in to a position that I do not hold.

I just find it very difficult to see how someone who supports freedom for women and equality could not see the mysogyny and red pill ideals in his posts and then actually think they are intelligent lol

Sorry, but there is no way any rational person would look at my posts in this thread and conclude that I am not intelligent. Intelligence does not equate to 'espouses a view that I happen to agree with.' There are plenty of intelligent people that I disagree with; half of the MPs for a start.

You've provided zero evidence in support of any of your assertions and you've ignored, or not understood, evidence provided against. This isn't how things should operate in a civilized society, or forum; its the basic premise of the scientific method and our entire governance that ideas are debated on reason and facts, not anecdote and emotion.

@Sosillysilly I think you need help, nothing personal.

Thanks for your fake concern 😂but I’m fine .
Just got better things to do …

I think a lot of people take things personally and are not thinking rationally (a natural human reaction tbf). What @SittingCat is saying seems to make perfect sense to me and from what I've seen is backed up by data. It isn't an attack on you as an individual or your worth as a human being etc.

This is the first time we have had so much data on how people select a mating partner. What's more it is less influenced by fear of judgement by others so you could argue is more accurate. Before we would have to rely on asking people what they find attractive, what qualities they go for etc and people tend to bend the truth there.

Women on average date across and up dominance hierarchies whereas men date across and down. As more and more women move up their pool of men they're attracted to gets ever smaller. Thankfully women no longer need to be in a partnership to survive and so the need to settle is lessened which only makes this divide greater.

On the flip side when it comes to online dating there will be men on their looking for a relationship but also those looking for casual sex. What's more the men who are looking for a relationship likely won't turn down casual sex if it's presented to them. Not to be vulgar but a lot of men's requirements for casual sex is whether the effort is worth the perceived benefit of having sex over masturbating. This ultimately results in men swiping on 50% plus of women while women are swiping 0-5% of men. These men then struggle to see the benefit of a steady relationship when there are so many options on offer.

As always my advice to both men and women (unless you're a very good looking man after casual sex although I'd argue that isn't a fulfilling way to live your life) is to delete the apps and meet people in real life.

Yes I agree, not entirely sure what the point is - wether men are slightly or vastly more disagreeable doesn’t negate the fact of men being the predominant perpetrators of violence (against women and men), I also do think there are other factors influencing this behaviour, anywhere from pure biology to social/cultural acceptance and even expectations.

I also think both men and women select mates that meet their needs - some people have a need to ‘be seen’ as ‘succeeding’ - what does that mean to them? A mate that is.. Attractive? Young? Tall? Slim? Fit? Powerful? Rich? Educated? Occupation? Some other people pick mates based on a middle-of-road mixture of all these traits and understand compromise is important to success (and hopefully happiness) - i.e accept nobody is perfect.

I agree that there are social/cultural factors at play as well. Violence correlates positively with deprivation and in more patriarchal cultures (Middle-East & South / South-East Asia).

The reason I'm pointing that out is because the fact that 95% of all violent crimes (or w/e percentage it is) are committed by men is often used by radical feminists in reverse to tar all men. The 95% is a feature of a small discrepancy, but this fact is often used the other way around as '95% of all violent crimes are committed by men, therefore men must be much more violent.'

This is a completely false statistical statement, but it sounds seductive to those that don't understand statistics.

“that gap is, on average, wider for men than it is for women. So whilst both can aim too high, men are more willing to adjust their standards down than women in the face of market information. That's a fancy way of saying 'most men aren't picky,' which I imagine is widely accepted here” is this anecdotal? I’d agree with this statement where it pertains to accessing sex (wether this is due to social view of female promiscuousness in comparison, and also the higher risks women face to engage in casual sex, and biology - hormonal driven desire for sex) but in terms of offering relationship commitment/exclusivity and financial investment I believe men are just as picky, perhaps if not more so - their serious investment also has to pass the tests of their peers, that could be - so long as she is youthful and attractive, or, so long as she is reasonably attractive but is able to navigate the social demands of the circles in which they socialise, etc., I’m not sure if women seek the same validation (perhaps for different things), probably - everyone wants to be proud to show off their partner.

Education is generally a shambles, many occupations now that previously were vocational/technical schools and colleges have moved to university Degree courses, which can also affect access. I would need to read further if the correlation between an influx of women to the workforce has directly resulted in the stagnation of wages, as you’d also have to examine what was also happening at that time economically, globally, we see today wage suppression/austerity, there are also labour shortages in many sectors many of which tend to be female dominated, formation of social health services also increase labour demand, I wonder if to maintain our quality of life as it is today we need the additional labour of women, women’s labour is also generally valued less than mens. I think it’s less a problem of women entering the workforce and increasing the availability of labour (as we know women aren’t typically flooding into traditionally male dominated occupations and visa versa) but the lack of value attributed to womens labour. Women have usually always worked in some way whilst caring for children, usually in poorer households - which allowed the household to maintain a slightly higher standard of living if not usually, just get by, and women stayed at home (i.e solely as homemaker) where this (used to be) financially viable and social expectation.

Men aren't picky when it comes to a shag.
But women are expected to just accept that men of a similar age/temperament/level of stability/health/attractiveness aren't interested. To expect your equal is asking too much.

@SittingCat -stop reading into bloody bro-science statistics or at least take your niche hobby elsewhere! That's in regard to you and some other posters who refer to "research" on how we choose a mate.
My list was supposed to indicate - it varies. It varies in a very nuanced way and based on circumstances. Now that I really don't want another child and I am not looking to cohabit, my imaginary list has changed - I care less about someone's income or what his family (my future in laws? ) are like.
I'd dismiss someone purely on being a vegan (a dream date for others) - the height not even considered. Don't you get it?
Plus, any decent research should tell you that rotting teeth and nasty personality would be much more off-putting than being 5"8. But they don't because that doesn't help the agenda.

Now, if you'd ask me to participate in some research with the question posed in the vein of "dream date?"... I'd say a classy dressed David Gandy (tall, dark, fit, handsome) with a well paying professional job and with hobbies that are all creative (oooh... we would hang out in art galleries and fine dining places... 🥰).
That's the type of "research" that leads to all men wanting 23 year old underwear models as wives. Yeah me too. A Calvin Klein model.

But back in the real life (and I'm a very attractive woman who could have a pick) my partners always get told they're punching and get asked - are you rich or something? So no dating "up" for me unfortunately....

In simple terms, we mostly choose someone we feel we can get on with.
The ones left behind (Incels) are mostly those that are impossible to get on with.

Your views on the REALITY of male violence and aggression are abhorrent and I wouldn't entertain a relationship with someone like you based on that single fact. I did in fact dump a boyfriend over his "not all men" minimising of my experiences.