What are your immediate deal breakers when online dating?

[Smock86]

For me, they are-

1. drugs
2. saying you don’t want/like kids

to a lesser extent-

1. smoking
2. not seeing your children
3. admitting to cheating in a precious relationship

anyone else want to share? I’ve been guilty of overlooking all of these in the past but going to try to hold firm with them as I’ve shifted my boundaries on these before and got burned

Helen "I'm the Enfield/Barnet person - I've just taken against those places! There's no logic to it. I think I would like someone who lives centrally like me though."

i can understand why you'd want someone to local to you. Is Haringey acceptable? Just trying to make sense of it!

Several reasons:

1. It far, far more complicated if you both have children than if only one of you has. Why make your life so much harder?
2. The reality of, often younger, step siblings who visit their (main) home every second weekend is not necessarily good for your teenage or near teenage children. So you may well choose to rule relationships out on that basis.
3. Nonresident parents often behave in quite different ways to resident parents. Nonresident fathers quite commonly parent (I use the term loosely) motivated by fear and guilt. Disney dad parenting can be very hard to live with.
4. That kind of parenting often leads to double standards and conflicts with your own parenting. It’s hard to have rules and boundaries for your children when every other weekend the SC are allowed to do all sorts of things your children are not and never have been allowed to.
5. The weird power relations post-divorce with children can mean that the exW ends up in control of the other household in ways that are less usual the other way round. It’s not unusual for men to decide they’d rather upset their current partner than their exW, repeatedly.
6. The finances of divorce mean that a nonresident father often has considerable expenses (maintenances) and very few assets. The risk that you end up subsidising this (and your children get less as a result) is high.
7. Similarly, you don’t want to be in a position where you are having to limit what you do with or what you spend on your children so that it’s ‘fair for the SC’. Or in a position where they have to watch Disney dad shower the SC in stuff that you can’t afford to buy them. Even if you and your partner treat them equally, neither of you has any control over their other parents. That makes equality hard to achieve and can be very uncomfortable.

In any case, many men will be ruling women with children out anyway. It’s fine to limit your potential pool to only those men who don’t have children but don’t mind if you do. You don’t have to make it even in deciding what you want or what will work for you (and your children).

I was looking for someone :

Taller than me
Intelligent, at least degree educated
With hair
High sex drive and affectionate
Loves travel
Easy going
With kids as i have them
Into EDM
Enthusiasm for life
Lives within 45 mins
Makes me feel the way i want to feel

Got everything, except for degree educated although he's worked his way up to a salary much higher than mine.

Our interests aren't quite the same, but I'm learning to love football

Does he get on with his parents
if not it doesn’t bode well

not his fault
but will still not bode well !!

@minticecreamisjustok

Puzzled by your "No flowers on the first date" being a red line?! Each to their own but for me flowers on a first date is just all kinds of wrong... For me first dates should be about seeing if there's chemistry and compatibility. Flowers on a first date show emotional illiteracy by introducing a romantic gesture far too early. Or maybe I'm just a miserable so and so.

I can’t imagine anyone turning up to a date with flowers. Maybe as a joke, I guess.

I thought mint meant "don't bring flowers on a first date".

I can't stand poor grammar or spelling. Even if they are dyslexic or claim that autocorrect has sabotaged them.

Height. I've come down on this, but has to be at least 5'10. Or if not, very broad and muscled.

I'm not interested in anyone who asks for a first date after exchanging only a few sentences. I'm good looking so I have to be wary of people who aren't interested in getting to know me.

States in their bio that they don't like drama. They always love drama.

Why would not seeing your kids be less of a red flag than saying you don’t want them? I’d actually respect someone far more if they were the type who could hold their hands up and say ‘I wouldn’t be a good parent, I don’t want kids’ over someone who doesn’t bother with his children then feeds potential partners a load of shit about his ‘psycho ex’ who ‘stops him seeing his kids.’

My red flags would be somebody who immediately wants to chat constantly, like message day and night. And also somebody who doesn’t work, because I just don’t think we’d match. Somebody who says things like ‘no drama/don’t want any drama.’ That basically means ‘don’t complain about my shit behaviour.’

If I was looking to date (I’m happily married 😂) I would just be really wary of entering into a relationship with a man who has kids. I would want a casual type of thing. Wouldn’t be interested in being with his kids, ‘blending’ our families etc. The majority of situations where I see this the man is basically looking for a woman to come in and nicely slot in as the new mummy/housekeeper/personal assistant. I couldn’t be doing with it - I’ve got my own kids and no interest in all that comes with someone else’s.

Pronouns.
Queer.
Poly/ENM
Politics.
Dick size.
Posing in front of cars.
Mentioning money/gold diggers

And any mention of sex preferences.

Definite No's

No polys
No one seeking sub/dom
No married/in a relationship looking for a bit on the side
No couples looking for a third
No football pics/references in profile
No bi men
No one looking for 'fun' or one night stands
No Tories
If the profile says 'got my shit together' what does that even mean
No one who puts their Snapchat name on it - cue dick pics

Must haves

Humour
Good chat
Own friends

Would likes

Beard
Tattoos
Tall

I'm not looking, but if I were, at 48 with two young kids, my deal-breaker list would be:

• non-vegan (I have ethics, we'd be thoroughly incompatible if he weren't vegan too)
• pet-owner (gross hygiene standards)
• kids (for the reasons listed by TheYummyPatler)
• wants kids (I'm done)
• Tory/centrists (I only date socialists/lefties, and activist ones at that. No political complacency.)
• poor hygiene (obviously)
• tattoos (ugly/naff)
• bad teeth (obviously)
• not younger than me by more than three years (ideally older)
• bad/sloppy writing (poor spelling, grammar, anyone who says upmost instead of utmost, or "tenderhooks", e.g. instead of i.e., or gets there/their/they're mixed up, etc)
• shorter than three inches taller than me, pref at least four inches taller than me
• smoker
• drinker
• drugs
• religious/spiritual
• watches crap TV (IACGMOOH etc)
• big into watching football/rugby/cricket
• unfit/beer gut
• old before their time
• bad time-keeper

I'm a little saddened people are casting off people who don't have relationships with their family of origin. I don't, for good reason.

Oh Lance, here to get your rocks off by being told you're just too tiny?

I'm a little saddened people are casting off people who don't have relationships with their family of origin. I don't, for good reason

I’d much prefer someone who has drawn boundaries and, where necessary, cut contact with problematic family over someone still enmeshed in toxic relationships.

I’ve drawn my boundaries, for very good reasons, and done lots of therapeutic work to come to terms with it. I don’t need someone else’s toxic family drama.

Mine for females

No Tattoos
Slim
Active
Intelligent
Tactile
Nice Hair and Teeth
Loves animals
Kids flown the nest.
Similar age to me. (57)
Loves travel

Ffeemmaalleesss.

I'm a little saddened people are casting off people who don't have relationships with their family of origin. I don't, for good reason.

Maybe others are a ‘little saddened’ that you’ve cast off anyone who struggles with SPAG. Maybe they struggle for good reason. Or anyone who is unfit - maybe they’re unable to exercise for good reason.

Everyone has their own standards and is looking for what suits them. It’s a bit daft to put up a hugely long and picky list of all your demands and the people you’d cast off, then include a sad little paragraph about how saddened you are that others would cast you off!

So you’re looking for a hugely overweight ‘female,’ covered in tattoos, who hates travel, has awful hair and teeth, and refuses to let you touch her?

@hotandspicy any reason you refer to men as ‘men ‘ yet women are ‘females ‘ or ‘girls’ ‘????

if you have the same for women as men , why can’t you use the word women to refer to them ?

the definition of a girl btw is ‘ a female child ‘ I sure hope you are not meeting girls.

So what are you looking for in a woman ?

Are you happy to go out with women who have young children as you do ?

That’s what the ’tactile’ meant?
I was wondering what he meant by it.
Why can’t men just say let’s me grope and fuck her whenever I want.
Why the detours?

See also ‘affectionate’ and ‘loving.’ Basically means ‘must be open to my pawing at all times.’