Where are all the decent men hiding?

[Arding]

Where are all the decent men hiding?
Do you have a decent man?
Where did you find him?

He worked at a business on the same site as mine. I didn't even realise he was interested until my then 12 year old daughter pointed it out. I was newly single out of a horrendously abusive relationship and initially he was just sweet to me and listened.

He's shorter than a lot of women would go for, but he's incredibly funny, smart, works bloody hard and adores us both. My first relationship that didn't start online - wish I'd tried it sooner 🤷‍♀️

I met mine when I was 18 at uni, we lived in student halls together. He was 19. We got married at 24 and have now been married 32 years! He’s amazing and I knew I had to get him “out of circulation” before anyone else noticed. They did notice but he chose me and has been choosing me every day since, through depression and 3 children and me becoming disabled and needing a wheelchair. But Dh has a friend, a 50-something teacher who is a fantastic guy who has, for no reason we can see, never been in a ltr. I suspect he’s too fussy!

I didn’t say all women…. just that many will not entertain men under a certain height. And I know this to be true from speaking to various women who use dating apps and WILL not entertain men under a certain height.

of course there are short men in relationships, I’ve got one, I just meant that they don’t necessarily have as much options as tall men, particularly on dating apps where people seem to be particularly picky

Agree with the very first poster. I’m mid thirties and I rarely find a semi attractive man over the age of thirty two. Very occasionally there might be one as old as thirty seven but it’s a rarity.

They just don’t seem to take care of themselves.

And that’s not even accounting for them having to be sane and suitable partners also.

There's hardly any decent men 40s - mid 50s to pick from it seems. They mostly want fwb and no commitment so they can sleep around.
They weren't oil paintings, so i don't know where they got that idea from that several women were falling over themselves to have sex with them.

Interesting point - do men who just want FWB etc ever find (decent) different women every week who just wants sex?

On dating apps sure. But if they met someone in real life they liked I hightly doubt they’d give height a second thought.

Dating apps are a weird place. They are looks focussed as that’s all you have to go on before you meet someone so people hedge their bets. Eg: Men look for younger women and women look for taller men.

Very similar
met in a club

got married with a year, been married 30 years

dating apps just seem horrible & clinical no social interaction just swiping left or right

if anything happened to my DH i wouldn’t bother

My DH would probably be a catch on a dating site in some ways
6ft 3 fit. Non smoker - drinker solvent, fit and all his own teeth 😂 nice to animals and my mum & dad .

Genuinely a really nice bloke and dresses well cos I buy all his clothes and he’s got lifelong lovely friends which I always think is a good thing

but he’s a complete technophobe when it comes to stuff like apps so wouldn’t have a clue

A lot of women on MN seem to think that if the man isn't chasing, he isn't properly interested.
And yet every decent young man knows to keep a respectful distance while awaiting enthusiastic consent.
It's no wonder the birthrate is down!

There are a lot of threads on MN about this. Women who agonise about whether to make the first move, or not. The advice is generally that if a man is interested, he will do something about it. There are always plenty of comments from women who have made the first move, but it hasn't ended well, and that men still like the thrill of the chase. Obviously there are a few posters who made the first move on a man and it was a great success.

But are we wrong about this? Would men really like us to make the first move? Does it put them off? Would they say yes just to avoid saying no, so that you end up with one date but never any more? Or is it still best to give some encouragement, hint at an open door, but leave the rest to them?

There are ways of showing you are interested without asking him out. Show him you are interested and then let him chase.
I met my gorgeous man, a widower, at a friend’s party. We chatted , he seemed interested. He later told me he wouldn’t have dared ask me out, didn’t think I’d be interested in him, but when I offered him a bite of my toasted marshmellow (😂)he thought that was a signal that I did like him, so when I left he offered to walk me home, and a few days later plucked up the courage to suggest we meet up to discuss a mutual interest.

I met a few really decent men before I got married. Didn’t fancy any of them, unfortunately. Getting the “click” is more rare. Had I settled, I could have married quite well. Better than I did. But… True love, eh?

Perhaps try and get a part time bar job at your local golf club. The guys who partake in golf usually have their shit together and have professional jobs etc. my friend met her chap that way. you will probably have to filter through the happily married ones but there are certainly a lot of single men who play golf these days.

Stay away from the dating apps as others have said. You only need to read the numerous horror stories on MN to know the apps algorithms push the hot guys who are the players.

This is good advice. Or maybe a rugby club?

I met mine at work, but these were the days where we both went in 5 days a week. Appreciate there is a lot more wfh now and less opportunity to connect with colleagues.

I agree with this - I'm another one who met their DH at uni. We were both very sporty. I think most decent men get snapped up very early.

I think the vast majority of decent ones are not single. Or if they are it's not for long. There's loads more decent women looking for partners than there are decent men after you're over 30 odd.

Not so sure about rugby clubs if the boozy initiations are still anything like the university rugby social club's childish initiations when I was at uni. I witnessed and heard of some truly disgusting episodes from those sort of initiations in the student union.

I disagree that it’s harder over 30, I’d think nowadays there’s a lot of eligible divorcees who learnt from the mistakes they made in their first marriage and their second wife will think the first wife was nuts to let him go!!

Why not? I'm curious about his reasoning. Where else will he find someone?

If he is reasonably good looking, with this description he would have lots of interested women. (Including me, in case he likes older women and doesn't want kids).

I know literally loads of couples who divorced in their 40s. I think it’s the age where people start to change, and realise that they no longer want the same things they wanted when they were young, and often, outgrow their partner.

Controversial, but in your 40s, the best strategy to find a man is probably to poach one who has grown sick of their partner! 🤣🤣🤣

This is from a woman’s perspective though. When I’ve spoken to male friends who have been online dating in their late 30s, they say that that it’s impossible to find decent women!

I think there’s a fundamental mismatch in what men and women consider a ‘decent’ partner.

It's weird how often on mumsnet it's taken as a confirmed fact that there are hordes of eligible, stable, decent women on the dating apps who are desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel to find a man who won't wipe his willy on the curtains.

Maybe I had very bad luck on those apps but in my experience at least of trying them when I was in my 40s there were an awful lot of women who had more red flags than a Chinese military parade.

There's loads more decent women looking for partners than there are decent men after you're over 30 odd.

But men will tell you the reverse is true?

I considered start reading the obituaries...

Most of them are married by the time they are 30.

I wonder how much of it is driven by women here thinking "My friend Sandra's lovely but she's struggling so much on the dating sites. It can only be that there aren't any decent men!" but, as they've never actually dated Sandra, they never find out that Sandra's a deeply insecure control freak who gets insanely jealous if her boyfriend phones his sister.