Would you date someone who does not drive

[Dancemom1]

Would it put you off from dating someone if you found out they didn’t drive?
after a nice first date with a man (40)
i found out he didn’t drive.
i do drive myself and couldn’t be without my car as i have w busy life with kids.
he has no kids so its a bit different.
he also lives around a 20 min drive away.

It’s true though: it’s much more usual for women not to drive, or to drive less

It’s just the way it is

Are you really not able to go for meals, trips or holidays without a car? I don't believe that somehow.

Hard no. I would really resent driving him around. I have driven since age 17 and funded my own car, my husband the same

I don’t think it’s a deal breaker for men in the same way it is for women tho
I don’t think men are ‘Icked’ by non driver females they way women are by men

Completely agree x

Definitely shared by me 💯

Thank you. 😘

Oh no, I didn't say EVERYONE shares my views about men who can't be arsed to learn to drive, just most women. Try reading my posts a bit more thoroughly, and when you've finished, have a look through the thread. MOST women feel the same, that they would not want to be with a man who CBA to even try to learn to drive.

HTH.

Thank you @Mondaytuesdayhappydays

Reminds me of reading my aunt’s Yours magazine and the lonely hearts section. The number one requirement for “Active widow, 75” was “must be car driver”. All these ladies wanted was a chauffeur!

Yes because of where I live. If I lived in a big city there's no necessity to do so. Rurally or somewhere remote then both me and my partner would be needing to presumably.

No different to middle aged and older men wanting a cook, cleaner, and carer when they claim they are looking for 'love.'

.

Yep, my DH does 90% of the driving when we go anywhere together. I offer to share the driving of course, especially on long trips, but he declines, and says 'nah it's OK.' He is happy to do most of the driving, (and I don't mind either!) Very long trips, like 7-8 hours I do about a quarter of the driving, because he simply gets tired/worn out, but for the most part he drives.

I sort the car services and repairs, the tax, and the MOT, and any general car admin though, as I generally do most of the life admin anyway. I always take out the bins too. And I clean the car... and I also fill it with petrol 90% of the time... He does other things - like car maintenance at home, and most of the DIY, and bits of housework (does the washing up after our evening meal most nights,) and he hoovers the house. We make a good team. Oh, and I do the gardening too, because I love it, but he mows all the lawns.

I couldn't drive when we met, (in our early-mid 20s.) I didn't really need to as I lived in a medium sized town with buses every 15 minutes past my house to the town centre 2 miles away, and the high street with 50 shops was 10 minutes walk away. Also, at the time, I worked 15 minutes walk from where I lived... Nevertheless I did take driving lessons as I wanted to drive as I believe it's an essential life skill and it would help with my career. I failed 3 tests though between 20 and 21, and was downhearted and gave up.

Then when I met DH he started to teach me to drive again, (about a year into our relationship,) and took me out loads of times to drive, and practice. Then I took 12-15 'professional' lessons, and took another test, and passed at 24.

However, DH didn't care whether I could drive or not, and he drove us everywhere. As the years went on he may have resented always being the driver and having to take me everywhere that I couldn't get to by bus though, and having to run us around everywhere with no reprieve, and having to run the kids around everywhere... I will never know as I passed my driving test at 24.

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This! Not being able to drive just makes everything more difficult

I also agree with that post @Rachaelf37 ... I know you get the non driving posters on here saying they never ever EVER accept - or ask for -lifts, and if they have a partner, they never drive them anywhere. But in the real world, if there's a couple with a non driver and a driver, the driver will definitely be doing all the bloody driving! And the non driver ain't getting public transport if their partner has a car!

Are people suggesting that in couples (where one can't drive) that their partner who can drive is going to visit family or friends or going to town in the car (a 15 minute drive for each say,) are leaving their partner to get the bus (1 hour trip,) or pay £10-£12 for a taxi! Whilst they go by car?!

Or when they do a 60 mile trip (70-80 minutes by car,) the driver in the couple is taking themselves to the destination in the car, and the partner is doing a 3 hour trip by train and bus! Of course they're not. The non driver is being chauffeured about. All the time! And they will never take their turn, on short - OR long journeys, because they can't drive. The onus is always on the person who can drive, if one of the couple can't drive. And it's extremely unfair. Especially when you've got children, and the driver in the couple is having to run the children about everywhere!

I live very rurally - as in no buses, no taxis, long way to the nearest train station. I dated a guy who didn't drive, (he could drive, he was just too 'cool' to drive) and it was an incredible pain in the arse. Him sitting there like Little Lord Fauntleroy with his arm out of the window while I struggled to park in a heaving tourist destination.

So it's put me off non-drivers.

Spot on @PrettyLittleRose

No. My dh does not drive. We have been together 16 years now and he’s been saying - for 16 years - that he will learn to drive. He won’t. It means I am the designated driver for the whole family. I am sick of it.

So wimpy, un-manly and de-masculine!
needy, dependent and lazy - so cringey
how do you bear it looking over at him in the passenger seat like an overgrown child
Ewwww

I think one of the worst things is that I can’t wear proper nice heels if I go out: previous men would have dropped me at the door 🙈

I think you've put your finger on the one situation that's difficult here: a couple, one drives but isn't keen on doing so, the other doesn't. That must indeed be a difficult dynamic, where maybe something needs to change - maybe the non-driver needs to learn in order to head off resentment, or maybe the unwilling driver gives up. My family shows two alternatives

1. my mother loves to drive, always has. My father could, but didn't enjoy it. So as far back as I can remember if they were both in the car my mother always drove; my father avoided it as far as possible; for the last couple of decades of their joint lives, my father never drove and my mother liked it that way. The downside was that when my mother (a few years after my father's death) had a health issue that (briefly, thank goodness) left her unable to drive she was stuck. She hadn't taken a train or bus in many decades and was really scared about doing so. As a child I had too many holidays in which I was driven around, bored and carsick, waiting for the journey to be over, and doubtless that coloured my attitude to cars!

2. I was never keen on learning to drive but did so when I had a job that would have made it convenient (though not essential) to be able to drive (there was a frequent business journey were the easiest thing was to fly, then drive a rental car). In fact, I left that job the same month I passed my test and never did drive regularly. My then-DH learned because I had, precisely to avoid the kind of dynamic mentioned, and we both joined the local car club (subscribe, then take a car out by the hour when you want to). However neither of us ever enjoyed driving, nor had a real need to, and gave up the car club - never owned a car, never wanted to. We both had jobs where we travelled a lot, but frequently it was internationally and almost always to major cities - driving wouldn't have helped. Lived in a city. Cycling, walking, buses, food delivery. It's true we spent more time on public transport than we would have if we'd owned a car, but time on public transport, unlike time driving, is time you can use either for work or for relaxation, and we didn't have the stress of keeping a car in good repair; bringing kids up to use buses turns out to be a great way to foster early independence; you can pay for a LOT of taxis for what it costs to run a car, so a big part of the trick is not to resent using a taxi when that's really what's best - you still win financially. (I know there are parts of the country where taxis aren't easily available, but they are where we live.)

DC now young adults, also living in a (different) city, show no signs of learning to drive (or of suffering in any way from not doing so). I'm guessing humans driving is one of those skills that won't last more than a decade from now anyway.

Little Lord Fauntleroy! 😂

No...

I'm always interested in threads when the question of non-driving becomes connected to undereducation, particularly in men. It often goes along with assumptions about a lack of wider travel or worldliness in general.

Entirely anecdotal of course, but most of the men in my family don't drive, and are all extremely highly educated and professionally successful, well read and travelled. I'm female, educated to doctoral level with professional success and I've never driven.

Most of us who have made this choice have made it in a considered fashion, as we have a medical condition that might make concentration trickier. It's not reportable, plenty of people who have the condition choose to drive. I know those family members who have chosen not to drive all agree that this is the more responsible course of action.

The people in my family that do drive tend to be the less educated ones. They're lovely people but they don't travel or read widely, they're definitively parochial. They pootle around the small towns and villages that they were raised in - they rarely go further than the local supermarket. The very idea of working and travelling internationally, using different metro systems, trams etc in overseas cities would send them into meltdown.

I'm reminded that Sir David Attenborough has never driven. He seems to get himself around, and is pretty bright from what I can see 🤔

You can choose whatever dealbreakers you like though OP, as we all can.

Attenborough is open about scrounging lifts and being driven around

Classic man thinking he’s too important to sweat the smalL stuff