Online dating commercial

[kslib]

I heard a commercial today on the radio. I can't remember which of those dating sites it was for, but it featured an answering machine message with this girl's mom on it. she talked about how she met up with an old friend whose daughter just got married, and when the friend asked about the mom's daughter, she lied and said her daughter was dating. Then she says have you tried (insert name of dating site here)? "because I'll continue to lie for you, if you want, but I shouldn't have to." :nuke: I am so tired of being told I'm less of a woman because I'm not married, or dating! I always get the "but you just have to put yourself out there" speech. UGH! I'm only 26, and most of the girls from my high school class are married; a whole lot of them divorced with kids. I don't want kids, and I want to do disaster relief nursing, which requires a lot of travel time. Marriage just doesn't seem that important to me right now. I just read an article about how I'd be consider a "tween" or something like that, because I haven't "embraced adulthood" and its responsiblities of marriage, a family and my own house. It says some psychiatry experts consider people like me "selfish" for choosing to follow career pursuits instead. Does this bug anyone else, or just me?

[kaitykaity]

1. I'm 40, single, with a cat. No kids.

Don't. Listen. To. It. Stop. This. Instant.

Please don't take this wrong, but could it be that a part
of you is bothered because somewhere in there you might have
some of those feelings (of wanting that life) but aren't
listening to them?

The anger is coming from somewhere. If you want to be mad
about it, there's usually another reason.

If you really are happy and content with your choices,
put this crap out of your mind and be happy with your choices.

[kslib]

2. Insightful!

Yes, there is underlying anger issues. I'm a little self-conscious when it comes to what others think about me. I don't WANT to care, so I'm trying to get over that, but I guess if I'm being brutally honest, I do.

I'm not lying about the kids though. I genuinely don't like kids. They're creepy. :evilgrin:

[kaitykaity]

3. To me little kids are just scary.

I can handle them from about age six and then only in
small doses. I only have one friend who has kids and I love
them to death, but I'm laughing my ass off at her now that
they're teenagers. I told her it was gonna be hell and she
didn't believe me. "Not my kids."

Thanks for the compliment, by the way.

It's one thing to care about what others think -- did I
take a bath, did I brush my teeth -- but you can't let them
have that kind of power inside your head. I'm glad I live
alone because when I hear a track like that going on I say
it out loud. "Get out of my head," so and so.

It works.

:pals:

[LWolf]

4. It's not just you.

I've heard the "selfish" thing before; not from psychiatrists, but from the "family values" people.

My response:

I believe that our current global population, at 6 billion+, and the rate at which our population is increasing, indicates that we don't have a duty to "reproduce." In fact, if some people don't start choosing to abstain from reproduction, or to limit their reproduction, right now, we will find our planet unable to sustain us. We are moving toward that point at an ever increasing rate.

Of course, over-crowding, depletion of resources, destruction of open space, destruction of ecosystems, pollution of air and water, and the resulting conflicts brought about by these conditions all lower the quality of life, even if our current population growth was sustainable. Which it isn't.

In that light, it is clear that the person who chooses not to reproduce has made the responsible choice; the most selfless choice. The person that chooses to limit their reproduction to replacement, rather than increase, has made a responsible choice. The person that chooses to grow the population in the face of the looming consequences has made the selfish choice.

For those of us who have spent our careers working with other people's children, it is abundantly clear that some people just should not be parents. We see the results of stable, loving, consistent parenting, and we see the results of abuse and neglect on a daily basis. If someone truly does not enjoy spending their lives interacting with and focused on children, it is a responsible choice not to have children. The irresponsible, immature choice is to produce them, but not be willing to make the sacrifices of personal time and energy necessary to parent them.

[kslib]

5. I've never thought of it in that way before.

What a great perspective, thank you!

:yourock:

[Nadienne]

6. I can't count how many times I've been told that

my boyfriend of five years ought to marry me. Some guy who dialed my number by mistake... we talked for a little bit (I don't know why, but this kind of thing seems to happen to me fairly often). He said there was something wrong with my boyfriend (or me?!?) if we weren't married and having kids after this much time together.

I think people like that are just phonies. They think life should be like Leave it to Beaver or something, so they do what they can to make their lives look like that and hide or ignore the problems, the "abnormalities".

It's like what Styx sings about, the "Grand Illusion" (or is it "Grand Delusion"?).

One of my sisters, ten years older than me, always wanted a husband, always wanted kids. About five years ago, she got back in touch with one of her past boyfriends. He was just ending a marriage. She figured, her biological clock is ticking. She wants a husband, and time's running out to be picky about it. So they got married, and they have two kids. When I used to work with her (a few months ago) at least once a week she would come to work crying about something her husband did or said.

You know why she wanted a husband and kids? She wanted to be "normal", to be a "grown-up", to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our mom and talk about marriage and parenting like it's a vacation spot they both visited. Not because she loves kids, not because she loves the man she married.

And they're not happy. My mom isn't. I think she thinks marriage has been an extremely limiting experience. (Of course, she doesn't condone me living with my boyfriend out of wedlock, but oh well.) The only one of my sisters who might be happy with her married life used to be a bit of a rebel like me.

I wonder, why is it that these unhappy married folks pretend to be happy and pressure others into making the same mistakes?

Kids scare me a little, too. I have a hard enough time taking responsibility over my own life! :) But for some reason, kids and dogs, and cats, seem to like me, no matter how much I try to scare them away. I might some day adopt a ten year old... We could throw rotten eggs at the houses of mean old conservatives together. That could be fun.

[all.of.me]

14. my mom was relieved and blossomed after my dad died

i bet 95% of marriages are unhealthy or unhappy.

[raccoon]

21. My guess would be

a lower percentage, but I agree, lots of marriages are unhealthy/unhappy.

A lot of couples stay together because of inertia, fear, and not wanting to divide the assets.

In my family, seems like marriages are usually one sided: either the husband calls all the shots, or the wife does.

I'm happily single, 50's, with a cat.

[BiggJawn]

7. Wow. So I'm considered a "Tween"? At the tender age of 48?

Tried Marriage, failed at it. Twice.

Have a kid, hope I didn't screw her up TOO badly trying to raise her.

House.....Oh, yeah, had one of those. Relocated, couldn't sell it, lost it. Really over-rated if you think there's a miniscule chace of you pulling up stakes and moving on someday. Now I have an apartment I can walk away from at 30 day's notice.

And who put these so-called "experts" in charge of deciding our life-paths for us?
My experience has been that people who call us folk who appear to have no "responsibilities" "selfish" are really just jealous and feeling like they're being pulled underwater by the strain of kids, SUV leases, Mortgage, etc.

They really think we got it SO good, and they hate us for it. And that goes double for the Dr. Phil clones who write for newstand magazines like "O" or "Ladies Home Journal"...

[onager]

8. Oh, the "experts" can just bite the Collective Us...

I really get tired of hearing that crap, too. I fell off the couch laughing when I was watching Penn & Teller's "Bullshit!" episode on "Selling Love."

They brought out the unctuous "Dr." John Gray, that Venus-and-Mars schlockmeister who always reminded me of a failed mortician.

Penn introduced Gray by calling him an "asshole," and it just got better from there.

[all.of.me]

15. ah, you've lived the american nightmare

disguised as the american dream!

[all.of.me]

16. i just noticed i have an avatar! grovelbot! lol

[Brewman_Jax]

9. I know the feeling

Tried a few of those sites. I enter my search criteria, and the ones that show up aren't looking for me. (maybe if was 6' in height, I may have a better chance. :P ) The few replies I get are who I'm NOT looking for and aren't in my search. You'll get a kick out of the last reply I got: We have so much in common that I hope you don't mind that I smoke. Don't they read? Can't seem to find a single non-smoking health-conscious child free (not required, but preferred, school age, no diapers and strollers). Maybe I'm asking for too much. :dunce:

I'm not looking to be a father--been a camp counselor in my way younger days. Doing that 24-7 ain't my idea of fun, cuts into my travel and "do what I want" time. Don't want a house, I don't like neighbors--you only need one idiot to make the whole area miserable. If that's what I have to look forward to, why bother? :shrug:

[supernova]

10. I tried a couple of them

I tried the previous version of match.com and also eHarmony. Yes, I took their stupid quiz. :blush:

This was still when I was in divorce-recovery mode and desperate. :blush:

Match.com was a slightly better deal in terms of finding interesting people to correspond with. But eHarmony always wanted to send me computer geeks. The male versions of me, IOW. I don't really want someone who is *exactly* like me. He can be different.

But the major problem I had with them was 1) finding people I had a reasonable chance of meeting in person. I got people from all over. It's not like you can ask them to meet you for coffee. 2) Of the ones that were reasonably close, got very few people to meet me in person.

All, in all, I found it frustrating rather than fun.

[Brewman_Jax]

11. Quite frustrating

Have tried Match and Yahoo. I've gotten responses and the winks/icebreakers (I can't stand those! x() from all over the region. Of course, none local. The local ones are, well...see above. Even a few from Russia (don't know how real those are) and only one in the region (way out of town) who were smart enough to actually WRITE a response instead of those damned "winks." I've only had one who wrote me who appeared in my search and we actually met in person. Went out a few times, but didn't go far, I'll spare you the gory details.

I seem to have a better chance in a bar in person than on the personals. If I were a 6' white male (christian or not) or a 6' black (or any race) christian, I'm sure my mailbox would be overflowing. :P

[supernova]

12. Same here

I seem to have a better chance in a bar in person than on the personals.

But I find bars quite challenging going alone. I'm happy to go with a small group, though. But, OTOH, it's hard to meet someone new if you're there with friends.

[all.of.me]

13. it irritates the shit out of me, and i have 2 kids and own my home

i'm a single mom, though, so i don't quite fit the 'norm,' if that's what you want to call it.

relationships are WAY over rated, as is sex. i love them both, but don't feel a need to have either in order to survive. i chose to live alone for many years before i had kids, so i could show myself that i was capable of taking care of myself, that i didn't need a man's income or penis to be content.

i feel the same way now. to put a man in the mix would create havoc for everyone. who would it benefit? the republicans?

[Bushfire]

17. my experiences...

i haven't been really active on DU lately, but know a few great people from protests & flirting here on DU. they are always too far away though it seems to meet at the time. i've tried greensingles.com a couple years ago with a little success (dated someone for about six months even though they lived an hour away), and have recently been talking to a really great person who's in another state on democraticmatch.com (also connected to democraticsingles.net). someone on DU also mentioned 2ofakind.com as a really good website which I'll second having given it a try.

[hippiechick]

18. I'm 38, never married, never engaged, never cohabitated ...

but I do have an awesomely cool daughter :loveya: and a dog.

My oldest sister, who's been unhappily married for 30 years, tells the rest of the family at every chance 'oh, I just wish Lisa would find someone so she can get married'. Like, WTF - so I can be miserable like YOU ?? No thanks.

To hell with the rest of the world (even though I know how hard it is to fend off the questions and the insinuations) --- do what makes YOU happy.

[neuvocat]

19. The thing about those "dating" sites

(and I know that this is a little off-topic, but...) they basically promise you the moon and all the stars above and you can be guaranteed that they will never ever deliver or be able to no matter their intentions. It doesn't matter if it is a free service or otherwise.

Besides that, online dating will never shed its stigma of being a haven for losers who can't do any better than post a fake profile or essentially defraud people on a personal (and often financial) level. Its not any different than the days where people would post their ads in the personals ads of the newspapers and its still patently sad and pathetic. You don't want anything to do with that.

And getting back to the subject of course, you don't want to have anything to do with a relationship that you got into just because you were pressured into it. I had to confront that sort of mindset back when Bush I was pushing the family values bullshit down everyone's throat. Talk about being a loner then, I didn't like that I was being ostracized because I wasn't dating anyone or seeing anyone at the time. Ten years later I see all the friends of mine who got into relationships with kids and all that other shit and I couldn't be happier that it didn't happen to me. I was the same age as you at the time and believe me, you don't want to trade being alone for wishing that you were.

[NMMNG]

20. Why do the "responsibilities of adulthood"...

have to include marriage and/or children? Is not having a fulfilling career and supporting yourself sufficient?

Do you ever notice how some families are disappointed if their child chooses to become a priest, nun, monk, Peace Corp volunteer or anything else that will/may result in them not having a spouse and children? They can't be happy that the person is dedicating their life to helping others, they are just upset that the person is not engaging in the traditional lifestyle.


There is no need to be a lemming. Life need not be confined to some cookie-cutter ideal of marriage, a house with a white-picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog. There are a multitude of options available and nobody should try to confine you to any one of them.