@AncientNight What a romantic story. So many of us don’t find “the one” - how lovely to get to spend so much of your life with someone you love and who loves you back! That’s a really special love story. Look after yourself! No microwave dinners for one (I eat them all the time!)

I met my Craig 8 months ago. We are 1,000 miles apart, have spent a week together, and are very much in love, maintaining constant communication. He will be visiting for 10 days in July. Money is the main issue preventing us from immediately being together, but we are making those future plans. Never let distance interfere with love.

I agree with your last sentence completely! If I am in London, when I see and hear bigotry I totally call it out. If I were the only left-winger atheist in a small conservative Evangelical Trump loving town, I would question why the fuck I am there in the first place. Trump fans are in a weird cult like cannot be saved from their own ignorance, and those types tend to act in packs. You could present them with all kinds of facts and they think he is ordained by god. There is no reasoning with them, and quite honestly if it got really heated and there are guns about, it could get very nasty indeed. If you are alone in that situation, you have to get out, for your own mental health, and let those racist motherfuckers rot in their crumbling shit hole of a town.
He could do better by going to New York, Chicago, Seattle and join an activist movement for change in whatever cause he thinks best.

I met her on eharmony and her profile said that she "Had no opinion about politics". I later found out that the reason she would not discuss politics was because of her parents. She like my other ex was avoiding the issue because she was uncomfortable with her parents views, but would not stand up to them or agreed with them but would not say so unless you really pressed them on the issue and then they would be mad at you for making them talk about politics. I don't fully understand it. Its just strange to me.

@JoshArnaldo You have quite the problem there... However even in the reddest of red states there should be enough suitable dates (it is going to be a rough challenge finding them).

@JoshArnaldo

This is why you should always care that her politics are as liberal as yours. Why are you dating these wishy-washy women? I wouldn't date a man who "didn't have an opinion about politics!" Goes to show her character, and how she stands up for herself and those weaker than her.

@JoshArnaldo
Also, get off eHarmony! Well known that site was started by Christian conservatives. Get on Match or Cupid, either would be better.

@hemingwaykitten Cupid is almost 70% men.

@JoshArnaldo
Okay...I'd take the 30% of liberal women on OKCupid over the 49% religious & conservative women on eHarmony anyday. What's the problem?

@hemingwaykitten I was on Ok cupid and a female friend of mine also made an account and was instantaneously overwhelmed with men messaging her. As a guy I will be trying to break thought the noise of all those other men. Its extremely depressing when you read hundreds of profiles and message hundreds of women and none message you back. You start to think there is something wrong with you or something. Luckily, my friend showed me her experience and I stopped wasting my time there and got dates on other sites where the sexes are closer to equilibrium. In our culture men have to initiate conversation, the women will not lift a finger, I have to get there attention and convince them that I'm worthy of there time. On okay cupid that means that I'm in direct competition with 70% of the users for the attention of 30% of the users.

@JoshArnaldo
Suit yourself...eHarmony is full of conservative Christians. OKCupid is not. Match is not. As for your female friend, that is pretty much universal on dating sites. I got overwhelmed whether it was on OKCupid or Match as well. Men aren't nearly as picky as women are.

@hemingwaykitten We, or should I say I don't feel that I have the choice to be picky. Modern dating is seriously depressing. I've read women's profiles that have minimum income requirements, height, and genitalia size requirements. Seriously, people today are jerks. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person left who is considerate of others.

@JoshArnaldo
You're not alone there, but considerate Americans are in short supply these days. There are just as many men raising hell on Reddit for the Men's Rights and Incel movements, and a few even here. Wayy too many pissed off white men who thought their privileges were rights.

Even if the ratio on eHarmony is 50/50, those women are almost all Xtian believers, so what's the attraction? Even if OKCupid and Match are 70% men/30% women, what does it matter? You only need one.

It comes off a little obnoxious to some women when men consider the whole dating issue a numbers game, a mass of collective women who must be hit on. Women are much more individualized. I think that's a big part of why men fail at online dating. They don't see the profiles as individual women. Many men just throw out hundreds of messages and never reference the information carefully given in a woman's profile. That's a guaranteed way to get ignored, because that is precisely what most men do. You're not fishing for everyone, you're selecting somone to get to know, who you may or may not end up dating.

I guarantee you there are just as many women on dating sites who don't respond because all they hear is the same old mass messaging shit from men.

P.S. Dating has always been depressing, since the dawn of time, on both sides.

@hemingwaykitten

I've read literally hundreds of women's profiles and sent well crafted messages that reference a common interest or ask a question about something that they said that I found interesting.
I have even found, and used, key words that women have asked potential suitors reference in there messages to prove that they read the profile in entirety.

I still get ignored. If I send twenty or thirty messages I may get one or two women in a week or two, who only have time for one word responses like; "k" and "cool" or "yup". Seriously I'm asking all the questions in full sentences and she is taking no interest in me at all.

You're right, it does become a numbers game and that's what I don't like about it.

It's much easier to skim messages for a mate then;

1)search for one you like
2)read there profile
3)decide if you still like them
4)think of something to say; funny, serious, sarcastic, emoji or no emoji? what fits there personality and perceived since of humor gleamed from there profile? etc.
5)compose a message
6)proof read and send
7) wait indefinitely because they don't give a shit and will never respond at all, ever. Not even to say "thanks but no thanks". (Because that would be too much work and possibly make you feel like you have some value, which you don't)

It doesn't matter what I message them, crafted or not, because the odds are 15/16 they will not respond.

I don't see what "pissed off white men who thought their privileges were rights." has to do with this.

I've made no claims to "rights" I've made claims that online dating is demoralizing and depressing. Just like women who don't like men making generic messages, I hate crafting a thoughtful and well composed first message just to be completely ignored.

Also, whatever happened to feminism? Why are none of the women taking a leading roll and messaging men with a well written message referencing there profiles? I'm on several dating sites and this has never happened, with the exception of three separate prostitutes who wanted me to pay them to hook up for the night.

Talk about taking advantage of vulnerable people. Find some lonely guy and get him to pay you $125 and hour for sex. Want do demoralize someone? Make them feel worthless and like an idiot? Imagine this; An attractive person actually contacts you, gives you hope and makes you believe that they are attracted to you. They complement you and make you feel like you matter. However, they are actually wasting even more of your time messing with you, because, as you will discover, they have an "appointment available" and it will be $125 an hour because "Time is money baby".

@JoshArnaldo
I don't see what prostitutes have to do with this. Most women who do not answer messages have had bad experiences with men online who can't take "thanks but no thanks" or "NO" for an answer.

@hemingwaykitten Well, I don't think there is an answer to this that will satisfy anyone.

I don't believe that the poor behavior of ether party excuses the poor behavior of anyone else.

I'm just expressing my frustration and exhaustion at feeling like I'm beating my head against a wall, or talking to a collection of pixels that are no more human than my bedroom wall.

I wonder if there is not a better way?

No way! We have to stay and fight where we find the fight.
If we don't, nothing will ever change.
Running away accomplishes nothing.

@KKGator totally disagree that it is running away. It’s actually joining a new and different population, bringing more like minded people together, and leaving racist small town communities dwindling. If someone’s mental health is suffering by having to button your mouth daily and suffer insufferable people, take care of yourself and remove yourself from the toxic environment. Why should one person have to be the martyr in this racist community- it could make him isolated and even under threat. Definitely leave.

@Livia To each their own. To me, it's running away.
I believe in standing up to bullies and their bullshit.
Although, if an individual is incapable of doing that because they just don't have the intestinal fortitude to stay and fight, leaving is a reasonable alternative.
I'm just tired of seeing people throwing up their hands, giving up, and
moving away to be around those who are like-minded.
I don't really see them making that much headway toward fighting back against the religutards.
I just see it as finding people like you to talk about it with.
That's why I'm at this site, so I can talk to like-minded people WHILE
I'm fighting against the influence of religutards, trumptards, and morons,
in the real world.

@KKGator You can't change most Nazis. For your own sanity, it is best to join up with like minded people and fight against Nazism.

@daddy4pugs My sanity has always been questionable and has become completely irrelevant. Let the like-minded people find and join up with ME. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to fight the disease right where I am. My sanity can take it. I'm NOT running away.

Their "religion privilege" will only become a thing of the past if we all fight against, wherever we are.
Why does everyone want to run away and hide?

Ha that is funny. I would guess that a majority of them don't even know what Buddhism is about.

@KKGator as I said it’s not running away, it’s leaving to join a bigger community to fight back and make real change happen.

@Livia I understand what you're saying, I'm just not seeing "real change" happening. All I'm seeing is more people gathering together to bitch about it and continuing to do nothing.

@KKGator Yes, there is truth in that, but that’s half because of protest going online, and half because many people still trust their long-standing institutions. “Checks and balances” they say. It’s blindness. There are no checks and balances to a despot. A despot will find legal and illegal ways to destroy any mechanism that challenges their authority. Finally, people will take to the streets. It’s a matter of when. There is a straw that breaks the camel’s back and the people will turn violently against authority and then sometimes each other. It’s an inevitable cycle seen over and over in “other people’s countries”. Many mainstream Americans don’t understand what is happening, but that’s because they aren’t well schooled in geography, sociology and history at high school or earlier, and the American media is not very good at global reporting. Trump is consolidating a dictatorship and his people are taking over all areas of government. Nothing is standing in his way. If he wins a second term there finally will be people pushing to oust him. I think even the military will turn against him. Hope you don’t think I am being preachy. I have a lecture style of writing- it’s the teacher in me!

@Livia No worries. I'm just saying I'm not going to be intimidated by anyone, and I'm going to take the fight to them.
I'm tired of waiting for others to catch up.

@KKGator that answer. I am with that too.

@KKGator, @Livia Liberals loose elections because we are too concentrated in cities. After the 2016 election I moved from very blue Saint Louis County to very red St. Charles County to help turn it blue, or at least purple. Her family lives in rural Indiana. She moved to STL to "get away from those Shitheads". Yet she still would insist that they had to like me. She even wanted me to ask her step father for permission to date his step daughter. I refused. She is a 30 year old women who lives two states away. would I ask his permission?

They are working on roe v wade now. Sigh... we blew it in the 2014 midterms, and now we're boned.