You are correct....to be happy one needs a relationship with a sexual partner. Maybe the solution lies in a dating service.......I don't know if this is feasible or if it will work. But if you have the cash you can certainly experiment.

@nicknotes I've been using Match for most of three years, little success. There's really nothing else to try that I haven't already done. Meetup groups are useless, been there, tried them. The women there are the same ones that are on Match and also the women at Meetup groups all tend to be traditional-minded Christians, so they are a waste of time there too.

@TomMcGiverin I'm sorry you have not had success. Do any newspapers in your area still have personals columns? About 20 years ago I put an ad in a personal column and got 23 replies. None of them worked out long term but I had fun for several months meeting up with each woman.

@nicknotes Man, you need to get out more. No, there haven't been personal ads since the 1980s. Before the internet, there were voice personals, which I used in the 1990s, after the regular print personal ads went away. The voice personals went away as soon as PCs came into use and Match.com began. I had way more success back when there were voice personals and I think it was for two reasons. One, the voice personals had no pics attached to your ad, so all you had to go by was the self description of your looks in the voice ad and the print ad that had your ad # in the newspaper that printed the ads. So people could lie about their looks, which I didn't but some women did, in my experience.

So in that situation, an honest average-looking guy like me actually stood a chance of meeting a good-looking woman, unlike now with the photos as part of the profile. It made for some interesting first meetings. One time a woman showed up, reluctantly, and admitted to me that she stood at the door after seeing me waiting for her and debated with herself whether to actually come in and meet me rather than just stand me up because my looks weren't what she expected. I told her that she wasn't doing me any favors by coming inside out of pity or virtue signaling on her part. So in effect, I told her off and she left. Another woman, who was a true 9 in looks, the only 9 I've ever met in person from dating services, came in, politely told me she wasn't attracted to me after I sized up her facial reaction and asked her about it, but she sat down with me and watched the movie we arranged to see. That was the beginning of a great two year platonic friendship. She was as beautiful on the inside as the outside, like something out of the movie Shallow Hal.

I also think the other reason I had more success, at least in getting to meet a good number of women from the voice personals, was that the gender ratio was probably a lot more even then than it ever is on dating sites. It's been widely reported that about all dating sites have way more men on them than women, no matter what age group is involved. Probably because women are more reluctant to use the sites and because men are more likely to do the pursuing, both IRL and on dating sites. So if women are getting attention IRL, more than men, they have less need and incentive to use a dating site. I've heard lots of women on Agnostic who are above average looking say they get plenty of attention from men IRL, so this is validated.

Using dating sites, I have never met a woman in person who was better looking than an 8, and even then, it has been extremely rare. The photos are brutally important in that arena and I am resigned to the fact that I will be really lucky if I am ever going to actually meet anyone who is even a 7 in looks, much less end up with someone to regularly date that is more than a 6. The brutal reality is that with so much competition if you are an average looking man, you will be lucky to end up with an average looking woman that is compatible in every other quality. I would be very content to date a woman who is only average-looking and end up in a LTR with her. One reason my last dating relationship didn't last is that the woman was more like a 4-5 in looks and I just couldn't keep kidding myself that I was physically attracted enough to her. And that is a place I never want to be in again.

Now I can sit back and wait for the brickbats to come for being brutally honest and making my points using a rating scale on looks.....

@TomMcGiverin I did say the personals ad was 20 years ago. Maybe it was even longer. I'm 79 years old now so time is all distorted. But too bad they don't have the ads anymore...
I was trying to be helpful but you seem to have it all figured out.

@nicknotes I agree that as I get older my sense of time about the past, as well as the present, gets distorted. I realize you were/are trying to be helpful, but, unlike a lot of the people on this forum, I do have it figured out, because, unlike most of them, I have been doing the research personally for some time now. I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing out that I know a lot more about the dating game than most people. It's just a sad fact. I also want to again point out to all that I do not post here to ask for advice, I post to share my experience, see if others have the same experience or not, and hear the comments, both validating and invalidating or differing from my experience, but not to get advice. The fact that many people apparently ignore or don't notice this is not my fault, it's theirs. And it's also not my fault if they feel butt hurt that I don' thank them for their unsolicited advice or kiss their ass.

Listen, Nick, there is nothing to feel bad, hurt, or whatever about trying to be helpful, but having it revealed that you have nothing to add or help regarding my experience. So just chalk it up to a well-meant error on your part. We all do that from time to time, including me. I guess I'm different, being a former social worker who was married to a social worker, and having a few friends as well who are social workers, that I don't offer advice to people very often, and usually only after they clearly ask for it. It's not your fault that our society conditions people to believe that people sharing their problems automatically requires you to help or give them advice in order to prove or act as a nice or good person. You obviously are one, Nick, so you don't have to prove that every time to some stranger. I usually consider the likelihood that the other person knows as much or more about themselves and their situation than I ever will, so why should I automatically offer them advice?

@TomMcGiverin I'm OK with your remarks. You obviously know the dating game.

@nicknotes I do. I could probably teach a class or write a book on it, but what would be the point? It probably wouldn't help the average person do any better in the game.

@TomMcGiverin Has your knowledge made you successful in meeting the woman who matches your expectations?

@nicknotes No, and that's why there would be no point in writing a book, etc., because I know how the game works, but I don't really have any ideas on how one can ethically work the game to improve your odds or my odds of getting the partner I want. If you already know what your dealbreakers are, and that they are necessary for compatibility with someone, you can't really afford to change those. The other big factor is one's looks. Unless you have the money and the willingness to get plastic surgery, there's also nothing you can do about your looks, other than hit the gym and build a better body. I'm not really interested in changing my face or body that much. So that's where it is, I have to get by using only what I have, both for looks and dealbreakers.

And believe me, my dealbreakers are very reasonable, just not very well-suited to the dating pool in my area. I won't date someone that is a big fan of country music, won't date someone strongly religious, won't date a conservative, or someone who is strongly family-oriented, a heavy drinker or a daily smoker. Those are all reasonable and would not be much of a barrier on either coast or in a large city, but they sure as hell are in Iowa, even around its largest city, Des Moines. But I'm not going to date LD or move away from my friends just to get a better dating pool.

I could also wear a rug or get hair transplants, since being bald is also obviously a big turnoff to a lot, if not most women in my local dating pool, even tho I think most of them would never admit it. But I'm not going to do that because if it's that big a deal to them, I don't want any of those women.

@nicknotes There are probably lots of things one could do, unethically, that would help in meeting the kind of woman I am after, but they wouldn't work out in the end. One could use fake photos of someone else in order to get a woman's interest. But after the first video chat or in person meeting, that cover would be blown. One could lie about their background or preferences in order to entice women who would otherwise screen you out based on your profile or messaging, but the facade would eventually fall apart after you had been seeing them a while. There are undoubtedly more examples that I am too ethical or lazy to come up with...

@TomMcGiverin I looked at your photos. You look fine. Your I won'ts are not unreasonable except for the country music.

@nicknotes Trust me, Nick, the country music dealbreaker is reasonable and necessary for me. It literally makes my skin crawl to hear it inside a home or a car. I grew up in a rural part of Iowa in a small hick city and I have done my best to keep my back turned on it as much as possible while still living in Iowa. I could handle dating a woman who liked country music some, but only as long as she respected my tastes enough to not try to drag me to a country concert or play country music in the car or home. I don't think that's unreasonable and there are plenty of people on either coast, or even in Chicago or Minneapolis that feel the same way, but don't have to deal with it because in their dating pools it's such a non-issue with how in those areas of the country, most people prefer rock, blues, etc. way more than country.

@TomMcGiverin I agree that Honesty is the best policy. Maybe there just are not enough gorgeous women in Iowa. Perhaps the pretty girls all move to big cities like LA and NY and all you have left are women who castrate hogs for a living.

@nicknotes That's a rather extreme exaggeration, even tho I know it's sarcastic. There are plenty of good looking women in the profiles I see on Match. The problem is that almost all of them have traits that either run up against my dealbreakers and make them uncompatible for me, or they ignore my messages because I don't have the kind of looks or other qualities they are looking for. Remember that I only get replies to about 5-10% of the women I message. I have to think that looks are probably a big reason for that. Too many women that are a 6 or a 7 in looks that will not settle for 5 or 6 that is bald, not athletic looking, and doesn't dress like he has big bucks. At least, that's my guess for a lot of my rejections. The rest of them are probably accounted for because of my politics, being non-religious, and being childless, since all the family-oriented women only want men with kids.

@TomMcGiverin About 30 years ago I met a woman who looked fabulous. I asked her to go to a restaurant with me. She said yes and I went to her home to pick her up. When she saw my 10 year old chevrolet she turned around and said she only dated guys with new luxury cars. Too bad she missed a free dinner.

@nicknotes At least she was honest, I'll give her that. She could have just held her tongue and got the free dinner, like most women who think like her would do. I can't count the number of women I've encountered thru online dating that expect a man to be a high status, high income white collar professional, or at least have the same kind of money as one, in order to be good enough for them. Her bluntness cost her a free dinner. Personally, I always meet women for a coffee meeting before I would arrange a dinner date with them. After a coffee meeting, in which I always offer to pay for the coffee, I can usually tell or end up finding out if I have enough bucks for them in their mind. The women make up their mind based on how I dress and what I say in the coffee meeting to decide if I am good enough or rich enough for them, so I never need to worry about wasting money on a dinner date with someone looking for a status symbol or a meal ticket.

That woman proves in spades what guys have said for decades, that some women are only looking for men that are and have status symbols, like a sports car. No wonder those cars are called chick magnets, at least magnets for status seekers and golddiggers. I'm guessing your woman looked like a solid 9. I personally have never met a 10.

@TomMcGiverin Years ago Playboy magazine did a poll asking women what they wanted in a man. Looks were further down on the list. Women want money and power because that provides security. Of course attitudes may have changed over the years. I used to belong to PWP....Parents Without Partners, a social organization for single people who have children. I met a lot of women. One woman I remember fondly only dated men who wore expensive, well shined shoes. I bought a pair of Florshines ....kept them shined...and had fun.

@nicknotes I used to know a woman from PWP. I once asked her why the group was all divorced people and didn't seem to include widowed people as well, maybe it did, I dunno. She said that she preferred to date and socialize only with men that had also been thru divorce and had shared her experience of being a parent. She was in her mid 40s at the time. I asked her, "Why not give widowed men and even childless men a chance if they are in your age group, as some of them are?" She said that it was more important for the man to have shared experience with her than for the man to have a better history of successful relationships than most divorced men. I told her that was a foolish attitude and that she was seeking sympathy and empathy over seriously trying to find a better relationship than her past marriages. She flatly refused to see my point and admit that she was practicing the definition of insanity. However, since she had knockout looks, she got more than enough interest and attention from men, and thus, had no incentive to look at herself and change anything about her on the inside.

@nicknotes I think that nowadays, when most women with a college education have enough money of their own, they are now thinking more like men and so choosing a man with good looks is now pretty important to most women. I just think most of them won't admit it. A while back I saw a FB post about the ex-fiancee of woman I was friends with. This woman is quite a looker and so are most of her female friends. It was rather telling in reading what this woman's friends had to say about the looks of her ex, who was photographed at a bar hitting on some woman, photo taken by a bystander that knew my female friend. Her friends had plenty to say about how he was bald, fat, etc. and clearly, in their mind, was not in her league lookswise. Fortunately, she was not as shallow as her friends and she ended up marrying a guy some months later that was balding, older than her, and clearly average looking compared to her knockout looks. No wonder she has not been able to fix me up with any of her female friends, tho she has said she will keep me in mind for that. Probably a waste of time, since her female friends are clearly not as open-minded as her about looks. But I bet none of them would admit it. But on that FB thread about her ex, they were thinking they were just having girl talk among themselves, so I got to hear how they really felt about looks.

@TomMcGiverin When I was in PWP there were some widows and widowers although most were single from divorce.

@TomMcGiverin Actually, I think looks are really of secondary importance. Attitude, intelligence, fiscal security, sexuality, and assertiveness are more important in choosing a woman.

@nicknotes Agreed, but looks do matter to me, at least initially, in whether I want to pursue a woman, because it affects whether I will be sexually attracted enough to her to desire going to that stage or step with her. I either feel chemistry or attraction or don't. And if I don't why bother getting to know someone if it's doomed to end at platonic friendship. At least if it starts with a dating site, I don't want to waste someone's time or lead them on.

I agree I don't wanna be wealthy just comfortable and able to afford to not worry so much about expenses
im old now and others worry about rent and utilities and my daughter does far better than I ever did
I would have liked to attain the comfort my mother did where if she bought groceries she did not worry that her bills would not be paid that month ....I never had that

money is security not happiness

What would I do?????? I don't know. Sometimes I think about buying something to make me happier....but I can' ever think of anything I want.

@whiskywoman True, but security is a key component of happiness. There have been a number of studies that show that the positive feelings of security (being able to treat an illness, or take your family on vacation, or even to pay bills on time) contribute to happiness. They contribute to the feeling of having control of your life. Previously studies had plateaued at $75K of income, but newer studies show happiness increases beyond that. I suspect it may not matter if you have $1M versus $1B, but it does for the majority of people who make considerably less.

[penntoday.upenn.edu]

@nicknotes Sometimes there's happiness to be derived from buying something for someone else, or in buying an experience. Is there someplace you'd like to visit, or something you'd like to do?

@Lauren I understand. It makes me happy to give money to my children and grandchildren.