I support someone continuing to attend groups with the interests they already enjoy, but I disagree or think it's not worth the time to join additional groups just for the added opportunity to meet more women that way. Online dating sites, if you use the most popular one in your area for your age group, will probably cover any additional single women you might meet thru those other groups you aren't already involved in. Do women generally prefer meeting men thru the lower pressure, slower process of getting to know them thru a group? Of course they do, but I don't feel it's worth the time and effort to play that game for the chance to meet them in the maybe more comfortable terms if they are already, in most cases, putting themselves out there as single and interested in dating thru a paid dating site.

Call that insensitive or selfish if you like, but I see it as we're all grownups and if someone is too flaky, defensive, or insecure that they need all this coddling and catering to give a man a chance to get to know her thru a group setting only, I don't want to bother with her. She is probably too fragile and dysfunctional for me to be compatible with anyway. I like women who are strong, independent, and confident, so the women who prefer making men jump thru their hoops at a group are not my type to begin with. But if a man has different personality preferences than mine, then, go ahead and try more groups, it's just not for me.

The second part, about getting feedback from a female friend, is pure gold, and I highly recommend it. Same thing with single women getting feedback from male friends.

A good-looking atheist. I would go out with you, too.

Overall, your advice is sound, but for me it seems the only real option to be able to connect with a large enough pool of women in my local area in order to be able to reach some of the very few that share my cultural minority traits and lifestyle. Offline and organic meetings, even in interest groups, are not going to cut it or provide even a fraction of the potential opportunities and numbers as online dating. And as far as trying a different dating pool online than Match, which has by far the largest membership pool of my age group in my local area, I've done that before and discovered that it was mostly the same women on the other sites, women wasting their money by joining multiple sites at the same time. As for expanding my dating pool geographically by dating women more than an hour away, not going to do that either, as I have chatted with plenty of women from farther away than that on Match, and none of them were willing to try dating that far away either, so that is also a dead end option.

@TomMcGiverin so you explain why you can’t get a woman, now think about it, and explain to me how you can.
Sometimes it just takes reversing the logic.

@Canndue I think I can answer that, so I'll try. Time, patience, and online dating. I've been around my local area and on Match for close to four years now, and I have learned that I am compatible with only about 2-3% of my local dating pool on Match. And at the same time I am competing with hundreds of other men my age for those women on the site. And this is based on how their profiles match up to mine on paper, so to speak. So, in a word, I need to play the long game and wait for those minority women to come along in trickles over time, maybe a couple or sometimes a handful a month, and hope they will notice my similarity to them and reply to my initial message. After making those efforts, one can only sit back and wait, while making the most of each opportunity when a woman actually replies. Even then tho, I know pretty well that in most cases I am competing with at least a few to a dozen other men that she is messaging. I just have to assume that and not let it interfere with how I interact with her.

Does that answer your ?

@Canndue Interesting to me that I answered your ? and then you never replied....

@TomMcGiverin sorry, guess I did see the reply. Why do you feel only 2-3% are compatible? Maybe your qualifications are too stringent. Remember, just like real people, women vary tremendously, so limiting to a specific type may not be fair to them or you.

(Let’s see if that rattles some of our lady friends on here )

Seriously though, best bet is to stop actively searching and be content. She will turn up. Nothing turns off a woman like desperation, and they can smell it a mile away.

@Canndue I have less than six dealbreakers, but the vast majority of women I encounter on Match seem to have about double that, as far as their hard preferences. So it really doesn't matter if I am pretty open-minded, not if the vast majority of the women in my local dating pool aren't. You combine those two factors with how much I am out of the cultural and lifestyle mainstream of my local area and the Midwest in general, where most everybody is Christian or Catholic, from white conservative families and generally not that open-minded, tolerant or progressive, that is how I end up having to settle for only about 2-3 % of the women being compatible. Because, like most people, I am not willing to settle for someone that is not physically attractive to me. I am a 5-6, and, frankly, women who are less than a 5 are not attractive enough for me to want to date them, no matter how much I might enjoy them as platonic friends.

Let's see how much that riles up, like it usually does, our female members. But the brutal fact is that most men and women are the same as me on that. And I have the proof, with how I clearly get more responses to my messaging on Match the lower the women's looks are on the 1-10 scale. Rarely get any replies from the few 8s I ever message, a few more from the 7s, and way more from the 5s and 6s. I call that indisputeable evidence, since all these women are looking at my same profile and I am sending the same kind of message to all of them, save personalized mentions of what their particular profile says. Compromise only works, my friend, if it is practiced on both sides, and most women in my area don't need to compromise much on their preferences that reject me for not being mainstream on culture and lifestyle, because they have more than enough guys who measure up to me on other things, plus being mainstream on culture and lifestyle like these women, to choose from. So why should they be flexible with me when they have plenty of mainstream guys to choose from and they are only looking for mainstream guys, on culture and lifestyle?

Because character and heart don't come out very well or clearly until you meet in person or at least do a video chat or phone call. And I usually never get that far or get that chance with women that use a rigid checklist that eliminates me well before that on not having kids, not being Christian or Catholic, not being their lower level of education (even tho I am fine with that), etc.

@TomMcGiverin we all fantasize about Hannah Ferguson ….but…alas….reality hits

I’ve dated some very attractive women, hunting for trophy. I found empty shells and spoiled brats.
Every woman has a few attractive features. Just need to find the right set.
Frankly, from all I’ve read, the problem isn’t with the women around you, perhaps it’s time for some serious self-reflection….

@Canndue First of all, I have no idea who Hannah Ferguson is. Secondly, tho you smugly enjoy being critical of me and blaming me for my online dating woes, could it instead really be more of a case of me being too much of a square peg in a round hole dating pool? Because I have had plenty of validation of that from other people from Agnostic.com, both past and present members, who are not active on the forums these days, including Deiter, a former member here who described me as a square peg, etc.. Even tho they are not on this forum to support or stick up for my point on that, it doesn't negate the fact that plenty of people agree with my viewpoint even if they aren't here to dispute your blaming of me. You live in Boston, the land of Blue politics and liberal culture. What the fuck would you know about my local dating pool and trying to find someone compatible in a dating pool where the vast majority would automatically reject most people like you and others from the mainstream culture where you live? You are smugly lucky enough to be part of the mainstream where you live, whether you realize it or not, so have some humility. I doubt you would be so critical if you were single and lived where I do, because you would never agree to live here in the first place, I bet.

As for your platitude about find the few attractive features in every women, I assume you are speaking of physical features. I don't want to be crass, but you appear to be average or above average looking, so are you telling me you would settle for a woman who was a 3 or a 4 on the looks scale? I highly doubt it, as few men would with your level of looks, so I reject your platitude there and suspect you are being a hypocrite in your "advice" to me about my standards for attraction.

I do however, agree with your generalization about very attractive women, as it matches what most other men have told me about their type, that on the inside they are very unappealing. I have no firsthand experience with them, except for one woman who was a 9, that I met thru a voice personal and was told on the first meeting, directly but kindly, that I was not attractive enough for her standards, but that she would be glad to spend time with me as a friend if I wished that. So I had a great two year friendship with her until not long before I met my late wife. That was the only 9 I ever got to know personally, and I think she was probably quite an exception inside compared to her peers in looks. She happened to be a Christian minister, who knew I was an Agnostic. And she seemed to like my personality just fine, thank you. She left town after her church closed and we lost touch with each other, so you can shove your theory about self-reflection and think about how well you would do in MY dating pool compared to yours.

And, btw, I'm told that studies about the dating site Tinder, as well as other sites, have proven anyway that looks matter far more than personality in who people, both men and women, in general, choose to connect with and date, so that kind of shoots your theory...

@TomMcGiverin look her up, it’s worth the visuals.
Really don’t want to continue this. I wish you best of luck in your searches. You’ll find the princess. Ciao

@Canndue I don't either, but you are incapable of admitting when you are wrong. You don't know me at all, nor do you know Jack Shitt about my local dating pool, so you have a lot of gall to sit there in your ignorance and judge me, as you have.

I agree somewhat with you, but in four years on Match I have connected with probably at least a couple hundred women, at least thru messaging, who were clearly for real and sincere. It's just that few of them were my type or chose to meet or date me after getting to know more about me and my competition, who for all I know were noticeably better-looking, maybe dress better or appear to have more money than me, have kids (an issue which is really big in my dating pool, even among childless women), or are religious, who knows their reasons, as I am never privy to that? I have also encountered a lot of women, who at least later said, after connecting with me thru messaging, that they were giving up on online dating because of all the hassles or the jerks they were getting messages from, feeling overwhelmed, etc.. I cannot verify if they were being truthful, but they usually appeared to hide or delete their profiles after that, so I assume they left the site.

You mean…alas…you are not falling in love with me….

@Canndue Well, there are a few contributing factors.
You're in Boston. I'm not.
I'm a Yankees fan.
I hate the effing Pats.
Oh yeah, and I'm happily unattached.

I think you're awesome though.

@KKGator unrequited love…will be the death of me. No baseball. But I am a Canadiens fan

Like Sticks says, It goes both ways. There is no rational reason for it, but I have met plenty of women online, at least messaged with them on dating sites, that seem to HAVE developed a general resentment towards all men or even misandry, the opposite sex version of misogyny, because of a limited number of men they met that were assholes.

I am happy for you and your choice working well for you. For me, it is worth the time and effort to wade thru all the rejection and also the women who turn out to be dysfunctional or misleading in their profiles. I was single for 37 years before I met my late wife, and even tho I had friends during all that time of single life, I missed not having a close relationship with a partner to share my life with. The 16 years I had with her before she got dementia were the best years of my life. Wanting to find something like that again does not automatically make me "needy" or dysfunctional and I challenge anyone who dares to call me that for my wish to seek that again in my life. I think lots of people just like to put other people down for choosing a different path than they did, maybe because they secretly envy that person for still having the guts and desire to seek love again. But I am secure about who I am and what I want. I apologize to no one for it.

And I have heard about all the studies saying that it's common in marriages for the man to be very happy in the marriage while the woman is unhappy in it, but that was not the case with us. How do I know? Because her female friends said so to me...

And I also don't fit any of your categories for "bad" men, as I don't have any kids, and have plenty of money to get by, as well as not needing a woman to take care of me medically or be a house servant like cooking or cleaning. But I don't doubt that you ran into plenty of men that fit the types you mentioned.

As far as what types of women my age in my local dating pool seem to be prominent, where almost all of them have kids:

I have seen tons of women who seem to indicate from their profiles (tho I would never bother messaging them, since they are clearly not my type) that they appear to be mainly seeking an escort to accompany them to family visits, maybe to show them off to family, and friends. And then maybe on top of that, because Iowa women are too modest and discreet to say so in a profile, they are seeking a discreet FWB with the man as well if they are still desiring some safe and stable sex in their life.

I have also seen some women who appear sincere in actually finding a partner that is more than an escort for family visits or FWB, but they are a small minority, even among women who don't have kids.

I have also seen another group, about maybe 15% of the profiles, who appear to just be looking for a sexual playmate, FWB, or hookups. Probably because Iowa women are not as bold, adventurous, or interested in casual sex as women on the coasts.

So, at least in some ways, it goes both ways.

[quotefancy.com]

@FearlessFly You got it man, that is exactly what I am looking to do. As I know that I am set in my ways some after living alone for the last seven years, and that I probably am not likely to keep my home as clean and uncluttered as most women. So your approach might be just the ticket...I am not eager to live with someone again either...

@TomMcGiverin
Of course it goes both ways and I never called any of them "bad", that's your description, not mine. I also stated "this is my experience" not anyone else and as a counterpoint to the OP. I never called you needy, you seem to have taken my general post of my own experience as personal. Not sure why but that's on you.

@FearlessFly, For me that would be, "live close, visit but not too often". lol

@Leelu You listed several categories or types of men that you encountered, and your descriptions were very clearly negative, critical or derogatory regarding them. You can come back, like you did in your reply to me, and try to walk it back, as they say, in political commentary, but everyone can see what you wrote previously. Secondly, you strongly warned the OP about how men need to avoid any hint of desperation or seeming like they were seeking their "lonely breaker", rather than a partner. When I read that, it comes off to me like you are making it damn near impossible for a man to honestly and openly say that he prefers and is happier with a partner than without one. To me it comes off as if you are accusing men like me who are open about our wishes for a life partner as less secure, mentally healthy or well-adjusted as you, just because we choose and feel differently about the subject than you. Just because I feel and choose different than you does not make me bad, unhealthy or worse than you.

Your attitude seems to smack of that, and I bet plenty of people, including other men, read your comment and see that, whether you see it or not or care to admit it or not. I do not accept your judgement in general of men on that, and that is why I was offended. by it.

I am done debating you on this and if you choose to continue arguing with me on it, I will block you.

@TomMcGiverin Or maybe you just read that into it because of you, not me. The fact that you imply we've had a long argument when I've only reply to you once is also telling. So is the fact that you demand the last word or I'll be blocked, "I am done debating you on this and if you choose to continue arguing with me on it, I will block you." like I'm harassing you in some way when, again, I've only replied to you once. I made the post, you made the reply... that means that actually you are the one arguing with me, not the other way around.

Yes, people can read what I stated and yours as well. I'm satisfied with that.

@Leelu Of course, it could never be about you anything you said. And if you want to get into nitpicking with me, you made a comment, not a post. Piss off.

@TomMcGiverin I thought you weren't going to reply. You can't stand not having the last word. You threatened to block me, a toothless threat, to be sure but you made it, not me. Gees man, everything is not about you.

@Leelu , Tom blocks only the best.
I know. I'm one

@freeofgod yes, he love his little block button... to each their own.

@freeofgod hmm, me too, apparently. Awesome tom, thank you
ps, leelu’s fascist little melon hasnt exploded yet? well good for him lol
many thanks to leelu as well

@bbyrd009 I do my share of blocking too. Seems I remember Tom as a likable guy. Must have been a different one.

@freeofgod i don't recall any contentious exchanges with him either? hmm

and my apologies to leelu, i confused with lerlo

I totally agree with you about what is wrong and negative about dating sites, but you have to be realistic also about common interests groups. I have done that and it takes way too long to meet singles that way. And even if you join a bunch of them and are active with all of them, it still presents way too fewer opportunities to meet singles that way. The dating pool in online dating sites, at least the biggest one, Match, provides immediate access to so many more singles who are at least obtensibly interested in dating than relying on interest groups, where many of the people there are already coupled, inside or outside of the group, or just not interested at all in dating. And my experience also showed that the vast majority of single women at these groups were already on the dating sites. So why waste time using both methods, when the organic method of interest groups is so much slower and inefficient than dating sites, where dozens of new people are joining each month in my area that are in my age group. Because in my experience, these interest groups have a much lower rate of new people joining them over time. So going that way, you miss out on a lot of new people that are coming onto the dating site each month with the new rounds of death and divorce, at least some of whom might be compatible.

Face to face meeting to begin with, rather than following a bunch of messaging on dating sites, would be great if it worked, but in my local area, it doesn't appear to work, at least not if you are just average-looking and don't have great sales or self promotion skills, or "game" as the younger folks call it. Women my age in my area have admitted to me on dating sites that they would feel awkward about calling a man who they met in public who gave them their number, and yet at the same time, they feel uncomfortable giving him their number, even after chatting, for fear they might be stalked. So it just doesn't work, at least for an average looking man who doesn't sweep them off their feet with looks and a smooth pitch. And going thru all that time in interest groups to maybe meet one woman a month that seems compatible enough to ask out, is going to take way too many years to produce any real results like an LTR.

@TomMcGiverin
Different strokes for different folks I’m sure. Have you ever had a long term relationship with someone you met online?

@skado I dated one woman for about six months before Covid that I met on Match. It mutually ended soon after Covid hit, and it never became serious or sexual because, to be honest, I never felt enough physical attraction for her to move on to either or commit to it with her. I am currently dating a woman who I connected with on Match in March. That one is still in process and has not become sexual or serious either as I have doubts about whether it can be long term, due to her living circumstances.

So I wouldn't consider either relationship to be an LTR, but I hope my answer to your ? is helpful. BTW, the woman from Match that I'm seeing now met her late husband, of a 24 year marriage, on Match. He died two years ago.

@TomMcGiverin
I know it does work for some people. I just never liked dating strangers, you know, for the purpose of dating. It feels unnatural to me. I’d rather get to know someone in a non-dating context for a few months first, and allow things to grow or not grow naturally, rather than be thrown together, both people knowing they are on trial, and waiting for a verdict.

I enjoy conversations online on sites like this and for a time, OK Cupid, that are set up to foster long group discussions. And have been doing that daily for 15 years, and in that time have met, from those sites, a grand total of five women in person, as friends, but no “dating” as such. None of them are local. Oh, and one man, @hankster, because he’s my neighbor and a kindred spirit.

@skado I share your preference for the more natural organic way of meeting women, and that's how I met my late wife, at a folk dance after I had been attending those for a few years, both with friends and on my own. But that was the early 1990s and I was not only a lot younger then and better looking, but that whole folk dance scene died out for good over 15 years ago. It was a lucky fluke that I met her at the right time in the right setting. I am not going to just rely on that kind of thing again as my main or sole method. It would take way too long and be less likely to succeed these days. As I have said before, my past experience in recent years checking out the Meetup groups and such, showed me that it was pretty much the same women on Match and at those groups. I would rather just cut right to the chase, as you would say, going on trial with women who at least say they are looking to date someone, and await the verdict than keep attending and joining groups hoping that some of my kind of women happen to show up when I do and that I will end up approaching the right ones after getting acqauinted with them enough to see who I like, and having to hope they are single and looking to date.

That sounds like way more time and work than I have to invest with online dating, with way fewer opportunities to meet someone compatible for an offbeat character like me. Because I should also say that when I tried the Meetup interest groups, it also seemed like almost all the women there in my age group also turned up in the membership lists of the local Christian Singles group on Meetup. Why waste my time with them and hope that some of them might accept an Agnostic for dating? At least on a dating site I get some initial info on them, including religious affiliation without having to chat up incompatible women to find out if we have anything in common.

If my lifestyle were different, and I were a musician, say like Sticks, I could rely on that to meet women for dating and naturally get to know them at gigs, or if I had a job that gave me lots of exposure to the public, including women my age, but I really don't feel like volunteering or working any more. I enjoy retirement now and just sticking with the interests I have been enjoying for years, even if they don't yield any opportunities to meet single women. I think getting a job or volunteering are long shots anyway for meeting single women and also there are often norms against trying to approach customers or other volunteers for that anyway at workplaces or volunteer jobs. It's not as encouraged, tolerated, or easy as some people might think.

@TomMcGiverin
To each his own of course. Best of luck to you.

@skado Same to you. I hope each of us eventually finds success with our chosen methods.

Your comments actually make a lot of sense and I can relate to them a lot. I agree that most people on dating sites probably have unrealistically high expectations, I know I did for the first two years or so on Match. I learned that the high rejection rates are nothing personal, got used to and accepted that I had to do all the pursuing on dating sites, since in my area the women are usually very traditional-minded and passive in the dating game that way. I lowered my expectations a lot in the last two years.

A Unitarian church or humanist group is probably a good idea, esp. if you could use more friends or desire to have some emotional support or community from fellow non-believers, but as far as meeting someone to date, I wouldn't rely on that too much. Most of the women my age at the local Unitarian church are either already coupled up or not interested in dating, according to a female friend around my age who used to lead the singles group they had there until a few years ago. Also, another woman I know from that church who is very active there in different groups and such is on Match just like me, because she said there were no real or good prospects for her in the church's dating puddle, even tho she's been a member there for decades. Finally, I good friend who goes to a local group for Atheists and Freethinkers, as well as a Humanists group, reports to me there are very few single women my age that attend either of these groups. The few women that do attend are usually coupled up at the group.

So I have done the research, so to speak, and I know of what I speak.

I agree with you about pressure to move fast on dating sites, but I don't do that and really try to avoid it. Because doing that just triggers the natural defensiveness that most single women seem to have towards assuming the man is desperate, lonely, needy, or wanting to just move quickly into sex and then dump them. I try to take it slow, but one thing I've adopted from Sticks that makes so much sense, is that I avoid turning into a text or message buddy for a woman thru the dating site. If they are not ready to at least do a video chat, or better yet, meet in person after trading several messages each back and forth on our parts, I cut that woman loose, as she is either too insecure about herself, possibly already seeing another man for regular dates, and wants to hold off on meeting me (this is called benching in the dating lingo), or is just not that serious about meeting someone.

Or it could be they are a workaholic, too involved with their family and have no real time or interest in a couple relationship with a man eventually, or a combination of some of these. Regardless, I won't waste my time on them anymore, because it's more important to me to meet them in person or video within a week or two of messaging to see if there is any mutual chemistry, physical attraction, or whatever term you want to use. To keep trading messages for several weeks or more without meeting and testing this compatibility issue is just stupid and a waste of time. And I really don't think there's that much difference between men or women in that respect. Women decide within at least the first or second in person meeting if they feel some attraction and have a desire to kiss the man, for example, by the end of the meeting. I know lots of women say different, that they develop physical attraction much later sometimes, but although there are certainly exceptions, I think that is mostly just high-minded happy talk to make themselves feel they are superior or less shallow, so to speak than men. I'm old enough to remember the old days of singles bars and dance clubs, where women made up their mind about a man's attractiveness just as quick as men did for women. I doubt much has really changed with either gender.

Yikes!

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Putting off the first in person meeting may make the woman safer, but it's also likely to waste your time and hers once you finally meet in person and one of you feels no physical attraction at all to the other. If someone has a busy life and is working, they may wish they hadn't wasted all that time messaging when it turned out there was no chemistry. If a woman is really concerned about being stalked, I would suggest spending a little money on getting a background check on the guy, after asking for his full name and birthdate or place of birth, something like that. If he balks, that may tell you all you need to know.

xenoview, the Gnostic Definer
lol

@bbyrd009 the little troll.

@xenoview well, im like 6’ 10…

@linxminx I am a nice person and I don't want a woman to give up her life or her family and friends to spend time with me and be a couple with me. What seems to be a big issue tho, at least with women in my local dating pool on Batch, is that almost all the women with kids, even if they are adult kids, are very family-oriented, unlike me. This seems to be a bigger deal with women in the Midwest than women who live on the coasts, who seem to have a much more balanced, independent attitude towards their family. Women in the Midwest, at least those in my local dating pool that have kids, seem to talk a lot about their family in their profiles and imply that they want the man to take third place in their life from the get go, and spend most of their shared couple time visiting the adult kids and grandkids.

And there's no fucking way I will agree to that. I don't mind a woman I am dating seeing her family every week or more, but I'm not interested in going with them for all those visits. To me, most of the profiles in my dating pool of women with kids, even the women in their 60s, seem to be looking only for men with kids, which I'm not one of, and for men who are content to serve mainly as their escort for family visits, rather than a partner to enjoy a reasonable amount of couple time with doing couple things away from the woman's family. If that's what they want, then they need to date Mike Brady, from the Brady Bunch, not me. This Midwest attitude of seeking a man to mainly be an escort for family visits makes me wonder why they are even on a dating site, since they really aren't interested in any kind of normal, balanced relationship with a man who is a true life partner or the most important person in their life, even eventually after they have been dating for months or years. Maybe what they are after, but too modest to come out and admit, is that they want an escort to the family visits and then sort of a FWB on the side with that same man so they can resume a sex life as well without just hooking up with men from dating sites.

@linxminx Thank you, finally, a voice of sanity. I have had this confirmed by so many women from Agnostic who live on the coasts. And you nailed it exactly, what I've been saying for a few years now. Namely, that these women will never date a man who is childless, no matter if she and I are retirement age, when it should no longer matter at all, because they run and hide after their divorces by clinging to their family, who may not even like them that much or want them around as much as the woman wants to be with them. And you're right, it's because they probably married young and are totally lost as a single woman again. And I really think they are afraid of anything unfamiliar or different than their experience, like childless men by choice, me, widowed men, again, me, because they would rather keep trying their luck with only fellow divorced men, rather than widowed men who might have a much better relationship track record or more skill at doing relationships well. So I get passed up because of their fear and clinging to the familiar. In my mind, they deserve what they get if they keep choosing the same type of man, all because he has familiar and similar traits to them, You can't fix dysfunctional without therapy, and I've had mine, but apparently most of my local dating pool hasn't, at least most of the divorced women.

If there were a large enough pool of them my age on Match in my local area that were widowed like me, I would stick solely to them and ignore the divorced women's profiles, But there aren't many of them my age, maybe 10-15% tops, of the pool, as I am still too young to be in the dating range of most of the widowed women. Maybe in five or ten years, my odds will improve.

As long as they are close to me in age, I have had way more response and pleasant experiences with the widowed women I've connected with on Match, because they are generally emotionally healthier, more independent and strong, even if they have kids and grandkids they love, and they seem to treat me better and show me more interest than the divorced women. They also don't have that general negative attitude towards men that so many divorced women seem to have, in my experience. Yes, maybe their ex was an asshole, but, as another guy here pointed out, you need to give each new person you connect with on dating sites a clean slate to start with. Not all men or women are assholes or dysfunctional, tho it sometimes seem that way. No fucking shit, it's not much of a mystery. The only divorced women I've met that seem to have their head on straight regarding family, are the very few divorced transplants to Iowa that give me the chance. Because they didn't grow up in the Midwest and get all the brainwashing... And it's no fucking accident that my late wife grew up in Buffalo, NY and lived out east until she was middle-aged.

yikes?