| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/7/2009 5:40:40 PM | | Definitely narrowed dating pools once you hit your 40's and if you are an African American female in her 40's, it's even worse! At the risk of sounding bitter (because I really am not), African American women are at the bottom of the dating pool. Because we are thought of as "pushy" and "ghetto", most races (even Black men) do not want to deal with us for long-term relationship because we are stereotyped. Also Black men are more hesitant about this type of dating forum than most races. When I pull up a search for men in my age category under races, there are about 6 times more White males than Black males that come up. That really narrows down my chances for finding love moreso than my White sisters. Although, I am open to dating other races, they are not open to me and unless I want to weed through hundreds of profiles of White/Other males who most likely are going to reject me based on race alone, I restrict my search details to African American males. Thus my dilemna that if a White male does visit my page, and would be interested, he sees my criteria and leaves my page without making contact. Again, I am not bitter about it, because I am who I am. I'm just keeping it real. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/7/2009 5:56:55 PM | Ultimately, the odds are whatever we decide to make them for ourselves, in dating, in finding employment, in accomplishing whatever. An older gentleman I know prefaced every job interview with "You probably won't hire me, because I'm too old". He didn't get a good job until he learned the self-defeating behaviour of saying that.
Like that old saying about bees......According to physicists, they are not supposed to physically be able to fly.
The bee doesn't know this, so it flies anyway.
JM (fractured) O  | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/7/2009 6:14:06 PM | In my neck of the woods, it's narrow seeing the population is around 9,000. Most are senior couples who have retired to the "valley". They are a joy to chat with or spend a bit of time with, but they are busy with their own lives. Even though there are a number of single men within a 75 mile radius it's not as simple as it looks - spring/summer/early fall is great for driving through the mountains but once the snow hits you don't want to be on the roads. When it snows, what is normally a 30-45 minute drive in good weather can turn into 3-4 hours.
If I find someone to spend time with that develops into a relationship, great. If not, that's fine - we'll more than likely end up as friends enjoying the occasional outing to something we both like or spend time with a group of friends. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/7/2009 9:06:01 PM | | We all have things that narrow our dating pool, especially as we get older. I think it's a good thing, as I don't have as much time to waste! Seriously, though, isn't much of it related to getting to know ourselves better? | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/8/2009 1:45:46 AM | Measurements: (US) 34-24-34 ROFLMAO!! How times change. When those *were* my measurements, I wore a size 12. (And *was* twelve. . . ) Next year my chest blossomed to a 40" and my bottom to a 36" ~~ and life has never been the same.
 | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/8/2009 2:35:21 AM |
I agree with the larger point, too, which is why the whole "friends first" or dating as "friends" dating style has never made sense to me.
for many of us Ren, our lovers are our friend. back in the 60's when love was free I bedded on whim with those that struck my fancy, regardless if we'd ever see one another again. usually we did for a while, but it was a fleeting relationship of sorts based on sex alone.
now, for me anyway, I am friends with those I might bed. my lover has to be a friend, a companion.
why can't our lovers be both: our friend and our lover? I would like to think that a lover started as someone we considered a friend, someone we liked, someone we admired, someone we enjoyed the company of....you know, a friend.
back to the OT: I do have at least 2 circumstances that has on occasion hindered/narrowed my dating pool, one being my size. the other is not necessary to post here, but one that is essential to bring up when meeting is considered.
sometimes we are meant to mesh, and other times.........oh well. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/8/2009 4:26:59 AM | Seems like I am the one that really narrows my own dating pool by my interests. When I was younger I worked every single weekend so really did not get a chance to date.. Now that I am older I also have commitments with my animals on a daily basis and soon will start showing at the end of this month again since the kittens will be old enough I will not have my weekends available.. Takes me all week just to get ready bathing each of the cats and blow drying them, packing all my equipment that I will need when there.
So unless I meet him at some cat show which is highly unlikely. Unlikely since most men are either married and with their wife or they are single men that show cats and are gay.
I did meet one really handsome gent last fall at a show. He was soooooo handsome and approached me ringside. He told me he was admiring my cats and watching me in the rings with them.. I thought wow wow and more wow.. Next thing I know I guess his wife spotted him talking to me and let her presence known.. Another one bit the dust..
thecatsmeoww | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/8/2009 5:15:02 AM | | My dating pools seems to be narrow due to things men see as being negative about me. My appearance seems to not attract many men, as most seem to prefer women who are taller, smaller with a diffrent body shape, with a different hair color and a different face. I also have not been married and do not have children, which seems to be a fate worse than death when it comes to being considered by most as a potential date. Add to that the fact that my late father was a minister and my sister's husband is a minister as is my brother's wife (all fine people who are intellectuals and who are actually very open minded and do not go around praising God or anything and who all see religion as a personal matter and choice). Where I live seems to also be limiting, but it is difficult at this point in my life and career to uproot and move to a different place in the hopes of finding someone who is compatible. I would consider moving to be with someone if he and I were in a serious committed relationship, and do not see a couple of hours drive as a deterent when dating someone. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/12/2009 12:54:10 AM | You are correct, Nubyangift! Dating is HORRENDOUS for black women because of crazy stereotypes....I have had white (and black) men say some really outlandish things to me that I KNOW they would not say to white women....despite the fact that I am not "ghetto", nor do carry myself in a "ghetto" way!
....and the "old girl", here, was NOT amused..........
I'd rather be alone than disrespected..... | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 5:00:56 PM | Newbeean, and Brownlady, you think you got problems? I am three rock sediments below the rock bottom of the dating pool.
I haven't got kissed, touched, whispered to, smiled at, laughed in the face, or pulled out of a pub in decades. Well, ten years, going on twelve. Maybe eleven years.
Once you balloon up like me, become not tall by birth, and have a horrible, abrasive, obnoxious and arrogant personality, then when your looks leave you, you gotta pay the bucks to get stroked. I almost said "to get strokes", but at my age that's a different usage by meaning than it was twenty years ago amongst my friends.
At least you ladies are women. That's something, and actually a way more than being a man, at our age. I DON'T MEAN "WEIGHT PROBLEM", PLEASE DON'T GET ANGRY AT ME. You ladies can go to church or can hug your grandkids, or go into a sex toy shop and not be harrassed, due to the respect people treat you with. I bet you get seats on the bus. I withstand incredible pain in my heels when I must go downtown and back, because heel pain does not show on you, other than in your facial expressions, and people think you're probably just have an ulcer attack or some gas. And they STILL don't clear off the seats!!! I hate people, expecially the young. I mean, I appreciate they are, or perhaps at one point will become, useful people, but anyone five years or so old and all I know they're capable of is screaming the subway car full with noise.
Nurse, I need more pain killers and personality lifters. And please change my diapers, or else I'll scream "mommy" very loudly.
Anyhow... where was I? Oh, yes, what the exact words of my boss were when he fired me. "Go home!" | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 6:25:02 PM | "Dating pools" are already self-narrowed due to age,location,looks,financial status,etc.
It's always amusing when people choose to impose additional restrictions on who they will date...and then b*tch about the results.
IMHO, make the most of what's left AFTER your natural restrictions leave you a selection.
If,indeed,you are left a selection. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 6:34:34 PM | "IMHO, make the most of what's left AFTER your natural restrictions leave you a selection.
If,indeed,you are left a selection. "
You'll laugh, but this has a large part to do with natural selection. Those who have no selection usually are the first to be eaten by a club of lions. Or a den of wolves. Or a cub of corn on the tiger. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 6:55:15 PM | I have a friend who has often said (with a big grin) that they think the gene pool needs more chlorine.
I think the dating pool isn't that much smaller since we were younger. It is just when we were younger many people tried to date unsuitable people just to see if it might work. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:27:42 PM | | I'm about to forget about North American men....Moraima, I'm still working on my Spanish........... | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:54:16 PM | Working on languages sure would help to make the dating pool less narrow.
Must admit I have been business with other things so I have not been studying lately. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:58:02 PM | | If you become excessively restrictive in your dating criteria then you can effectively eliminate everyone from your dating pool. It's like putting up a fence around the pool so nobody can get in the pool. Another way you can clear the pool in a hurry is by dropping into it some personality trait that is equivalent to a Baby Ruth bar. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 8:09:56 PM | Well, I see that I need to bring some reality back to this thread.
Some of you need to face the fact that you are getting old. There really are more important things to life. And let's get real here, most people in our age group who find a companion, eventually break up. Stop stressing over this silly stuff and buy a Cat already, I did.
 | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 9:27:04 PM | What an interesting introduction to the "over 45" crowd. Let's copy this to the other forums and watch all those fish jump out of their pools and suffocate themselves out of fear of ending up alone over 45.
Of course, it is the fact that we are all over 45 that lets us in on the secret: you don't have to have someone, you can be happy alone. I'm one of those people who is just getting out of a 20+ year marriage to the wrong person (yes, I knew it when I married him, but thought that the "real love would come. . . ) I'm the 3rd woman in my family to do this--and statistically, more and more older women are moving on from bad marriages.
Hm, did I have a point? Oh, yes--I feel like I'm at the "other end" from the OP. I narrowed my pool too much and too quickly when I was young, and now I'm willing to make friends--even date, maybe--all sorts of people. The physical attraction thing has changed a lot for me, too--I find myself attracted to men I never would have looked at when younger. Attraction seems to be something totally different, now; it's not simply visual, for one thing, and not necessarily visual, for another. Maybe I'm just in a stage that should be known as the "anyone who isn't my former spouse is potentially attractive" stage? Will this change? Will I find myself more picky as time passes? I am loving the fact that I am seeing people with such different eyes. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 10:23:09 PM |
Some of you need to face the fact that you are getting old.
...Oh believe me, I am quite aware of that fact every time I look in the mirror and see my mother staring back at me haha.
Narrowed dating pools... Hah !
...For me it's more like jumping off a high diving board only to discover the pond has dried up and all the fish are dead.
...maeflowers
 | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/14/2009 11:02:51 PM | | ^^^^^^ imaginary pool for all fishes placed here: wide, warm, blue, and deep enough... with hope for lots of angelfish, bass-- oh and maybe the odd charming dolphin going by-- | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 7/15/2009 2:00:40 AM | Mae - Msg 123
...For me it's more like jumping off a high diving board only to discover the pond has dried up and all the fish are dead.
Mae, you see, your problem is that there are not that many ponds and lakes in Alberta. Even Lake Athabasca is only borrowed from Saskatchewan. You really should consider moving to Ontario.
On the other hand, I hear, there are many cougars in Alberta. Could they be responsible for poaching the fish? | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 8/29/2009 12:09:37 PM |
Tends to narrow down to what we can put up with...
versus who will put up with us. Pretty much true. Finding someone who is compatible, willing to compromise, and to whom I'm attracted---it is like a needle in a haystack. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 8/29/2009 4:20:30 PM | Being single later in life is very different than when I was younger. In my teens and twenties I was surrounded by dating candidates since I was a student most of that time and a lifeguard several summers. I found a reasonable percentage of the girls/young women in high school, college and law school attractive enough. Many were intelligent enough, and the best part was most were single. Relatively few compared to what one sees today were overweight, had obvious mental problems or had developed addiction problems to a recognizable extent. Almost none of my acquaintance appeared to have been abused although I am certain some unfortunately were. Life was good, as far as being immersed within a large pool of available dating candidates.
Has the pool narrowed today? In some ways it has broadened. Back in the day my fellow students were within say three years of my age. Today, at age 66, I can theoretically date women over a much larger age range, say 26 to 76 for fun and 36 to 56 for possible ltr's. That would at first blush appear to dramatically increase the numbers but, and there is always a but, more than half, plus or minus, are married, perhaps the "better half" (pun intended) or in relationships. Some still smoke, some have been divorced more than once, a huge percentage are obese, a large percentage have histories of poor decision making in life leaving them in dire straits of one sort or another. Many are on psych meds or truly need to be, and the list of reasons for disqualification goes on...
I still meet and casually date many women but those having ltr potential are few and far between. | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 8/29/2009 5:04:46 PM | | hi.. my dating pool is very small because I am only willing to start something with a man who is very likeminded ... I used to go on more casual dates but it became apparent that I could not overlook certain things like faith and health matters, just to name the top two.... holding out for ~The One~ and being ok with it all.... many blessings for happiness | |
|
| narrowed dating pools?
Posted: 8/30/2009 10:16:57 AM | All I've had to to shrink the pool is have certain reasonable (in my mind) expectations: No tattooes, no tobacco, and not be forty+pounds overweight.
Since these aren't in my own description, I feel safe asking for them to not be in my partners'. | |
|
Home
login 
