Tempus....you are referring to what I wrote about my experiences on the INTERNET meets only and making an assumption based on one part of what I wrote. My post question is about meeting men IN REAL LIFE which I am about to start doing.

After a few years, I quit trying to date off the net

1: after scores of meets from men whose pictures were hardly enough to indentify them when we met in person.

2: Speaking to men for more than a week and excuses to NOT meet were more that the desire to meet yet they wanted to keep talking.

3: Messaging back and forth with “profiles” who eventually disclose they are not even the person in the pictures but rather old men, foreign men or once even a woman.

4: finding out after the meet they were married or had a serious relationship but were unhappy and anything said after that was “blah blah blah" to me so it didn’t matter. So.............
I am asking my fellow forum posters for a bit of guidance, thoughts and suggestions, on how I can let go of my experiences in this elusive world of internet dating and be open to real world dating again without so much fear that I am being decieved in every word spoken

I think it's funny that people are screaming for forced sterilization, yet no one is pointing out the abject failure of abstinence-only sex education.

WTF??? I am disgusted that anyone actually thinks like this. I understand it is infuriating to see someone with 30 children not accepting responsibility but seriously? Forced sterilization of anyone receiving WIC? You're out of your mind.

That's a bunch of crap that holds no weight in a proper philosophical discussion on the nature of what it means to be human. Simply put, bad things happen to good people, randomly, through no act of will by the good person. This cannot be denied or contradicted.

I am willing to bet the same observation holds true in the dating world; in fact it must. I would venture so far as to say, even, that our self-preservation instincts become hazed over by the thought of amour. It is not a weakness to long for love.

You can use your caveman generalizations to substantiate your alpha male testicle dropping impetus to save face if you must, but I ain't buying it.

Wow, really? You think this without even knowing one of these women? Next thought is probably that the women lied and wanted to be pregnant so they could fool this guy into being a breadwinner, right?

oh my you're a talented one.

Not only do you offer up an analogy that bespeaks of the woe betidings of a life-long bachelor with a ramen-noodle budget, you conclude by telling her it's all her fault.

Yes, they should have blocked it, but no one in Washington had the stomach for more regulations. The prevailing ideology was that private companies should be allowed to regulate themselves, and the government's role was to just stay out of the way. That's what they did, and it led to disaster. Of course the other major benefit of these kinds of mergers is that the banks grew to such monsterous sizes that the government was forced to bail them out (too big to fail).

That's precisely the point, they failed to enact new regulations to deal with derivatives, going so far as making a special provision in the CFMA (the provision was specifically to deregulate). So first, they deregulated with the GLB, and then deliberately exempted certain securities from regulation. I see no new regulations here, do you?

That merger was the best example of government's collusion with big business. The banks wanted to get rid of Glass-Steagall for a long time but Congress never acted, so they decided to force the government's hand. There was really no risk to Citi since in an era of rampant deregulation the government was not going to stop such a merger to preserve an old Depression-era law. And the Federal Reserve (which as you know is a private bank) had every incentive to give them a waiver, since they were firmly in the deregulate camp as well.

What regulations are you talking about? The only thing I see is the government deregulating.

Umm, the GLB Act WAS deregulation. It was a direct response to the Citibank and Travellers merger, illegal under the Glass-Steagall Act (it basically repealed Glass-Steagall, removing one of the critical regulatory components of the banking system). The OTC derivatives that almost brought down the entire banking system were also unregulated entities. If Brooksley Born had her way and had these financial instruments regulated then the financial crisis might never have happened (in other words, government regulation could have prevented the crisis). Unfortunately free market advocates like Greenspan killed the idea, potentially one of the greastest blunders ever committed by a Fed chairman.

1. I never said I liked Communism, I said it suffered from the same problems in the mechanical attempts to make it work that Capitalism does. In fact, I am convinced that the best refutation of Communism has always been, that it completely ignores human nature. Capitalism is based around it, but requires regulation, in order to prevent Capitalism from eating itself alive.

There are many many things that regulation does for you, which you must think happen by the magic of "happy thoughts" by capitalists, otherwise you wouldn't challenge others to list them for you. Little things like clean food and water to consume; the ability of small businesses to compete with larger ones based on quality, rather than the ability of the larger company to locally undercut prices and kill them off; the ability of inventors to retain ownership and control over their valuable ideas; the ability of people to buy a home, and not have to worry that a garbage dump will be erected net door the year after; and on and on and on.

In fact, most of what you value in Capitalism, would not be possible without regulation.

The rest of your complaints are mostly off base as well, but I'll only bother with one:

Again, you assume that such places would still exist, if only the power of greed and unfettered profiteering were to hold complete sway over the land. Good luck with that.

Ahem. It was the REMOVAL of regulations, which allowed the banks to merge, at the behest of the Anti-Regulattion, "let private money make all the decisions" crowd. Best to make up your mind who's side you are really on there.

Myself, I think we need good Government regulation, for the simple reason that humans are not inherently predisposed to choose to do what's best for either the majority, or to make any effort at all to see the big picture before diving after profits.

Balsamica: where Communism went wrong, is the same general place where Capitalism goes wrong all the time: the overall concept was fine, but the mechanism chosen to deliver the goods, was a completely inept mess.

It's similar to writing tax and accounting regulations: stop allowing entrepreneurs to count as profit, things which are actually just the result of their shifting costs from one place to another. Make the business folks exactly as responsible for the entire result of their operations, as they currently, all-too-ignorantly claim that they want to be.

Who would set the guideline for who has the money and who doesn't?

Someone who has the money ... may not have enough left over AFTER he pays his health care bill.

I believe care of your body should be universal, where everyone is entitled to it

The question was just icing on the cake. Now ,would you please pass the fur burger.

What part of those regulations that where a direct result of the lobbing efforts of behalf of the banks do you fail to understand?

I see you didn't actually read it, because if you did you would see it was the lack of controls and the continued erosion of said controls that caused all the issues, but either way, part of the movement is about putting those controls back in place.

You are either a really quick study or you are repeating talking points.

Because I am curious how you went from not nothing anything to being able provide an objective analysis of what is going with regards to their objectives?