People who think you are hot V2. chat & forums.

online dating service

REGISTER | MAIL/PROFILE | HELP | NOW ONLINE | SEARCH | RATING | FORUMS | SUCCESS STORIES

Posted In Forum:

Home

login

Show ALL Forums

Author

Thread: People who think you are hot V2.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 171 (view)

People who think you are hot V2. Posted: 12/5/2008 5:12:36 PM
I have no idea what this is that is to say who thinks who is hot! Right now I am in Arlington, VA and it is cold outside!

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 677 (view)

Ever date someone with BPD? (Borderline Personality Disorder) Posted: 8/25/2008 5:24:22 PM
I think its time to explore other ways to bang your head against the wall like dating someone with a history of sexual abuse, multiple personality disorder, and addiction. This thread is 28 pages long! I once knew a psychiatrist, since deceased that claimed to be an expert on MPD. Perhaps someone with intimacy problems from whatever cause be it BPD or other etiology should date someone with MPD because that way you get to cheat with multiple people without really cheating.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 633 (view)

Ever date someone with BPD? (Borderline Personality Disorder) Posted: 8/19/2008 3:15:38 PM
If you want to read about this just Google it! Here are some links. http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/psychology/781/bpd-dsm.htm The next one is pretty good and talks about some of the history. http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html With the evolution of the DSM from DSM-II to the present psychiatric diagnoses went from psychodynamic to more of a medical model. The same is true of treatment. For anyone who thinks that this is their personal issue I would suggest doing a thorough search not with Google but with Medline or any of the other medical search engines. Look for local support groups and websites. They often have good information. I did wonder why this thread was so long. I can only guess that it reflects the fact that this is a very controversial subject in mental health, and that a person carrying this diagnosis along with anyone who has a family member or loved one with the problem has been to hell and back dealing with it. I also think there are quite a few "self help" books written about it both for the person with the diagnosis and those who deal with the person who has it. I certainly have not looked at all the subjects posted but dating someone with an addiction is certainly far more common that dating someone with BPD and just as problematic.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 18 (view)

The paradox of female liberation Posted: 8/19/2008 2:25:03 PM
This is definitely a tough one. I am a baby boomer and my mother worked so this was "normal" for me. In retrospect, and it is rather personal, my brother and I paid a price for this psychologically. The problem is one of expectations. I have dated 50 year old women who have careers, been married several times, have not children, and now not only want to find the "perfect" husband, but have a child of her own! A couple of the headings for these posts was just that: "I want it ALL!" This is the reflection of a narcissistic society to say the least. The odds of a 50 year old woman having her own child is unlikely, certainly without medical intervention, which in part adds to the cost of medical insurance when there are plenty of kids who need to be adopted. There have been numerous studies regarding working women and the efficacy of child hercare. A lot of this research has been heavily politicized with sponsors representing women's organizations with a result suggesting that that lack of a mother's constant presence does not have a negative impact upon the child. I have read a lot of those studies and the bottom line is that common sense dictates the responsibility for raising children in terms of initial physical and emotional bonding is with the mother, not the father. A house husband won't do. The stark truth is that one cannot have it all. Everything in life has a price tag on it and one has to decide if one is going to pay it. To be single or married, have a child or not to have a child, to work or not to work; these are all decisions that have a price. The problem is nobody wants to pay. Society has now draw us into a trap where often duel incomes are needed and women seemingly have no choice; but there still is the price and that is not fair. But, nobody ever said that life is fair and that is one of the problems. All of this has put a big burden upon women. One of the strangest things that my friends and I have noticed is that along with this women have changed in a fundamental way. A lot of guys and that would include me, find many career women are no loner feminine. I am not trying to start a war here. And I would not say that this applied to every working woman I have me. But, in major cities, a lot of them. One can debate what it means to be feminine and whether or not that definition is subject to change. For years women were complaining that men were not physically, and emotionally available, that we were not sensitive to their feelings, that we did not understand them, that we did not talk to them. Now this is reversed. I find a lot of women very masculine in their demeanors, their personalities. They do not have the very qualities that they have demanded of men. I think this first was alluded to in a satire written in 1982, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, by Bruce Feirstein. In the preface, if I remember correctly, he suggests that one of the effects of "women's liberation" is that we have "become a nation of wimps." So, this is not a new or novel concept. The problem though is that at least from a man's perspective, friends and other's I have spoken with, that coupled with the list of expectations, the loss of women's femininity is the last straw. Meanwhile, men are either too much the controlling alpha man or not enough of one, not sensitive enough ot too sensitive and not masculine. Some women want us to take control and others complain that their "last husband was too controlling." What is interesting is I have dated professional women from other countries, particularly South America who somehow have managed to remain what I would call feminine, a quality that though a little difficult to describe, I think I have managed to at least make an attempt at describing. Is this all the result of women's liberation? I really don't know. However, I think it has played a very large role along with other aspects of societal changes the long term consequences of which are not good for our society as whole. I think the things I have spoken of contribute to an inability for men and women to truly connect and form healthy marriages and to an increase in the divorce rate. This has also played a role in how the rest of the world perceives us. As cable television, the Internet, and other media have made the world smaller and smalled our influence or what is seens as our attempt to influence other cultures has made many countries angry at us. If a middle eastern country wants to wrap its women up in burkas, we may not like the idea, but it is none of our business and goes hand in hand with trying to force democracy on other sovereign nations. In China, the "one baby" rule had had an effect on the birth rate with more women being born than men. A man born in China after 1970 has a much more difficult time finding a wife. This has been addressed by the Chinese Government as a very serious problem affecting the well being of men, the mental and physical health, and the overall stability of the nation. This was in the news last year. Recently, new statistics suggest that on top of this, one in four women say they do not want to marry, that they would prefer to have careers. Anyone knowledgeable of Chinese history and culture knows that this evolution in thinking could never have taken place without the influence of the West. From where I sit, all of this does not bode well!

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 18 (view)

Is the Internet actually causing us to be single? Posted: 8/19/2008 1:39:50 PM
I think the Internet is just a part of a much larger problem far too complicated to respond to in a post. So, I'll offer a few thoughts. According to the 2000 census we have more single people by percentage that at any other time in our nation's history. By example we have gone from say the earlier, smaller communities in England where peopole hung out at the tavern to large cities where going to a "taver" has a different connotation. Isolation is the main disease of our time. Studies have show that kids who have now grown up with the Internet are often less adept socially. We are now taught from an early age that one must get a good education to obtain financial security, get married, get that house, and as monay toys as you cannot afford. Don't worry about the debt. Your entitled to it. After all we are Americans and we deserve to have it all. W all have a need psychologically for relatonships: partents, relatives, friends, and our own spouses and children. The baby boomer generation began to drift away from the simplicity of the previous generation in terms of their wants and needs. Life was far simplier. We try and fill up our need for relationships and what one might call a spiritual void, with people, places and things which just leave us feeling miserable. I often kid with friends that the needs women express on the Internet are those Jesus Christ could not meet let alone the financial requirement. Women's expectation are out of line with reality. Men are obsessed with the superficial aspects of a potential spouse how she looks, and often with sex although one is beginning to see women being more demanding in these areas too. (Looking for a spouse less than half your age.) Add to this our busy life styles, the fact that the age of mortality in the US and the overall quality of life is less than other industrialized nations and one can see that something is wrong. I used to think that men were the ones who were commitment phobic. Now my friends and I see many women who are commitment phobic. They may not even know it. There are multiple etiological factors too complicated to get into. Suffice it is to say that it often manifests, for men as well, in going out on hundreds and hundreds of "dates" and not finding ONE person who fits the posted criteria. In science, and there is a bit of science to dating, if one wants to come up with the right answer, one has to ask the right questions. Whether it is the Internet or a person you meet at the grocery store, if one's expectations of another human being are not real, you will never find someone. It is simple as that. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the problem lays within ourselves and the culture we have created. The Internet is not the problem. We are the problem. However, there is hope although it is bitter sweet. There is a bimodal curve of those who are married....teens to about forty and about 55/60 on up. The younger group either gets it right or they don't. If they don't and the institution of marriage is important they get counseling, figure out the problem, and usually relatively quickly remarry. Those who don't enter what I call the cohort of the relationship challanged; those whose problems preclude intimcay. So from about 40 to late fifties this group basically is clueless to what intimacy is about and bounce about usually just inflicting pain upon one another. When one enters one's sixties, the inevitable medical problems begin and one begins to face the reality that we just don't want to die alone. The list of expectation, the lust for the perfect physical specimen goes out the window. Besides, by now age has taken its toll and relationships evolved into more of a affectionate companionship. People begin grabbing whoever comes along. So, the good news is that we will be beaten over the head and have to accept life's true reality. The sad part is that all the Viagra, plastic surgery, and anti-aging medical interventions are not going to keep us young and sexually vital forever. So, all that libidinal energy will have been wasted on a search for someone that just does not exist.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 620 (view)

Ever date someone with BPD? (Borderline Personality Disorder) Posted: 8/15/2008 4:27:34 PM
Even though I am a health care professional and should have recognized it I have dated women with BPD or cluster b traits which basically means the patient has an Axis I diagnosis like depression, but does not fulfill all the criteria for an Axis II diagnosis of a characterological or personality disorder. Cluster b traits are still more common in women as is the full blown personality disorder. Once on another site I said that according to pure statistics a guy in his forties who dates a fair amount, especially if he lives in a major metropolitan area is likely to run into BPD or at least cluster b traits...I got blasted and called every negative thing possible. There is a lot I could say about this subject both personally and professionally. I will only mention two things about this, one how I deal with it and something so rare and unusually that it was almost written up as a case study. Having been on the roller coaster ride before and believe Einstein's quote, "a form of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results," I don't get emotionally wrapped up in women with either BPD or cluster b traits. If I meet a woman and she is drop dead gorgous, very seductive, does or says anything in an attempt to establish "instant intimacy," or gives me that indescribalbe look, I run away as fast as my big feet can take me. Some of you may say, "hey, you could be wrong and blow the chance at a perfect marriage." As Mike Rothko's book title says, "I may be wrong, but I doubt it." It is enough to say that having knowingly let myself get emotionally entangled with a couple of women and been on the roller coaster, especially the one with the abrupt stop, where she turns you off like flipping a light switch, I'm not taking any chances! Between 1993 and 1995 right after my first encounter with a woman with BPD I moved to a town 50 miles NE of Nashville designated an underserved area so I could be an indentured servent and work off some school loans. My parents are about the same age and probably for that reason, historically, I have dated women my own age and when I was much younger date women older than myself. These days the closer to my age the better but since finding any woman with whom I might have an LTR leading to marriage is so difficult, I'll got down or up some...but not a women less than half my age who could be my daughter. Why? Where I lived in TN and even in Nashville it was and still is common for a woman to meet and marry guys twice there age. I know, I can hear guys saying, "what's he complaining about, I'd...." You can fill in the rest. During the time I was there, having had liasons with women in their twenties (I was forty) it was weird. There is just something about trying to have an intimate relationship with someone who does not share your historical era so to speak. I will leave it at that. I did date a woman who was 23. She was very atttractive, smart, sexy, and to this day, the funniest woman I have ever met which is one of the things that really attracted me to her despite the fact that she had major "issues." She had rage attacks, mood instability, and was hyer-religious as well as a few other things. I had never heard the term hyper-religous before and did not know there was such a thing. Towards the end of our relationship, if one could even call it that, she joined what some have called a cult. She said it was a religious organization and she wanted me to join with her. This and other things led to the end of our relationship. Just prior to that we were talking and she told me something she had never mentioned previously. She had been in a very bad car accident when she was 17 and had had a concussion with some loss of concsiousness. She said that she often had tinnitus (ringing in the ears,) and "strange sensations throughout her body, sometimes as though electric current were passing through." She said some other things which I don't recall. A light bulb went off in my head. I had though that she had BPD. She had many of the traits and had been sexually abused by her step father. I called up a collegue and friend who knew about my roller coaster ride with this woman. He is a neurologist. I told him what I thought. He though I was crazy. "You know how rare that is" he said. I said, "humor me." I think that is sthe only reason he saw her. The day he sees her I get this phone call while at the office. My office manager said ntil me while seeing a patient which is unusual. She said, you will want to hear this. My friend was talking so fast and frantically that at first I could not understand him. "You should see this tracing." "I have never seen anything like this; it belongs in a textbook." "We should write a case report because of the presentation." My roller coarser partner had temporal lobe epilepsy or what is more commonly known as complex partial seizures which make up only 15% or the seizure population. You have petit mal where the patient usually just closes their eyes and sort of flutters them and they have some loss of consciousness. Gran Mal seizures are what you see on TV and are portrayed more dramatically in movies where the guy gets the Old Sparky Protocol the electric chair. You need imagination as shackled hands/leg irons and restraints remove a lot of the graphics! Persons will go into a post ictal state for a time untill they are stable and unusable. There some similar qualities with all of these. There is a book Called the Body Electric which speaks of how the body depends upon electricity and the therapeutic reasons electricity is used in healing. Her "hyper-religiosity" as he clearly pointed out in an article on the subject which he pointed out in front of my desk gave me a new medical term! He wanted us to write it up as Complex Partial-Seizures mascarading as BPD. In the descriptions of complex partial seizures I had seen previously, there was no mention of hyper religiosity. No I have another medical term ! I was soon to leave TN and my colleague had other things to do, so the case was never written up. That is the world somethimes....borderline:)

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 6 (view)

No shows Posted: 8/14/2008 4:00:03 AM
To find the right answers one has to have the right questions, or in this look at the situation in a greater context. I am assuming since I read nothing in the thread to dispute this, that you set up a time to meet and the woman just did not show up with some sort of explanation. If this assumption is right, than she did not call you back with a legitimate reason. I have had 2 dates over the years with women that I had to drive a great distance to see: no show. At the time I did not have a cell phone. One had an office emergency and the other got stuck when there was an accident on a local bridge. I continued seeing them but nothing worked out with either of them. I am assuming that these woman did not call to apologize, in the vernacular of the time I grew up in, you were "stood up." In the small picture, everyone has given you thoughtful explanations. OK, now the larger picture or part of it because it is not email material! According to the 2000 census there is a bimodal disribution of people who are married or co-habitating. People marry from teens until about forty. Then from about 40 until aroud 60/65 it peaks again. Why? Well there are many, many reasons for this. Please forgive me if I repeat or say something that had already been discussed. I did not go throgh the Archives. Partly because I have dealt with this at different periods in my professional life on a daily basis so one gets a bit burned out:) I think eveyone would agree that dating/LTR/marriage is difficult today, especially afer forty. As I mentioned, there are a lot of reasons but I am going to touch a few which in part explains the bimodal distribution and peoples behavior in their 40s and 50s. If you get married before you are forty, if the marriage works out...fine you are "out the pool." Historically, in the sixties, seventies, eighties, if you wind up divorced whether it is his or her fault or mutually decided, if the person or persons like(s) the institution of marriage, they would often jumpt right on the horse again following some therapy./couneling if their were "issues" that the person needed to deal with if he or she was ever to be in a healthy relationship. So, what you have left in the group of about 40 to about 55/60 I call "the relationship challanged." No, I am not accusing every forty year old reading this that they have serious issues which preclude the ability to be intimate and comitted. What I am saying is that individuals have a host of reasons that they cannot commit. Some, like some men who go online while they are married suffer from narsiism and a sense of entittlement (think Clinton.) I used to think that women, the softer, genteler sex did not have intimacy problems. But, since I turned forty, my own experiences as well as many men I have talked to bear out that things have changed. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. That includes problems with intimacy, commitment, and no guilt at all about standing a guy up. (Some women get off punishing guys this way because they were hurt in the past. Some women even put up phone profiles representing that they want to get have a relationship and they find a picture or pictures of some very beutiful woman and they post it. They either never respond to anyone which passive/aggressively is a way they deal with their anger and frustration, or they answer a man's email and keep him dangling on a hook for as long as she can and they she just cuts him off like turning off a water faucet. I have not hear of men doing this but I am sure it has happened somewhere.) The problem is not those two women that stood you up. It is the culture we live in that if you have read anything about the life cycles of Empires, one, of many parameters many of which have already begun, just like in the Roman Empire, is the destruction of the family. Hitorically, and I ask anyone to try and find some article that disproves this notion because when I heard it I did not believe it. Family is the thread of which the fabric of society is woven. When it begins getting holes and tearing apart, it is one of the signs that an Empire is in stis death state. This along with certain other issues which although are contributory are more subtle and not appropriate to try and explain in an post. So, we know that women complain about guys being married and cheating. However, more and more women cheat in their marriages. There is almost sort of a cultist "movement" among many women above forty to stay single. Some don't even want to date. The Washington Post some years back did a study of the odds every year a man goes over fifty, that he will find an American wife in the DC metro environs. The answer...close to zero. July 5, 2007, TAMALA M. EDWARDS wrote an article in Time Magazine. You can read it yourself: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997804,00.html A similar article was printed in another magazine. It had a funny sidebar written by a young guy who said that to keep his girlfriend needed to go through all sorts of psychological hoops and morph himself into someone he did not want to be. He even went into therapy in an attempt to accomplish just that. Instead, he learned about co-dependency and broke off the relationship. He said something very funny. "During my parents time, all you needed was a decent haircut and a job and you could get a wife." Maureen Dowd, the syndicated New York Times Columnist, who has a wonderfully keen sarcasm and whose work I admire, wrote a book last year called Are Men Necessary: Here is a review: (By Robert Crawford.) Well, this book in my opinion brings out the worst in her. She masses statistics about why so many talented women remain unattached, and makes an argument that it proves feminism has failed: because men basically want bimbos and women want to "trade up", the most interesting women (like, uh, her) get left without enduring relationships. Behind this funny and elegantly written argument, Dowd utterly fails to ask herself any of the harder questions that require introspection. Why can't she find a good relationship? Why do certain types of men approach her? Etc. It is not she who is deficient or somehow repellant to those who might love her, but men as a category and even society as a whole that come up short. This is OK for a pithy column, but in a book it wears awfully thin after the first chapter. Her lack of introspection is, well, depressingly relentless on such a personal subject. This is singularly unimpressive. Moreover, what about all the talented women who DO find relationships that work? I am married to one of great talent and intelligence, who challenges me constantly and does not allow the marriage to stand still, even when it hurts. To have it any other way would be boring. My wife is, I think, an example of feminism as applied to married life and I dare not take anything for granted. if you study both men's and women's profiles on a site like this or match.com you will find that the laundry list of demands that women want from a guy are those Jesus Christ himself could not meet. (I kid people who visit me here in the DC area that one, it's the worse place in the nation to date...it really is, and Jesus would not have had the right job or meet the income requirement. He would probably have to sign a prenup. If you really think about it, it is despicable that sites ask you to write down your occupation, education, and yearly income. Some ask the same questions with respect to your demands for a future wife. This too is despicable and only support the materialist, narcissistic, empty, addicted (not just to drugs) culture we live in. A Parisian friend of mine looked at some of these sites and was absolutely appalled. He said on a first date, if a woman were to ever ask what he did for a living, he would get up and walk out! Women in their forties often have a career, make more money than men, have already been married and through a bitter divorce, become materialistic, bitter, and jaded. If they have kids in the single digits, they often are able to subjegate their libidos and treat their sons and daughters as a replacement husband. Some often unconsciously turn their nine year old sons into pseudo husbands. My mother who is a psychiatric social worker has noticed this and I have noted it all too often. Men don't tend to bond with other men. They are often chasing around women or if they get married just staying with their wives or watching TV. Meanwhile, women bond better than men do. So, if a 50ish man's wife divorces him or dies of natural causes, the odds of him committing suicide are statistically higher than their female counterparts for the reason I just mentioned. There are a lot of other reasons, dating gets bad after forty. Things are going on (or not going on) in our culture, are beyond the scope of a post like this. That said, this situation is only going to get worse. Women are competing for the same jobs that their husbands are (so to speak.) If a company gets downsized and the guy gets fired, New York Magazine did a great story about this When the guy loses his job, his wife berates him and loses interest in him sexually! They did a lotof interviews as I recall. The New York Magazine article is not the only place I have heard this. So, for years men were the breadwinners and now women work even if it were financially unnecessary. However, if her husband gets sick and can't work for awhile, or fired witout cause, women's lib only went so far. She is NOT going to support him. Sorry guys, this is only going to get worse, particularly in big cities. Ok, you wonder, why the increases in marriage statistics in 60s and 70s? It is because they can no longer thrive on the addictions or soothers they had when they were younger: partying, overworking at the office, over working out at the gym, always doing something to what I call "staying in flight." You have to keep moving or this deep spirituatl vacume comes right out of your chest and it hurts. So, you get older, there is what I just mentioned, and now with more medical problems and trips to the doctors office, there is the ever far more closer fear of mortality. People just don't want to die alone. So, the laundry list goes out the window and the person marries sooner than you would think....especially the men...if they can find a women who is interested. I have not been "stood up" so long ago that I don't even remember! How? If I meet a woman....from wherever....online....internet....grocery store....mall. We decide who is going to call who. Sometimes we both exchange phone numbers. At this point in my life I am looking for a LTR leading to marriage, reasonably no more than a year should be suffecient in my mind to get to know a woman well enough. I dated a lot as a kid growing up in the sixties in NY, thorugh my teens, and as a young adult. It does not interest me anymore. I am comfortable with myself and will go out myself or with friends. I don't NEED a date on Friday night. Initially, I will have some light banteer conversation about her interests, her family, where she grew up but JUST enough time to where I feel comfortrable that we have established enough of a report that I can ask the important questions. Everybody talks about chemistry and how important that is blah, blah, blah. I am 56. One day it is going to become gangrenous and just fall off. I am OK with that. It's done its job:) I am looking for a life long companion so I am looking for someone near to my own age if possible. Ten years younger and five years older is the max. What good is "chemistry" if the woman you decided to meet first at a restaurant, found that she really turns you on, you lose your perspective, jump into bed, and then when you are deeply in lust, you realize that something is radically wrong and you are stuck andi n for a big world of hurt. So, phone calls first. I have my own non-threatening style to find out family of origen structure and function, what their parents are like and their relationships with them, their relationship history, when and how they met, how long before the marriage and how long the marriage lasted, and he reason for the divorce. I do this with major live in relationships and marriages. If they have children I find out about that. (If they are in the house in the single digits, in my own personal experience, it has never worked.) I know a number of women who realized that trying to date and bring up kids is just not possible and they accept that even though the ex may have caused the breakup for whatever reason. The things we do have consequences and American by and large don't want to accept them. I have had 48 year old women tell me "I wnat it all, the American Dream. I already have the big house, the great car, now I just need a husband who can produce the same income that I can. Than I will have a child, my child, in vitro if necessary." Talk about narcisim. This woman is the sine quo non! I go through my little paradigm for looking at the risk that this woman has intimacy issues. If I think she has a capacity for intimacy I will move on to basically doing the Myers/Briggs inventory, not by formally asking the questions, but by talking about things that will in and of themselves spell reveal their profilest. Personally (that is for ME) the true crucial axes are the S/N and the P/J. I am a very highly expressed N. Only roughly 15 percent of the population are Ns let alone deep thinking Ns. Ns communicate totally differently. So, right there out of a hundred women I am down to 15 possibles. (and that is without considering all the other important things) I don't get along with highly expressed Js. I lived with one; like oil and water. Ok, now I have a handle on that. Then we start talking more about what we like to do, spend our time and woven through this are a few questions meant to draw out certain types of abnormal personality indicators. This does not take as long as you would think and no I don't take notes! If at this point the mutual desire is there we get together somewhere quiet for coffee, like elegant Starbucks. (It is a little none fact that Starbucks policy is to build ALL their facilities except for mall facilities, with bathrooms from which you can escape unseen through the window. Nope, no fancy dinners just yet. For me, I am not looking for a drug rush of "chemistry." Been there, done that, got that tee shirt. Been in deep "love." When those relationships failed I prayed to God why did you do this...bring us back together. Six months later invariably I realized that the relationship would not have worked but I was blinded by my emotions. So, I am not looking for the instant attraction of two powerful neodineum magnets that if you let them snap together they would shatter! So, we date. If she wants to see other guys, that is fine. When I have picked a woman to explore further I stope my "quest." (serial monogomy) It this one does not work out, on to the next:) You ladies may be wondering why I have not said much about guys. First of all, part of the motivation for taking on this task were my own romantic misadventures and in 1998 when I returned to the DC metro arae from TN and realized that something had dramatically changed. As just about all my male friends living around the DC metro area were married, they were absolutely clueless to what I was talking about. I then had the opportunty to meet a group of single guys around my age who had been talking about this subject having had their ephiney around the time I did although we had not known each other at that time. I don't date guys. But, I will say that I have spoken with women about their problems with men. Thje most common answer is that the start dating a guy. He is usually very slick and he is experienced so he knows a good Mark. She starts to figure it out when he never invittes him to his apartment (its being renovated,) only gives him a cell phone number (he does not need a land line,) they can never meet on weekends (he has to spend times with the kids,) and I think you get the idea. Our culture has serioius problems. Of course it takes two to tango. Also, I am not dating guys, yet:)! (I remember for awhile that women could be "turned" into lesbians because they were sick and tired of "men's BS" and they needed someone who could understand them...another woman.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 14 (view)

New Eharmony Post, Wait til you read this!!! Posted: 7/22/2008 6:41:49 AM
Yes, the founder of e-harmony has done several things in his screening. I analyzed the questions. First of all it might be called "an occult Christian Evangelical Site. It was initially intended to be openly Christian but for some reason they took their present path. Some of the questions are indirectly based upon New Testament principles. Other questions are taken from a variety of sources including indirectly from the MMPI which is a questionnaire to determine psychopathology. The MMPI has many scales. They have re-phrased some of the questions that have to deal with sociopathy, affective disorders, and a number of other things. Unless you trained in psychology or are well versed in the Bible, you would not be likely to pick up on some of these questions. All the other questions are related to the usual stuff. If they pick up on what they perceive may be a "problems" they 86 you. I know this post will probably generate a lot of questions. The e-harmony story is complicated; these are the basics. Please do not ask me any more details:) And, don't waste your money! There is one site I know of that does not allow you to post if you are married or have a felony conviction. So, I guess my buddy G. Gordon Liddy, if he gets a divorce, can't post. And, Martha Stewart is just going to have to offer a large dowry or make a reality show for herself to find a husband!

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 1 (view)

Question Posted: 6/27/2008 8:20:12 AM
I apologize. I looked all over for the answer and can't find it. Threads are long. How do you place another person's words in a quote in your reply post. Can you post multiple quotes from different people in the thread.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 427 (view)

Are women satisfied with American men? Posted: 6/27/2008 8:11:47 AM
Right on. See my other posts on this subject. However, I wanted to be more subtle!:)

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 44 (view)

When should I tell someone about a handicap? Posted: 6/27/2008 7:37:59 AM
Sir, I am very sorry. (By the way, I have a serious disability...it just is not visible.) My intention was not to compare disabilities to the other things I mentioned in the way it came out. I have spoken with people with the same disability you have and they each handle it their own way...some feel it does define them...others say it does not. Are the later in denial? I honestly don't know. (I have met people who are ashamed of their disabilities in the same way people with any serious issue...more than I even mentioned.) My point in lumping all these things together is that it is my opinion...mind you an opion that might work for some and not others...that the concept of revealing everything about yourself in a posting is not appropriate or fair to yourself. (at least on this site.)( There is a site http://www.lovebyrd.com/ which is devoted ONLY to people with disabilities. It is a very special site for friendships and daating. There people put their disability right "out there" in their profile. Again, I hope you understand that I was ONLY trying to be helpful. In the end, like anything else in life...after weighing out all of the input, one has to make a decision for him or herself how they want to handle it. My best to you.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 699 (view)

q for the guys--Tattoos on women--yes or no? Posted: 6/25/2008 10:40:36 PM
This is quite a thread. I am not for or against tatoos. In the grand scheme of what is going not a big worry. My problem is simply that I get tired of the paint scheme and like to change it. I am not a tatoo kind of guy. I don't have them or piercings....but I am an old fart!

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 22 (view)

how would you react? Posted: 6/25/2008 10:34:35 PM
I think there are several issues here. I treated women who have been raped or subjected to incest and worse. Rape is a traumatic event. I once came into my apartment while living in Baltimore and it was in the process of being robbed. I felt violated...absolutely crazy...I got a carry permit...everytime I approached my door I pulled weapon before I opend the door. I got help and in a month the gun went back to use for occasional target practice. Rape is several orders of magnitutde above this! If you have never received counseling for this, even if you "feel ok" you should. There are many things that in the futue can rear their ugly head from symptoms of PTSD, issues of trust, and outright sexual dysfunction issues. You have to come to some terms with this with the help of a professional if you have not done so already. As for who you tell. That is personal and depneds upon your life style, how you approach your sexuality, and what your are looking for in a relationship. If you meet a guy who seems to be someone you want to pursue as a possible husband, sooner or later you or going to have to tell him. However, just like other issues of our past I would not do it in an immediate "true confessions" mode. I would not do it right before you are contemplating having sex. You will know when the time is right. If he is anything less than compassionate and does not hug you close, and acknowledge what a terrible thing you went through (I am not scripting this here...just painting a picture,) he is not the guy for you. But, again, if you have never sought counseling for this...don't stuff it becaus you feel "OK." You need to deal with it professionally. I wish you well and know that you will make the right decision about this. Good luck.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 38 (view)

When should I tell someone about a handicap? Posted: 6/25/2008 10:19:17 PM
I am sure there are a lot of opinions about this. Among other things, I used to do couples counseling, individual counseling/therapy. I am going to treat this the same way I would treat an individual with "baggage:" that is to say, someone with mental health problem, an arrest record, a prvious marriage, a medical condition, an STD...lump them all together as issues that sooner or later need to be disclosed to a serious contender for your hand in marriage. The overall general consensus among most therapist is that you don't meet someone and go into "full disclosure" move, revealing every little detail about your past life. That is innappropriate. In building trust and ultimately intimacy the key is to take a little and give a little. There are many reaons for this. Your very fist conversation you may find that there are other obsicals that make a relationship unlikely...religious issues...he wants a kid...you don't...life style...I think you get the idea. Over the course of phone calls as you get to know each other you give a little bit more and you expect to get a little bit more in return. Let him get to know the real you which is NOT defined by a woman in a wheelchair. I don't know you but I am sure you have had and have a life, opinions, things to say, emotions, love to give, love to take...the human condition. What is to say that the person you marry develops a serious life threatening illness in the future. Would you stay by his side. I expect you would. One of the people who is on the top of my Sainthood List is Dana Reeve. She was a vibrant woman, probably sacrificed the big S that eveybody jumpst up and down about...why...because she was true to and understood the wedding vows...in sickness and in health. I should be so lucky in this day and age to find a woman that would stay with me if I got sick. These days both men and women walk out the door. It is part of our Spiritual demise as a nation. A time will come. You will know that time. When you need to tell him. If he can't handle it...that will be his loss. If he says...why didn't you tell me when we first met, he only demonstrates his superficiality and ignorance and it was never meant to be. Remember...we are not playing true confessions. You give a little and take a little...takes a little time. But never, and I mean never, feel guilty for doing this. It is your right. You have your right to privacy. The government and the powers that be want to take this from us so that you can get a full dossier on any prospective person you date including financial data, medical data...and God knows what else...1984 has long gone. Good luck.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 241 (view)

How much is enough??? Posted: 6/25/2008 10:03:53 PM
My father is a jeweler in Manhattan. I asked him this question and according to him there is no "right" answer. Personally, I think the answer is very simple. We live in very unstable times. Let's remember what this is about: two people who are committing to each other to marry in the near future. As a couple...what are your values? I think it a miracle that two people find each other in this day and age. A ring is a token...really that and nothing more. Buy what you can afford. Again, we are all brainwashed by tv, the media, advertising...keep the eyes on the ball. It is about commitment...not the size of the rock. I don't see this ever being a problem for me whether I have a dime in my pocket or not. Any woman I marry will NOT be materialistic and if she were anything less than ecstatic about whatever ring I purchased for her...I would have dialed a wrong number!

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 42 (view)

Never been hit on by women? Posted: 6/25/2008 9:53:22 PM
Growing up in the sixties in Manhattan I would say that this was not infrequent. I live in the DC environs where it is almost illegal to talk to a woman you don't know. It is very conservative...not so much politically...but no style, savoir faire, panache...it has sadly become a very sterile place and one of the worst places to be single. I say this as a backdrop so to speak for something that happened about a year ago. I go to Manhattan frequently to visit my parents, brother, friends, and get my fix of NYC energy...what a RUSH! I can actually meet women just walking up to them in the street or at a restaurant...totally unacceptable behavior in DC. Anway, it was May...very hot. I am on my way to the gym I go to when I visit them. I am walking along minding my own business when this really cute woman, probably in her late thirties...a little young for me at this point in my life...came into view. She had a perfect figure, about 5'6" wearing short and a low cut tank top sans bra. (I can't recall every seeing a woman in the DC area no wearing a bra.) As we approached each other, she gave me this big, come hither smile. So, I said to her, "I guess it pays to advertise." She doubled over in laughter. I thought she was going to choke. Anyway, we wound up having a quick cup of coffee with me. I think she was interested. But, I just don't go out with women that young since I am looking for a wife. (I think if I did that in Northern Virginia I might have been arrested!) We went our separate ways...but it was just one of those nice encounters. I have always felt that if the truth be known, men never really "pick up" women. Then send us subliminal signals that they are interested or available...and we act on them...just a thought.

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 101 (view)

Sometimes I think, No one person can meet ALL my needs. Posted: 6/25/2008 5:20:33 PM
There are several problems with American culture. We have become a self centered, selfish, narcissistic society and believe that we can have it all. Moreover, there are no consequences for our behavior, such as divorce. No one person can fill all are needs. Americans by and large, despite their claim to be religious, suffer from a spiritual emptiness which manifests as a deep pain, loneliness, and longing often felt right in the middle of the chest. People who are married can be the loneliest people on the planet. We want from people, places, and things that which they cannot give. A sense of peace. So, we turn to sex, musical chair relationships, (people are disposable...when they no longer patch the hole...on to the next,) and all sorts of addictions from drugs, spending, too much, gym...workaholism...always in flight to avoid that pain. Only after a person truly finds him or herself and through whatever process works for them, they deal with that existential emptiness, only then can they be open to love. I am no prude. I grew up in Manhattan in the sixties. Sure, sex is very powerful...but it too can be used as a drug. From a teleological perspective, sex is for procreation and forming a bond. Hollywood and culture have turned it into a God that we worship. You can't even grow old gracefully. We are expected to take Viagra until our peckers turn black and fall off! Again, from a teleological perspective, I don't think we were necessarily supposed to maintain eternal passion in marriage. If you can put one in the oven every nine months...that would be a lot of mouths to feed. Did anybody ever stop and think that it might be part of the natural order that over time, as we age, relationships turn into an affectionate companionship and that if you actually come to a time in your (a couple's life) that sex is no longer part of it that it is OK. Both my parents are 91. I know it has been awhile. I don't see them scouring the Internet for porn or someone to have an affair with. Well, I think it is. But advertisers hire a bevy of psychologists to push your buttons or create buttons that you don't even have yet, to make you buy...whatever you don't need...and that includes sex. We are brainwashed 24 hours by advertising, television, movies, into thinking that there is some magical perfect person for us that will make everything right. This is one of the reasons we have so many single people. Our laundry list of what we want from someone is a list that Jesus Christ himself could not fulfill...let alone the annual salary requirement. I would love to see His post on match.com Age 33, height, 5'7" (already he is too short for the woman who would not date me because I am six feet and she is 6'1",) weight, 155, body type average (forget him...I want a muscle man,) education, none (everybody wants a college grad...read $,) profession Rabbi/Savior/psychologist/comic (yes He had a sense of humor,)/philosopher, speaks Greek, Aramaic, and Latin, Income: $0 OK folks, if He did this incognito, how many emails do you think he would get...zero. I know this because I worked with a team of researchers looking at what men and women respond to. Well, maybe he might get one or two:) But, that zero income looms large and anyone who would deny it is not being honest. We look at what you do and how much you make as status and part of what makes a man, not to mention looks. Are there women who don't believe this, that are not materialistic...sure. But, I know that in our present culture they are a minority. (I am sure I will get a lot of static over this one but I stand by my words!) oops. I digressed. But, I think I made my point. I rest my case:)

Joined: 6/9/2008

Msg: 51 (view)

whos been throught this crap and came out the other end? Posted: 6/25/2008 4:06:09 PM
Hollie, I am new to this site and reading your post there is something significant that I don't know. Are you married to this man or are you just "living together?" How long have you been in the same domicile? ENFPFORYOU

Show ALL Forums