Article: 9178 of alt.support.loneliness From: dmocsny@mfm.com (The Danimal) Newsgroups: alt.support.loneliness,soc.singles,ott.singles,alt.personals.misc,alt.dating.uk.north-west Subject: Re: 35 never married, not dating. Is this normal? Any ideas for help? Date: 5 May 2003 15:24:01 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 181 Message-ID: References: <37bc9e37.0305012127.6ea31d19@posting.google.com> <37bc9e37.0305021421.23191e20@posting.google.com> <37bc9e37.0305031950.49c6bcc6@posting.google.com> <2cd5a55.0305040218.3018a4a0@posting.google.com> <37bc9e37.0305040952.7c4cb9ed@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.26.153.210 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1052173442 29619 127.0.0.1 (5 May 2003 22:24:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 May 2003 22:24:02 GMT Path: news.meer.net!sea-read.news.verio.net!dfw-artgen!iad-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!newsfeed.vmunix.org!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: archive.mv.meer.net alt.support.loneliness:9178 soc.singles:84265 ott.singles:43998 alt.personals.misc:1898 alt.dating.uk.north-west:244 tom calwell wrote in message news:... > "Davros" wrote: > >"tom calwell" wrote: > >> it seems to me like these dating services are somewhat of a waste, > >> humiliation, and ripoff. They have the potential to be a ripoff if you have to pay in advance regardless of your results. If the service operator has confidence in the product, the operator should assume the risk. But that would be like trying to get a physician to refund your money if you die. Isn't it interesting that if you go to a hospital, you have to pay no matter what happens? > >>if you're out there experiencing life everyday and not staying and > >>working at home, most people come in face to face contact with several > >>people a day. > >> > >I'm sorry, I have to disagree with this, I come in face to face contact > >everyday with lots of people, but mainly professionally, and that also makes > >things very difficult. > > difficulties in meeting people are somewhat of an illusion in the case > of romance I think, though. On the contrary, it can be costly to attempt to sexualize any relationship which needs to continue on some other basis. For example, if you must work closely with someone for the next N years, it would be best to avoid initiating any sexual overtures unless you were 99.9999999% certain nothing could go wrong that would create a problem you would then have to live with for a long time, or remove yourself from at high cost. By far the most appropriate venues for courting are recreational. It's best to find activities with large numbers of prospects, steady turnover, and an absence of a complex web of tight social links between all participants. That way when you make an idiot of yourself with one woman, you don't have to see her a lot, and she doesn't undermine your chances with other women. This means highly organized activities are not necessarily better than less-organized activities. In an organized activity the man on the prowl has the advantages of more time and potentially more knowledge about the women there, but he also has fewer women to select from and there is far less privacy. Examples of less-organized activities would be public gatherings where most of the crowd just shows up; popular outdoor recreational attractions such as bike/blade/jogging trails; even bars and clubs; etc. Recreational trails can be nice because a lot of women exercise alone, but you should avoid pestering any woman who appears uninterested. Just jog, bike, or skate around and smile and say hello to every woman you fancy. If they smile back and return the greeting, try saying something about the weather and go from there. > there are people we all come in contact with everyday [unless we > choose to live as hermits]. Sure, but most people only have extensive, easy contact with a few people (their friends, close cow-orkers, etc.). Within that small group of people, the odds are against having even one person who meets one's laundry list of requirements for a romantic partner. Sometimes it's hard to already be having frequent contact with someone who meets even the basic age and gender requirements. To expand the pool of acquaintance sufficiently requires a man to initiate contact with many women he would otherwise never talk to. That is, he must push himself into contact with women he is not presently in contact with, even if they may be walking by him now and then, oblivious to his presence. This is not something people habitually do. Walk down the street with a group of your friends. How many of the guys accost women passersby and attempt to chat them up? It's fairly rare to see anybody doing this. People form long-term relationships because it's pretty nerve-wracking to form new ones frequently. > >However having joined a free dating site, I have made a couple of really > >nice friends in my area, and my business partner has also met someone > >through this site, and they plan on marrying shortly. > > congrats, adrian. but it doesn't usually work out this way; it's not > typical. I'm not sure what "typical" means here. The "average" person's chances of walking across thin ice without breaking through would be meaningless for a very heavy or very light person. The average person's chances of dunking a basketball wouldn't mean much to a midget or a 7-footer. With dating services, *OBVIOUSLY* some people will have better results than others, depending on (a) how attractive they are to the people they want to attract, (b) how well their attractiveness comes across in whatever medium the service uses to advertise clients, and (c) what kinds of people they are looking for. An attractive woman might easily draw hundreds of replies on a popular dating site, if she shows off what she's got with photos and lists only general requirements that many men could fit. A nondescript or homely man might easily get zero, especially if he implies he's looking for any sort of quality. > most people would have much better odds just opening up and extending > themselves in real life instead of wasting their time on the internet > or personals. How can you be sure? Personal ads have been around for a long time in various forms. They seem to meet a need. A dating service or site has obvious advantages if you get responses. Everybody you meet will be looking for a partner. That's an enormous improvement over real life where most attractive people already have partners. Plus your advertisement does some of the heavy lifting for you, if you have traits or requirements that would rule out a large percentage of potential partners. In real life you might have to screen through large numbers of people yourself to find someone who might be compatible. The drawbacks of dating services are, of course, many and obvious. Since no individual service is likely to draw many participants from a small geographic area, most people you might meet are likely to live far away. There is also the issue of quality control: since a dating service is easier than meeting people in real life, it will tend to attract a disproportionate number of people who have obvious attractiveness flaws (whether of looks, personality, life circumstances, or all three) which make it hard for them to attract people in real life. And the more flawed a person is, the greater incentive he or she has to fudge a bit on the self-description. So you might end up having to travel significant distances to meet people, only to discover they don't quite measure up to their self-descriptions. People try to fudge in real life too, but some things are harder to fudge (for example, weight). > >As for the chemistry thing, maybe it might be an idea to disassociate the > >emotional feelings to some extent, especially those associated with the > >glamour of relationship, and look more to mutual respect, communication and > >consideration and then allow the emotional chemistry to develop in what is > >already a bonded friendship. > > > >In other words, ignore looks, in terms of the outer shell, and settle! > >find the > >person inside, and let the chemistry come through that. > > eh, just curious. > how do you define chemistry?? It's the cool feeling I get when a woman looks good and is very friendly toward me. > >It's just a theory, but it might work. > >Adrian > > it's your theory and it seems to have worked for you. I like the implication of the word "it," as if two people are talking about the same thing. Imagine Yao Ming telling Verne Troyer how he dunks a basketball. Yao: I dribble toward the basket, jump a little, and stuff the ball in the basket. It works! Here, watch me. Verne: Does it really work? -- the Danimal