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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Which is worse — men who live with their mothers, or women who only post head shots on online dating profiles? Or, are men who don’t offer to pay worse than women who never pay? Yes, Joan and Dan continue to ponder dating pet peeves.
JOAN: I’ve actually had male clients tell me they are looking for “anorexic blondes.” What’s that all about? And don’t tell me it’s a caveman thing because cavemen liked full-figured cavewomen.
DAN: OK, the blonde part, I get. Marilyn Monroe set the gold standard with her rocket to fame in the 1950s, making peroxide pretties the ultimate prize. All the other hair colors have been fighting to reclaim the top spot ever since. Not sure about the anorexic part. Perhaps some guys aspire to the runway-model type as a kind of trophy. Other than dating a celebrity, dating a model is about as high up the dating chain as you can get.
JOAN: Help me understand why men want trophies when it comes to selecting a mate? I don’t want to hear your opinion. Ask a single male friend for a change.
DAN: Don’t you know that all my friends are women? My one male friend is married with kids. Luckily, I have access to a friend’s chat network, and so the net was tossed. One single male did respond. He says the answer lies in the whole “look at what I have so I must be better than you” mentality. They think that making the outside look important or impressive makes the inside match, and that’s not the way it works. Looking flashy and expensive does not change who you are, only how people perceive you.
JOAN: Another pet peeve is when strangers and blind dates ask me on the first meeting why I’ve never married. This is a personal question equivalent to “How much money do you make?” When I was in my early 30s, I was at the home of a friend’s parents, when I overheard her father say, “Joan’s a really attractive woman, why isn’t she married yet?”
DAN: I’ve always thought that question was more of an issue for men. In my circle, we don’t have problems with women as eternal free agents. Today, more eyebrows rise when a man doesn’t marry. When I’m asked this question, I smile and say, “Oh, I could have been married — and divorced — many times, if all I cared about was getting married. I just want to make sure I make the right choice — and make it only once.”
Dan Collins is a terminally single 40-something writer and local PR maven. Joan Allen is a noted matchmaker extraordinaire and author of “Celebrating Single and Getting Love Right: From Stalemate to Soulmate.”
Comments from Examiner Readers
3:00 PM MST on Wed., Jul. 23, 2008 re: "In the game of love, sports is a major player"
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re: "Survey says, trust yourself, not the research"
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re: "Making the most of every day, relationship"
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3:09 PM MST on Sat., Mar. 8, 2008
re: "Putting a corporate spin on the dating game"
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7:17 AM MST on Tue., May. 29, 2007
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Nancy-Single on the Road said:
From working with ESPN and an 90% crew of men every weekend for over 10 years, I can comment on this one! Every weekend that I show up for work, I am bombarded by comments on my outfits, and this is from men that breath and eat sports! AND THEN they quickly move on back to sports. Unless they are clothes designers, metrosexuals, or extremely in touch with their feminine side- I just don't think it merits much attention or is a top priority for men to spend time on the subject of our outfits. I think they make a mental note of our choices over time and make a mental summary (just like they would with their favorite -or soon to be not so favorite by those choices- quarterback.) Men ARE from Mars, but keep those new dresses coming without expecting a response and they will appreciate you like Venus. Even if its sharing nachos watching the game.
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Nancy-Single on the Road said:
Just moved back from SoFla and your articles my Mom sent me I now enjoy right off the driveway!I've been living in the dating nightmare capital of the world for women over,well, 35 is over the hill down there.Add to that I'm 5'11" so I was one of the tallest people down there and am not enhanced with plastic surgery...yet.So,it was time to come home and meet a nice guy only to find everyone tell me its a dating nightmare HERE!(Just one reason for the move btw.)Also, I work with almost all men on the road in the TV /Sports Industry and travel alot.Bitter?Airplane for one please.You'd think it would be easy to find one crispy in a stale bag of chips, but its not! You know the OJ book,'If I Did It?' Well, mine is,"If I Dated It!" The sad part is all the stories I gather from singles(sorry Dan, usually women-the men are busy showing pictures of their wives-NOT) on the road are just as pathetic.So what words of wisdom do you have for this tall,45ish,nomadic newcomer to Balto.?
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Examiner Reader said:
"“Now I’m waiting on a birth mom in Florida. It’s very hard to find a birth mother if you are single in the U.S. I have a room set up for a baby, a rescue dog, and a new career that I love. Now I want to save a child, not the world.”" Ugh. You really need to education yourself about adoption before you consider it. If you're going in with the idea of 'rescuing' you've got a long way to go. Also, birth mother is a sexist and offensive term. It implies that a woman is only an incubator. A pregnant woman is an expectant mother.
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Examiner Reader said:
Joan, try a valium.
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Happy Mom said:
My son went on J-Date last year, connected with a young lady living in Hawaii for a year, started talking long distance and he decided to go visit her (he figured if she didn't work out he knew he would love Hawaii). Long story short, he called 6 days later and said he loved both. They are on their honeymoon right now. My daughter met her husband on same site, he was living in Virginia, but distance didn't seem a problemk. They are now married for 3 years. So sometimes these services do work and make the parents happy to see their children happy!
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Examiner Reader said:
re: "For me, it can take months to trust and truly love someone, and during that time I am open to meeting others." -- I think the ambiguity and potential conflict comes from people who say what you say but are also willing to have sex with the person in the mean time. Many people equate sex with exclusivity. If she does and you don't, there's a problem. Either you have to wait to have sex until you're ready to be exclusive, or she has to be willing to have sex without being exclusive. The problem is no one likes to talk about this until after having sex. ;-)
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