Men No Longer Want to Date, Why?

09-08-2022 8:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447913#Comment_119447913

Constantly isn't normal either. But every few months, you'd expect that people who are around each other all the time will have something come up.

Spending years without one to me suggests someone is bottling up their emotions.

09-08-2022 9:00am

In my experience, women need to argue. It's just something about the release of tension, frustrations, or even just to verify their position in the relationship. So, I'd generally be expecting a partner to manufacture "a reason" to have an argument, just to get some emotional stuff out there. Even if everything is going great, these arguments pop up every few months or so... and without them, I know something isn't right.

manonboard · 09-08-2022 9:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447600#Comment_119447600

tbh, you sound quite healthy. Assuming you are not some people pleasing type, or surrendering your boundaries easily to keep the peace (out of fear).

Fighting and arguing is addictive to most people. It took me many years to understand it. It has all sorts of interpretations, power, sexually attractive, 'the edge', a bit of spice,.. Its indicative of 2 things to me. The familiarity that people are attracted to from their upbringing which was usually quite dysfunctional, and the addictive nature of the chemicals and feelings people feel when arguing with others. People are super attracted to the same repeating patterns and we can detect the possibility of those patterns far faster than we can articulate. Its a huge part of attraction.

So many people seem quite addicted to feeling powerful over their partner, like they need to win to maintain some social hierarchy status in the dynamic. A far healthier dynamic is as you suggest, just have a dynamic where you can easily talk to the other person and both of you behave so supportive to the other person, that even disagreements are just co-solving problem sessions. I think a lot of people need difficulty in their relationships or else they start to realize they don't really like themselves or how they treat themselves. Its the less preferred option because it doesn't trigger such intense emotion in people, and without that addictive high.. people feel bored without realizing they just need to detox off bad dynamics. Very few people enjoy their own company enough to be ok with peace.

manonboard · 09-08-2022 9:16am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447979#Comment_119447979

I really enjoy how you phrased all that. I don't agree with the okayness of it, but i agree with the creation of it being very rooted in social positional verification.

Undividual · 09-08-2022 9:44am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447135#Comment_119447135

Absolutely.

I was having a conversation with my partner a while ago and I was saying that we need more words for the word 'love', because people mean completely different things when they say it! How many people use the word 'love', when they should use 'infatuation' or 'ardour'? I think partly that is because using those words would reveal the fact that the person knows they probably shouldn't jump into bed with someone until the 'infatuation' phase has passed.

Also, I do believe that the MGTOWers have it right when they say that men and women 'love' differently. We have different priorities, strengths and weaknesses (stemming primarily from our biological differences), so it makes sense that our approach and expectations would be different.

09-08-2022 11:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448037#Comment_119448037

I don't quite understand what you mean by the okayness of it..

manonboard · 09-08-2022 11:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448662#Comment_119448662

pardon, i was unclear. I meant when you said that you know there is something not right without the popup arguments. I wouldnt agree that the lack of them is not okay. I think healthier relationships have less and less (maybe never none), but id be in the camp that less arguments = good, and would never consider a lack of them as a bad thing (unless i know the person is people pleasing, or not respecting their own boundaries)

09-08-2022 11:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448142#Comment_119448142

Also, I do believe that the MGTOWers have it right when they say that men and women 'love' differently. We have different priorities, strengths and weaknesses (stemming primarily from our biological differences), so it makes sense that our approach and expectations would be different.

I'd say it's more to do with personality, rather than it being based on gender. I've had partners who matched be perfectly in how we both looked at love, and how it was expressed within the relationship. Whereas others had very different perspectives on it. For example, I tend to be very serious about saying "I love you".. and I won't say it until I'm sure the feeling is true, as opposed to those partners who say "I love you" after the first sexual encounter. In Asia, they jump to saying "I love you" extremely quickly.. it just makes me feel that love for them is very superficial or shallow, even though, their culture places huge importance on it.

The MGTOW crowd.. their perspective on love tends to be influenced heavily by their past negative experiences. I sympathise with them, but they've allowed those negatives to frame their reality, and I'd be the opposite, taking the few really good experiences as the foundation for my perspective.

09-08-2022 11:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448690#Comment_119448690

haha.. I have no patience with such arguments. It's not my thing, because I know the possibility of saying something horrible is much higher during those moments. Those things that can't be taken back.. and while women seem to think they've got a free pass when it comes to saying such (while men don't when it's said to the woman), I just see such arguments as being dangerous.

I suppose I take a lot of the risk out of relationships, in that periodically, usually monthly, I'll sit them down and check to see if there's anything they're unhappy about the relationship, ways I can improve as a partner, etc. Express the various hangups, frustrations etc that come about in any relationship.

However, in my experience, regardless of how smooth the relationship is going, oddball arguments will be started. For example, with an ex of mine, we both had Ipads, mine being newer than hers, but pretty similar. We're sitting together scrolling through whatever or reading, and she asks for my iPad, where I naturally pointed out that she had one of her own (she just wanted mine). That started off a huge argument, essentially a tantrum, where at the end she couldn't remember what started it all... why? because she needed that emotional release. All her previous relationships had ended badly, and she was freaked that ours was going so well, so she needed to challenge the relationship. I walked out when she started throwing things. And we met up a day later, and no more arguments for another three months, where by she picked another oddball argument (the location for a restaurant she had picked, and was annoyed I hadn't disagreed with her, offering somewhere different). These kind of arguments popped up every 4-6 months during our relationship.

I think it's perfectly natural to have a relationship without all these arguments.. if it's working, and we're both paying attention to each other, then there's no need for them. However, others don't feel that way. It is what it is.

Tony EH · 09-08-2022 11:59am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447899#Comment_119447899

And your mother was right.

Every long term relationship I know there's been arguments/fights, and I mean ones that are decades in the making including people that have been or will be together their entire lives. Jesus, I've been mates with people for over 30 years and we'll have arguments and fights over things, but we're still mates.

Now, if there's nothing BUT arguments and fights then clearly there's a dysfunction going on there. But equally, if there's none at all, that's just a sure sign that something isn't right as well. Because it usually means that there's a junior partner involved that will always just subordinate their opinion to the other or that the other partner just doesn't really give a crap. Either way, that's a relationship that's going nowhere eventually.

Cumhachtach · 09-08-2022 4:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447899#Comment_119447899

And vice versa when the woman is all lovey dovey. If it seems to good to be true, it generally is.

gameoverdude · 09-08-2022 5:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447979#Comment_119447979

I do not agree with the generalisation.

If a woman I was with felt the need to manufacture an argument without talking with me, I'd either laugh or leave...or both.

thinkabouit · 09-08-2022 6:09pm

Haven't dated in years due to bring in a relationship.

My take on it is that it's so repetitive and frustrating. Everybody has busy schedules. In my local town, there's Literally nobody you'd wanna date. All have baggage of some sort.

Men also are lacking in balls and afraid of rejection and the slagging they would get if they approached a girl in a pub or in a supermarket etc

Plus getting to no somebody new through tinder or bumble etc costs alot of money, need to take them on a nice dinner to impress or pick up the tab for most thing's.

Wibbs · 09-08-2022 8:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448799#Comment_119448799

With my friends, men and women, some I know for many many decades I can think of vanishingly few arguments and no fights. Of those I know since we were kids in junior school we had some minor guff in our teens but nothing even close to shouting matches and since then nope. We would regularly have disagreements of opinion on various subjects as we're all different people and can have very different positions, socially and politically etc, but they would play out as just that disagreements and the overall vibe of agreeing to diasagree. I suppose as water finds its own level we're all quite different on first look, but of a similar temperament when it comes to not sweating the small stuff.

I've not really found any particular difference on a day to day basis between men and women friends. I have found women friends tend to drift away as the years go on, nearly always when they get married. That notion that men and women can't be friends with nothing else going on I suppose plays some part in that?

Looking back anyone I had any actual harsh words with I just scraped them off TBH. The book was closed and that was that.

In romantic setups I have found quite the mirror in what Klaz noted. The need to periodically air out some grievance or other, but mostly it was a pressure relase apropos of nothing, or an indication of something unspoken they won't directly confront me with. That in my experience has been the massive difference between women friends and girlfriends. Women friends have been far more direct and far less of the expectation that I've magically become psychic. Y'know, mates. But when the naughty bits and romance comes into play...

Years ago one women mate of mine had a theory about this. Now she was a great friend(now married), sound as a pound and easy going to the point of Buddha. Unless you were her boyfriend. Chalk and cheese. Could be a bit of a headwreck TBH. Her theory was along the lines of; if you're friends the stakes are lower. I wasn't going to get her pregnant, I wasn't going to cheat on her, nor she on me, we weren't going to have to raise kids together etc. It was just easier, with no expectations beyond freindship and basic loyalty, so she reckoned that a fair number of women "test" their boyfriends/husbands with this emotional stuff and try to "keep them on their toes". Something she quite simply didn't have to do with me. I didn't need to be domesticated. 😁

Strumms · 09-08-2022 8:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119450727#Comment_119450727

I found that with Tinder….

one girl in particular, I think I mentioned her here before but she was so adverse to putting her hand in her pocket the day she did have a pint on the bar waiting for me when I got back from the bathroom, I was almost looking to see was there a fûckin invoice that came with it…

looked her up now for the craic, 6 years later, she’s 37, every photo is of her and ‘the girlies’ so erm…a decent looking girl in fairness but drama and levels of princess that you just don’t need.

can be a good bit of time, effort ( on many levels ) and cost, if it’s not some way of a two way scenario with both guy and girl making reciprocal efforts for each other, which it isn’t always….it’s pointless.

Mister Vain · 09-08-2022 8:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119450727#Comment_119450727

I don't think I'd be approaching a girl in a supermarket. 😆

The busy schedule thing is a problem alright. You hint at a date for the coming weekend but invariably they're going out with friends or climbing mountains, which would explain why all of their profile photos are of them out with friends and climbing mountains.

09-08-2022 9:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451265#Comment_119451265

I've not really found any particular difference on a day to day basis between men and women friends. I have found women friends tend to drift away as the years go on, nearly always when they get married. That notion that men and women can't be friends with nothing else going on I suppose plays some part in that?

Just in regards to this, I think there's an assumption by many (not all) women, that their partner won't like the closeness you have with another man. So they drift apart through a series of relationships, but as they get closer to someone for that special relationship, the separation in friendship becomes more pronounced. I find this a lot with those I've had FWB with.. while the fact that we've had sex provides the basis for a deeper friendship, at the same time, once they're ready to settle, the friendship is put in the background. On Hold, maybe to accessed later, but probably not. Saying that, I'm still friends with quite a few of my past FWB who have since settled and gotten married.. cause they know I can keep silent about what went before, and not expect it to happen again.

But the women drifting away is definitely a thing. I find that male friends are more likely to disappear for a few years, and then reappear, like as if nothing has happened, ready to continue as before. Still... I live a very transient lifestyle (I move around a lot, and I'm not big into social media) so I'm sure that factors into things.

thinkabouit · 09-08-2022 10:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451292#Comment_119451292

Lol gas out

Sounds like she was high maintenance lad. Better off I'd say you dodged a bullet in the long run.

thinkabouit · 09-08-2022 10:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451308#Comment_119451308

Lol maybe we're missing something, supermarkets could be a game changer for single lads. Or church

If there climbing mountains there fit, if there fit they will have any amount of lads waiting in the wing.

People moving to city's like Dublin, Cork limerick Galway doesn't help either.

Potential-Monke · 09-08-2022 10:37pm

What do people consider arguing so? Like, myself the the last missus did have quite varying opinions on things, but we'd say them, talk about it and that would be that. I've never felt the urge to leave the room, or shout, or get upset over her opinion. Maybe it's just an understanding we came to, but as it was the same with the first LTR... I know I'm weird in general, it has taken over 30 years for me to realise and accept that. But your partner giving you stress over an opinion is not something I would consider a good relationship. We talked a lot, that was probably it.

Or maybe we had enough of our own lives that we didn't feel on top of each other. We always had things we would do separate to each other, and I am 100% of the opinion that living with the person you love will cause the most strain in a relationship. Yes, you need to if there's kids, and yes, it's basically impossible for 2 people to be in a relationship but have their own place (well, for most anyway). Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

FintanMcluskey · 09-08-2022 10:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451783#Comment_119451783

I am 100% of the opinion that living with the person you love will cause the most strain in a relationship

The greatest antidote for love is to get to know someone properly.

If you want to know someone properly, go and live with them.

gary550 · 09-08-2022 11:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445771#Comment_119445771

75% of tinder is men

30% of tinder users are married, regardless of gender breakdown I think this is all you really need to know.

Most people are there for the ride, I used it briefly years ago - I was there for the ride.

I really don't understand why anyone would use tinder or dating apps in general to find a long term partner - you are really basing all of your initial interaction off a tiny pictures of someone on one day of their life and an idealist brief bio that's mostly probably not true.

gary550 · 09-08-2022 11:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451308#Comment_119451308

what is the actual craic with single women and climbing mountains in a group

every fecking women I follow on insta seem to be climbing mountains every weekend

I know a girl who recently got dumped - first weekend of freedom and she's hill walking and posting it all over insta. Totally bizarre.

pgj2015 · 09-08-2022 11:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451957#Comment_119451957

There isn't much else to do in Ireland really when you think about it lol.

10-08-2022 2:03am

Sounds like a nice hobby. Thought I'd hate that sort of craic till I did my first decent hike.

Mister Vain · 10-08-2022 8:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119451957#Comment_119451957

Nothing wrong with showing your interests I suppose, but a profile photo of you 10 miles away in the distance is kind of pointless. It's just a landscape shot at that stage. Then you have the other extreme where they use super close up headshots with half their face cropped out. The fúck is that all about?

mariaalice · 10-08-2022 10:55am

We rarely argue. we might have the odd disagreement that's it, and we spend a lot of time together, id say it's to do with temperament more than anything else.

Temperament plays a huge part in relationships and it is often overlooked some people are more inclined to be dissatisfied than others or have slight depression or anxiety all things that lead to them feeling they are missing out or feeling more dissatisfied and having an unreal expectation of things like looks or another ephemeral parts of a relationship.