With regard to the “in your face” type of women, I think sometimes women mistake “meekness” for “weakness” and the two are not the same. I believe meekness means strength under control. I don’t think an emotionally healthy, self-respecting man wants a woman to “out man” him. But I would also say that in some cases, the “in your face” attitude is a defense mechanism rather than an actual attitude. Maybe they are expecting to be hurt. I’m not saying it’s right, just speculating.

As a mid 40’s man, I wanted to throw my own thoughts into the ring. A couple of things that stood out in the original post. First, in the original letter the writer made a point that they looked “young” and went on to say they looked 35 instead of 42? I don’t see a lot of difference with those ages. Also, her point was that she was attractive because she was the “cool chick” and her guy friends confirmed this for her. Did she qualify their advice by their own track record of success and did she ask them for some constructive advice on what she could do to be a better person in general and in relationships. These guys may be great resources for her or a boat anchor dragging her down with bad advice.

As someone that’s currently dating someone 10 years younger, I don’t see the age thing as that significant. I would date a woman 10 years older as well. There’s really not that much difference, in my opinion, unless you’ve decided you don’t want to give up the possibility of having your own biological children.

From my own experience, and I’m trying to be honest, I think I have a much easier time finding successful, available, interesting women to date. So as far as the man vs woman wars commentary, I don’t think I’ve seen what some comments indicate that “women rule the world” or however it was phrased. That seems a lot like another episode in the “All About ME!” show, that I think both men and women dating suffer through too often.

I guess my advice is be realistic, if you want to take more than you’re willing to give in a relationship, you’ll only find unhealthy and short term relationships. Also, if you are not meeting the quality of people that you are happy with, take a break, go back and work on yourself. This will keep your attitude positive and bring the right kind of people into your life. After a period of time doing that, then start thinking about trying new things and expanding your opportunities to meet people. That has been what has worked for me.

I know more single women that I wouldn’t date that have an “in your face” kind of attitude. Really, women that are strong and confident don’t need to do this, their lives speak for themselves. Just like men that suffer from being an adult boy, the little princess syndrome is a fatal flaw.

I’m not picking on women, I just only have the male perspective and my experiences to offer on this. Obviously, the experts on how it is for women are women.

As far as emotionally healthy is concerned, I’d say it’s someone who is confident, not afraid to be alone, is willing to commit to someone if s/he feels it is a match, and knows how to express his/her emotions without bottling them all up inside or having huge eruptions of them all the time.

Is that clearer?

Though there are undoubtedly people who use the word commitment-phobe to describe someone who didn’t want to date them, I think the word came about when a significant other has said, “You’re everything I’m looking for but I’m only looking for something casual/am not ready to settle down.” Or it is one who purposefully screws up a good relationship because s/he has his/her own emotional issues regarding relationships that s/he needs to deal with (ie, having an affair or picking an argument to get the other person to break up with him/her). A lot of these people are people with abandonment issues, so if they do something to screw up the relationship, causing their S.O. to dump them, then it was really them who controlled the relationship, they weren’t abandoned. Though it’s not a term I use often, I think that emotionally available/unavailable is a specific term.

“As far as emotionally healthy is concerned, I’d say it’s someone who has good self-esteem (that contentious word!), isn’t needy, isn’t a commitment-phobe, and knows how to express his/her emotions without bottling them all up inside or having huge eruptions of them all the time.”

This is going to sound like the picky high school teacher, but after reading that I still don’t know what emotionally available means. Self-esteem (as A-L & I have discussed in another thread) is a term that means different things to different people, and therefore useless to me as a clarifying term. Commitment-phobe is another term that doesn’t mean anything. Heck, I bet Webster’s has no definition for it.

Perhaps that for people of either gender, they aren’t ready to ’settle down’ or ‘commit’ until they meet someone they feel they can do that with. That doesn’t make them ‘emotionally unavailable,’ which seems to present a negative characteristic (to my eyes, at least). Maybe it just means they are ‘emotionally available’ to someone else.

Maybe it’s just that the phrase is most often used as a sword.

I agree with Vino that most men would prefer a woman without children to a woman with children. But at a certain point in time guys realize that their dating pool is also shrinking (though not to the same extent as women’s) and that they need to be open to the idea if they are to have any dates, as most women by the age of 40 have children. There are also those guys who want to be a father so badly (but haven’t yet) that will take the insta-family presented by a single mother, even if their ideal is to start one from scratch.

Stealing my statistics from the “My Faithful Boyfriend” thread:

12% of men 35-44 are divorced
14.7% of men 45-54 are divorced
29.9% of men 35-44 are single (divorced & never married)
24.4% of men 45-54 are single (divorced & never married)

By the time she’s in the 45-54 range there are more single women than there are single men. Interestingly, the same phenomenon occurs with women 30-34 but not 35-44. Food for thought.

As far as emotionally healthy is concerned, I’d say it’s someone who has good self-esteem (that contentious word!), isn’t needy, isn’t a commitment-phobe, and knows how to express his/her emotions without bottling them all up inside or having huge eruptions of them all the time.

Hmmm- if it works for Jake Gyllenhall and Ashton Kutcher, why not for these ‘regular’ men?

Also, of the available men in the OP’s age range (40-45), I’m sure that there are more than a few divorced ones, or whose good friends or family are divorced. Of these, I think it’s pretty reasonable to say that the once bitten, twice shy theory would apply.

And last, I have no idea what emotionally available means. It sounds like psychological gobbledy-gook to me.

I’m glad to have read your post #109- it’s a relief to know that SOMEone knows people in thriving marriages. I thought such a thing was as rare as unicorns.

My 2 cents:
Yes, men do prefer easy to be with, uncomplicated, fun women.
Yes, I think many women need to lighten up a bit. Not saying this is the original posters problem-I have no clue.

But does “fun”=”younger” in some cases sure, but I believe there are other reasons men go for the younger woman.
It makes THEM feel younger, and it’s a pride/status thing-it makes them look good to other men to have a pretty younger woman on their arm.

None of this offends me as a woman by the way. I LIKE to be the pretty younger woman on a man’s arm. But only if he’s fabulous in every other way too.

Do men have their fair share of issues. Or course, but what I don’t hear much of on this thread is optimism. Geesh, most of the posts sound so jaded. Dating is difficult and being let down time and again can get to you. But blaming the other sex solves nothing.
If you keep getting the same result, then you HAVE to examine what YOU can do different.