A way for singles to meet?

Subject: fat chicks

Flexichick wrote:
Plus, there are moments you can't explain - like the guy this weekend who prefered a hookup with a married chick who was in town for the weekend (and who literally weighed exactly 100 lbs. more than me). To each his own.......(and not that I wanted to "hookup" with him!).

apollonia666 wrote:
Um... the married/hookup thing notwithstanding, lots of guys like larger women, and it seems (just based on my own personal experience as someone who probably weighs 100 pounds more than you as well) that more and more of them are less afraid to admit that to themselves and act on it nowadays. Just because someone weighs more than another person doesn't mean the thinner person is automatically preferable as a date.

Flexichick wrote:
That's true. She's very attractive.....However, I'd say that the norm is that MORE people (certainly not all) seek people who are in shape/not overweight (because at her height, she would be considered obese - not a judgement, just a medical classification).

I think the married/hookup thing was more surprising.

My point was just that you never know what's going to be attractive to somebody.....tall/in shape, single, local girl.....short/overweight, married, long-distance girl.

Thank you, apollonia666.
I'm in shape, healthy, sexy... And fat.
Some of it might have to do with personality and chemistry?
You never know.

kensingtonmom's ideas about meeting people through MoveOn or Meetup or whatever are in line with my thinking when I was dating, but interest groups never seemed to work for me. I did NYCares projects--all women. I ran a book club whose meetings usually consisted of 8-10 eminently datable women, but almost no guys. I'd always tell my guy friends to come to the book club but they never did--apparently the price of admission, reading a book that they hadn't chosen for themselves, was too high. :roll:

In the end, I met my husband at a party that both of us were dragged to semi-unwillingly, but I can hardly suggest that as a strategy. :?

Anecdotally I meet a lot more single women in their 30s looking for male partners than vice versa. I've had the idea that heterosexual partnering is a woman's market in the teens through late 20s, and a man's market after that.

So I did some back-of-the envelope calculations to see what kind of numbers men and women are up against. I don't mean to sound depressing, just realistic.

As of the 2000 census, out of 8 million New Yorkers, there were 420,000 more women than men.

Over 18, that difference rises to 460,000 out of 6 million.

61% are families, which brings down the numbers of single men over 18 to about 950000 and women to 1.4 million.

Let's guess 10% of each sex are gay, and 1% of men are institutionalized whereas 0.1% of women are. 15% are 35-44 (17% from 25-34, about the same).

Looks like there are roughly 140,000 single men and 225,000 single women aged 35-44. Single here could mean in a relationship, further narrowing the numbers.

You can adjust the assumptions and numbers a bit, and everyone's circumstances are different, but by the look of it, there are as many as 1.6 available women for each man in the age-groups we're talking about. 225000 women looking for 138000 men. The fact that more men more than women start to go seriously off the rails in terms of unemployment, mental problems, violence, complete social ineptitude, alcohol and drug addiction in this age group, imprisonment or military service, and add the fact that there's a tendency for younger women to partner with older men, and I think it's no surprise that stable, single, 30-something decent men are hard to find for stable, single, 30-something decent women. For a single lady who has postponed childbearing but would like to do so fairly soon with a likeminded man and who is already in her mid 30s, the numbers look particularly daunting.

I guess that leaves such ladies seeking a man only a few options:
1) readjust your expectations and be prepared to work harder and meet a lot of people to find a single, stable, decent man, then be prepared to take an opportunity by the balls if one presents himself. For example, finding someone available, of the same ethnicity, culture or race, but richer and more highly educated, than yourself is going to be a tougher call if you're middle class and college educated. If that was your dream, you might drop a few criteria, or:
2) accept and embrace being single
3) cast the net wider than your local area and be prepared to take a chance on relocating; there are communities out there where the odds are the opposite.
4) (re)consider a same-sex partnership if that might work for you

I think trying your luck online is as good a strategy as any (worked for me very quickly when I was single in a country where I knew no one, still very happy going on 7 years) but even though there may be more men than women on the online dating sites, it's no surprise that anecdotally (also among those I know) decent men may have better success winding up in a long term partnership or marriage online while women get sick of the endless dating with people they don't connect with; thems the odds.

apollonia666 wrote: [quote=doctorj]...be prepared to take an opportunity by the balls if one presents himself.

Um, so to speak.

Well I've always said a hard woman is good to find.

That's impressive work there that is.

doc,

thanks for those figures. a few thoughts:

km, actually, it was that a woman over 35 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist. (which was actually refuted this year, by either newsweek or time as they were the wones who did the study), but it's a little eerie.

for the rest, another a couple of other things to add to the mix:

first: women who don't want children, either naturally or through adoption. i'd say, from my personal experience--and anyone else, please chime in--that men in my age range (i'm nearly 41, so let's give it 5 years in both directions) really, want children and don't really have to give that desire up because of the fact that there are many more women. in the past year, in fact, i've "lost" several very good men because having children was so important to them.

second: women (like me) who want to date a man with either a college education or one who's pretty sharp. i don't care if he's rich or poor, gorgeous or not, etc. but not super smart, i don't think so.

racial/religious preferences: i'd love to know what the breakdown of those single men is, racially. i'm not saying interracial dating is a bad thing, at all. just saying it's something to factor in for both sexes.

not saying i'm giving up, not by a long shot. and i go on a lot of dates. but the pickins` are slim and i have thought, as mentioned, that it might be time to accept the fact that it may not happen. but i'm not giving up, that i will tell you.

Drano wrote: [quote=doctorj]Anecdotally I meet a lot more single women in their 30s looking for male partners than vice versa. I've had the idea that heterosexual partnering is a woman's market in the teens through late 20s, and a man's market after that.

Just to back up the anecdotal aspect of this post, the guy that lived downstairs from me got divorced in his early/mid 30's. Unmessy divorce, no kids. He was a decent looking guy, smart, had a good job, etc. Well, I guess word spread that he was newly unattached because his dance card got full in a hurry - he probably could have met someone new every night of the week if he had wanted to. He told me he was getting calls from people he barely knew or didn't speak to that often asking him if he wanted to meet their awesome friend, etc.

On the other side of the coin, my wife has a couple (female) friends that I'm supposed to be keeping an eye out for...

I'm confused...this seems to be the SAME side of the coin, no? Meaning that in both cases there are women outnumbering the men.

Flexichick wrote: I'm confused...this seems to be the SAME side of the coin, no? Meaning that in both cases there are women outnumbering the men.

Um, well, it's the same situation (or coin) but on one side we have a person being sought (my former neighbor), and on the other we have people seeking (a couple of my wife's friends).

So where exactly are the ratios reversed? 8)

'Cause, I don't love NY all THAT much.

Anywhere else? Alaska is kinda chilly.

I've heard Chicago has a better gender balance.

Possibly also Silicon Valley.

Maybe some cities in the Midwest, Southwest...

LatinaSloper wrote: I think people have lost sight of the concept- Have a good time. Go to a museum, learn something new, talk, laugh, have a drink and enjoy each moment.

I wholeheartedly agree. What happened to spending most of your energy on doing those things that make us higher thinking organisms? We're hard-wired to reproduce and couple and whatnot, so why overthink it? I met my man, and my previous boyfriends, while I was busy being a musician or slaving away at a crappy job or spending time learning about something. Aren't YOU guys attracted to people that are busy doing their thing and not spending all their time talking/thinking about "relationships"? You value independence in other people? Then go be independent, fer christ sakes!

What happened to the superstition that when you're NOT looking for someone--that's when you find them?

And since brooklynpotter brought it up--f*ck Sex and the City. You see how those women act and think? Don't adopt any of that. Its one of the most unempowering, anti-intellectual show I've ever seen. At least soap operas don't take themselves so seriously. And if you watch it objectively, you'll realize that the "heroines" are usually the ones that screw up the relationship by spending too much time obsessing over it.

PS-So I also have to agree with kensingtonmom's original idea for meeting people.

Flexichick wrote: I think Alaska is hugely disproportionate in the other direction. Something like 6 men for every woman.

Yep, you are correct!

Older single women, take comfort in the fact that even if you did get married, they'res a 43% chance it wouldn't work. So that means 43% of those men will eventually be on the market again before they reach 15 years of marriage (if it's their first marriage). Who they date after the divorce is another story...

Dating services may not always work for everyone but it does help put you in the mindset of being ready and learning how to date (it's like job interviewing--not a skill that comes easily to everyone). Several of my friends ended up dating someone long term that was a friend-of-a-friend after spending time on dating sites. I think having so many options took away the urgency and there was less pressure since all of their eggs weren't in one basket.

doctorj wrote: Let's guess 10% of each sex are gay, and 1% of men are institutionalized whereas 0.1% of women are. 15% are 35-44 (17% from 25-34, about the same).

i would safely guess the percentage of gay men in PS is higher than 10%
upwards of 20% would be a safe #
and if you factor in bisexual men. Fugedaboutit!!!!!

One small suggestion that some ladies may have overlooked:

There is a significant, renewable source of eligible bachelors in New York. By eligible I mean one or more university degrees, gainfully employed or with excellent prospects for a solid income, background checks by Dept. of Homeland Security, State Department, and Dept. of Labor, and generally higher functioning and having more initiative than most. All this is guaranteed, hardly the case for someone you pick up randomly. These men, who may be used to being in demand, are now single in a place where they have little or no social circle and are adapting to a new culture. To put it bluntly, they're at a deep discount compared with their US counterparts, but only for a short time. They are or soon will be engineers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, psychologists, IT specialists, business people, financial sector, specialists and designers of various kinds, etc. etc. In addition to seeking love, they stand to gain more than usual from establishing a long-term relationship with an American, by way of speeding up the process of integration and putting down roots here. New York's businesses, hospitals and universities want to hire the world's best, and your federal government is obliging to the tune of around 100,000 per year and rising via a slew of special visas with names like H1, E, and J, typically granted for a few years' stay at a time and convertible or renewable. Of these, men 25-45 make up a majority, and New York is arguably their top destination; many arrive single or become single when their long-distance relationship folds after a few months. They come from everywhere in the world, though countries with very large populations, top quality education systems, or special trade and defense relationships with the US are overrepresented.

So if I were a single heterosexual female New Yorker tired of dating leftover New York guys, and I didn't mind meeting a new culture and maybe a new language half-way, I'd be out trying to find some of these first-class guys who have recently arrived on first-class visas for advanced students, professionals and specialists.

I have fun dating. I don't see it as a chore. I don't mind asking questions about other people or them asking me. I don't think "god, when am I going to meet HIM?". I've met some great people dating - some turned into long term things, others turned into friends. Many were great conversations, adventures, meals, etc. Some were awful and make me laugh when I think about them........