Letters to the Editor
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Laurel 1962: excellent letter
Thanks for a breath of fresh air, and for torpedoing the stupid generational assumptions about marriage and parenting.
IMHO, the bottom-line least productive way to view life is as an ongoing search for a mate, with everything else coming second.
For the responders here who complain they can't meet anyone: what kind of life do you really lead? Do you have friends, both opposite- and same-sex, that you care about? Do you define yourself by your age/appearance/place in the pecking order of sexual attractiveness? (That ways lies nothing but grief and misery.) Have you awakened to the fact that 99% of the people in the world are much worse off than you, and that you might consider giving back some of your luck in being born in an affluent country by helping others?
As you look around the room, it's the people who are not shackled by generational assumptions, who give more than they expect to get, and who have a wide range of friends to support them (and whom they support) who never complain about stuff like this. Some are married, some aren't; some have kids, some don't. But they are not obsessing about it either way.
Your days on this earth are an immense gift, LW, every single one of them. Get out of this bitterness/loneliness trap while you still can, and make every one of your remaining days count for something.
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How selfish to want a child!
I wonder how it would look if we applied that concept to women. I know three men who married women who didn't want children and then changed their minds. In each case the woman's attitude was "either agree or we divorce." Selfish? In a way, but actually it was just their realization of a deeply-felt need. Their husbands agreed and all has been well these last 20 or so years. So why don't we apply the same understanding to the men in the letter that my friends applied to their wives?
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This brings up another good point
by all accounts, there are scads of eligible older men. Yet despite this, women seem to have problems bumping into them.
Is this because women are not used to having to take initiative to find men? After all, young women cannot leave the house without men jumping out of trees offering their bodies up. What effort is required there?
So naturally it seems like a real stretch to actually have to put in effort to engage and get a man.
On the other hand, maybe the older women complaining can and do meet tons of eligible men, but the women are not honest with themselves about their own mental state or personal situation or whatever it is that scares the men from committing to them.
I know I have bumped into several older women recently that had deluded themselves into believing they were sane, but when you observed them for some time, you realize these women are batty. How sad. I guess they need an insane man if they want someone.
Then again, women just put the prize right out, so why should men bother becoming involved beyond this level? And if she is crazy, you move on to the next one. I know lots of men who do this.
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Cast the net a little wider
It sometimes seems that the most plentiful commodity in the world is a-holes, but dating is a numbers game. I haven't calculated the ratio, but if it's a, say, 10-1 ratio of jerks to great guys out there, you have to date a fair number of men to get to the good one.
And the good one might be 35. Or 60 (you could be the hot chick to a 60 year old).
Whether they're spoiled or not, if a man wants kids, he wants kids. It does seem like a lot of men in their late 40s and early 50s (and older) are wanting families, which is understandable. Too bad they didn't deal with this earlier, but c'est la vie. (I say this not for the sake of the woman, but for the kids -- I speak as the child of a man who was 53 when I was born and would be 104 now, when plenty of my friends still have their parents.)
If you're going to date, you're going to face rejection and heartbreak in the hope of a really big payoff at some point.
But your odds are better than in Vegas, so why not keep trying?
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Re: How selfish to want a child!
I wonder how it would look if we applied that concept to women. I know three men who married women who didn't want children and then changed their minds. In each case the woman's attitude was "either agree or we divorce."
Yes, this is selfish behavior. The selfish part isn't wanting children, it's making serious commitments to other people without realistically considering what your goals and needs and desires are. Dumping your spouse because you want to go to Tibet to find yourself is selfish too. So is walking out on your family because you've decided that single life is more your style.
Note, just because something is selfish doesn't mean that people shouldn't be allowed to do it. But I think it's appropriate to ask such people why they couldn't have figured out what they wanted from life a little sooner.
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The joke is on them
My best friend just turned 52 and he has a 34 year old wife, and a 4 year old very active little boy - he's going to be doing Little League and soccer when he's in his 60's, and going through the hellish teenaged ("You're stupid, Dad") years when he's in his 70's!
so my advice is - on the very first date you let these guys know that YOU DON'T want kids.
Or maybe you should look at yourself and ask whether something else is going on that you are getting dumped?
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Does anyone else suspect...
that Cary wrote the answer he did because he actually relates to the men the LW is complaining about? I mean, he's about that age, and if anyone would fit that profile, he would.
I used to love Mr. Tennis and his advice, but lately.... I dunno. Maybe he's adviced out. Whatever it is, over the past few months I haven't read much that he's said that's been actually HELPFUL to the LWs.
Am I alone in feeling this?