I have had good luck meeting the few women I have met so far, could have dated any one of them but for lack of phyiscal attraction. The other reason is many of these women seem very bitter.

I think the problem is the women are so angry and lacking in discipline that they lump all these sites together and trash them equally instead of using some logic and having some faith that a psychologically matched couple will probably get along better over the longer term than a random one night stand with the cute loser you haven't a clue about.

I imagine many women think if the boy on the computer screen is not EXACTLY what you imagined you need, then it is open season on him, on the site, indeed on the existence of the internet, and the very demon patriarchy invisibly swathing all of us in its iron grip.

It is all very disheartening to see. So many ultra bitter women who got destroyed on the rocks of all the insincere but hot players they bedded and got screwed over by in their younger years.

...and despite my dislike for "eHarmony" in general, the "not clean" question was just kinda stupid.

When I read it, it was pretty literal. Who wouldn't want someone clean versus someone not? It brought up comparison images of someone sitting out on the street in Santa Cruz who thinks that patchouli is a suitable substitute for a shower, versus someone I might meet at work or at the post office dressed nicely and without the redolence of B.O.

And yes, I'm quite realistic about this - I don't expect my girlfriend to be spotless all the time. I do expect that we'll occasionally avail ourselves of the washroom so that being clean is the norm.

I guess what I'm getting at is - don't read so much into the question. That's one of the things that turned me off of eHarmony in the first place...the combination of the ticking clocks, the must-have-a-husband-NOW attitude that seems prevalent in so many of the profiles, these things resulted in overdissection of every little detail.

And never mind Neil Warren's links to John Dobson.

Now that's "Bleeeeechhh."

T

I like a clean man. Fresh sweat, okay. Old sweat, not into that. And I like to be clean myself too. This isn't a reflection on a person's character, it's just how I'm comfortable. But the reason is because I DO like oral sex. I just prefer going down on a clean guy. So it seems unlikely to me that men want you clean because they DON'T want oral sex. And in my experience, even though we all have showers doesn't mean we all use them on a regular basis.

But also I think what other people have said about clean meaning housekeeping habits is pretty likely too. Since we're speculating about it and coming up with different answers, of course it means different things to the people who check it as essential. I agree with you that I'd have concerns about a guy who thought it was more important than ruling out racism and other serious character flaws, but I'd advise you not to assume it means one thing or another.

As a low 50's veteran of the dating websites, this letter reminded me of how many women are fixated on intelligence. They mention it over and over in their profiles, they even include it as their title i.e. "Searching for intelligent Life". The Intelligence requirement trumps caring, compassion, money or even a tight butt.

I admit there are stupid and incoherent men; (we need look no further than the White House). But in general, most men are intelligent, caring and reasonable company if you meet them half-way; (same as women).

Why then do most dating women insist that they are awash in a sea of stupidity?

We are not intelligent until we know exactly what they want al the time without them having to tell us and until we know exactly how to act and what to say all the time in the perfect way they want us to act and say things.

then they will STILL find the one flaw that breaks the deal.

Gee, people -- the phrase was "personal hygiene". That refers to grooming, bathing, your breath, etc. (Didn't anyone else have hygiene classs in junior high???) If it refered to having a clean house, it would have said "housekeeping". If it refered to not having an STD, it would have "health".

The last time I was single and dating was the early 90s, which was just before the internet, and personal ads were literally print ads in newspapers or magazines. But the protocol was very similar, which is to say a lot of coded expressions and people who were not very honest about themselves (i.e., "height proportionate to weight" meaning somewhat overweight, and "plus-size" meaning GIGANTICALLY overweight) and often extremely unrealistic about who they were likely to meet up with.

One of the most depressing things I encountered, contrary to what is stated in these posts -- which is that virtually everyone today is showered and pretty clean -- was the sheer number of men I met who were really genuinely grubby. By that I mean, guys with breath so rank I literally gagged and had to continually try to lean away from them as much as possible. Guys who showed up on dates in dirty clothes, stained and ripped, greasy hair, black fingernails, etc. One man asked me to give him a foot massage, and before I could politely decline, he had whipped off his sneakers and stuck his smelly feet in my face, complete with hole-y socks that were stiff with dirt and sweat.

I can only imagine how awful any of these guys would be to have intimate relations with -- if they were so neglectful of the simplest things like brushing their teeth, you can only imagine how infrequently they took a decent bath or changed their underwear! And LW, quite frankly, I would not want to be in the situation of having or giving oral sex to anyone this filthy.

BTW: these were not a group of poor or homeless guys, day laborers, or anyone who might not have access to soap. They were all middle-aged, white, college-educated professionals and most were pretty affluent.

My point being, "personal hygiene" very quickly moved to the absolute top of my list of all-important attributes, even though I would have never believed you even had to consider something like that. So I can't blame e-Harmony members for wanting it in return. If anything, I applaud their practicality.

I do have to question why the LW is kinda fixated on the oral sex aspect of it though. It sounds like she has some kind of serious issues and/or insecurities here. While oral sex is one of the nice perks of having a relationship, obsession with getting it right away or having some kind of "oral sex guarantee" seems to relegate any potential partner to the level of an unpaid sex worker. When I made contact with a potential date from a personal ad, and within the first ten minutes of conversation he asked whether I would go down on him, I generally wrote these guys off as desperate losers only interested in free sex, and not in a relationship. Its only reasonable that a man approached in that way by a woman would feel exactly the way. If the LW wants a long term romantic relationship, and not just sexual servicing, she would be more successful if she looked for personal characteristics such as kindness, compassion, loyalty, decency, fidelity, etc., and worried about the perks like oral sex later on.