Singles and Dating

[beechnut79]

I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

[pbrower2a]

(07-24-2018, 03:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

Obviously I am speaking from a male perspective.

There are people without ideals. Lowered expectations can get people something -- someone broke, unattractive, unhealthy, witless, abusive, mentally unstable, or with a criminal record. Or, for that matter, people who have nothing in common. Anyone can dip low enough and find something. That's not that I suggest such. What people accept as tawdry substitutes for their dreams quickly show themselves as mistakes. Do you remember the awful car that you bought because it was $200 cheaper? You had plenty of time in which to kick yourself. Remember the dead-end job that you took just to pay off some bills? Did you keep that job when you had a chance to do something else?

Some compromises are realism. Some are self-destructive.

Quote:I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

The cycle suggests that practices lost in the past may return in somewhat different forms. People don't have time for dating? When they get lonely, they just might. People will get into accidental situations in which they might start talking about going out for dates that begin with dinner at some mass-market restaurant and then go further. Then there are mutual friends who try to set people up. If one is foolish there might be semi-pornographic sites that offer sex and nothing else. I do not suggest them.

There are dating sites. Put in your demographics, and meet someone. Some even have such fantasies as interracial liaisons (as in "such-and-such ethnicity" want to meet you). OK, so maybe her English is at best rudimentary, you will tire of her favorite cuisine, she can't get accustomed to your country music or to American sports, or she will hate a cold climate. Minneapolis isn't Manila even if it is better by practically any objective measure.   If you think that foreign women will show more tolerance for your drinking, drug use, gambling, or use of pornography, then think again. In such a case it is you who has a problem to deal with. Deal with your vices before you seek female companionship.

My suggestion is to get involved in activities that have nothing to do with romance -- religious activities, civic and fraternal organizations, hobby clubs, ethnic associations (like attracts like, as a general rule)... and you might show yourself interesting, available, and desirable. If you like bowling -- bowling alleys have people of both genders. Or sign up for a course at a community college... food dating is roundabout.

Quote:Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Technologies and available venues will change, but core human nature doesn't. The rating-and-dating system works. It is surprising how some primitive traits in human nature operate. Dancing is a show of health. Flowers excite a sense that rarely gets excited. Financial circumstances matter greatly.

[beechnut79]

(07-24-2018, 10:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-24-2018, 03:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

Obviously I am speaking from a male perspective.

There are people without ideals. Lowered expectations can get people something -- someone broke, unattractive, unhealthy, witless, abusive, mentally unstable, or with a criminal record. Or, for that matter, people who have nothing in common. Anyone can dip low enough and find something. That's not that I suggest such. What people accept as tawdry substitutes for their dreams quickly show themselves as mistakes. Do you remember the awful car that you bought because it was $200 cheaper? You had plenty of time in which to kick yourself. Remember the dead-end job that you took just to pay off some bills? Did you keep that job when you had a chance to do something else?

Some compromises are realism. Some are self-destructive.

Quote:I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

The cycle suggests that practices lost in the past may return in somewhat different forms. People don't have time for dating? When they get lonely, they just might. People will get into accidental situations in which they might start talking about going out for dates that begin with dinner at some mass-market restaurant and then go further. Then there are mutual friends who try to set people up. If one is foolish there might be semi-pornographic sites that offer sex and nothing else. I do not suggest them.

There are dating sites. Put in your demographics, and meet someone. Some even have such fantasies as interracial liaisons (as in "such-and-such ethnicity" want to meet you). OK, so maybe her English is at best rudimentary, you will tire of her favorite cuisine, she can't get accustomed to your country music or to American sports, or she will hate a cold climate. Minneapolis isn't Manila even if it is better by practically any objective measure.   If you think that foreign women will show more tolerance for your drinking, drug use, gambling, or use of pornography, then think again. In such a case it is you who has a problem to deal with. Deal with your vices before you seek female companionship.

My suggestion is to get involved in activities that have nothing to do with romance -- religious activities, civic and fraternal organizations, hobby clubs, ethnic associations (like attracts like, as a general rule)... and you might show yourself interesting, available, and desirable. If you like bowling -- bowling alleys have people of both genders. Or sign up for a course at a community college... food dating is roundabout.  

Quote:Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Technologies and available venues will change, but core human nature doesn't. The rating-and-dating system works. It is surprising how some primitive traits in human nature operate. Dancing is a show of health. Flowers excite a sense that rarely gets excited. Financial circumstances matter greatly.

But yet the heyday of the big dance bands and ballrooms was right in the midst of the Great Depression. But this 4T you are not seeing anything even remotely similar. Could the reduction in dating and sex life tie in with the fact that most of us are not happy with the current state of the country and how we're seen around the world?

[tg63]

(08-24-2018, 09:33 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: ...
But yet the heyday of the big dance bands and ballrooms was right in the midst of the Great Depression. But this 4T you are not seeing anything even remotely similar. Could the reduction in dating and sex life tie in with the fact that most of us are not happy with the current state of the country and how we're seen around the world?

I think the desire for social interaction is just as relevant with this generation compared to that one, it's just manifested very differently (i.e. this time it's the Grand Social Media Experiment)

[David Horn]

(08-24-2018, 11:23 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(08-24-2018, 09:33 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: ...
But yet the heyday of the big dance bands and ballrooms was right in the midst of the Great Depression. But this 4T you are not seeing anything even remotely similar. Could the reduction in dating and sex life tie in with the fact that most of us are not happy with the current state of the country and how we're seen around the world?

I think the desire for social interaction is just as relevant with this generation compared to that one, it's just manifested very differently (i.e. this time it's the Grand Social Media Experiment)

True but sad.  Social interaction between avatars is not true social interaction.  We don't really know how this will play for certain, but it may mean that the New Silent generation will be a lot smaller than the last.

[pbrower2a]

Although we are in a Crisis Era and were in one eighty years ago, we are in very different ones. The 1930s led Americans into an omnibus culture that homogenized tastes. People were not looking for ways to offend sensibilities in their cultural expressions.  Just consider the American cinema of the late 1930s and early 1940s -- it is still highly watchable. Music was gravitating toward Big band, arguably the greatest popular music ever, the only challenges to that label being whether Strauss waltzes are "popular" or "classical" or whether the music of Haydn and Mozart were considered "popular" in their time.

The big political difference from eighty years ago could hardly be more different. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the calming effect of Barack Obama -- on a far-wider swath of Americans. Maybe it helped that expectations of most Americans were far lower because by 1932 they had far less to lose than they now are. I look at some of the approval ratings of Donald Trump and I see a country in which a huge proportion of the American people are dissidents. FDR  was as good at appealing to the best in human nature as Donald Trump is at offending it. Add to this, the Great Depression humanized Americans (better be nice to others, because you may need their help) while the Lesser Depression brought out the worst in economic elites.

Are we objectively worse than we were in the 1930s? No. We have long rejected Jim Crow practices, although we have some loud, abrasive racists and (even worse and more dangerous) religious bigots.  We have largely accepted same-sex marriage. If we have more exposure of sex scandals it is because we have less certainty of concealing them, and no tolerance of such. Women obviously have more choices in life (if they are reasonably competent) than they used to have. Crime rates are much lower than they were forty to fifty years ago.

But -- American politics have not been any worse in a very long time. We have polarization rivaling that that preceded the American Civil War, and that analogy scares anyone who can connect the polarization of American politics 160 years ago to what happened 157 years ago. American political life eighty years ago was comparatively placid. .  

From an essay by Sean Wilentz  "George W. Bush -- Worst President Ever?"

Quote:How does any president’s reputation sink so low? The reasons are best understood as the reverse of those that produce presidential greatness. In almost every survey of historians dating back to the 1940s, three presidents have emerged as supreme successes: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. These were the men who guided the nation through what historians consider its greatest crises: the founding era after the ratification of the Constitution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and Second World War. Presented with arduous, at times seemingly impossible circumstances, they rallied the nation, governed brilliantly and left the republic more secure than when they entered office.

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties — Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush — have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush TRUMP, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures — an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush TRUMP has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/po...ry-192899/


I'll go further with Trump: this is the first President to give us more than a non-zero chance of a military coup. Dubya may have created a bigger economic mess by supporting a corrupt boom in real -estate lending than the recession that America had gotten into due to the implosion of the dot.com industry and Enron Corporation... but it seemed sensible enough to a majority of Americans. He might have bungled America into a pointless war in Iraq, but he did so with the best intentions if perhaps flawed info.

But consider what Dubya never did, or at least did less of. He did not mock the disabled. He did not promote ethnic or religious bigotry. He did nothing to divide NATO. He may have had some losers in his cabinet, but nowhere near the collection of fanatics and self-serving profiteers as Trump. Dubya seems to have been loyal enough to his wife that he would never risk a big chunk of money and, worse, its exposure in a court of law, to cover up involvement with a porn star. Although the Bush-Cheney administration had its own Orwellian turns of phrase (like "clean coal", an oxymoron, and "healthy forests", which means that the forest is clear-cut -- horrible for conservation, but good for one-time profits), Donald Trump has turned even more words into Orwellian lies.

If we Americans had been a bit more patient, maybe we would have given Obama more of a chance to solve some of our problems. Maybe conservatives would have been more willing to improve Obamacare or to create a more solid foundation for it, perhaps imposing or increasing some 'sin taxes'  or pushing tort reform to make it less expensive, or removing the ban on negotiating pharmaceutical prices. Maybe they would have recognized that shoring up the financial system without sending hordes of bankers to prison just because they did what all other bankers had to do to stay in business that the President deserves a little leeway. Maybe they would have decided that rational thought achieves more than does demagoguery as with the Tea Party Movement and then Trump.

But haven't I gone a long way from "Singles and Dating" by explaining how dangerous and unpromising our world is?

[Ragnarök_62]

(07-24-2018, 03:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Meh. Toxic feminism has ruined lots of stuff wrt males. Check out MGTOW for example. High tech also provides the Japanese outlet of sex dolls.





There's also the old standby, dogs.

If you want a friend,[in Washington] get a dog . - Harry Truman [Lost Generation]

[Hintergrund]

(08-24-2018, 06:41 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Toxic feminism has ruined lots of stuff wrt males.

Who made up that idiotic term anyway? Show me a man more toxic than those obscenity-spewing, ugly, mentally disturbed feminists...

[Hintergrund]

(08-24-2018, 09:33 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: But yet the heyday of the big dance bands and ballrooms was right in the midst of the Great Depression. But this 4T you are not seeing anything even remotely similar.

No, definitely not. The stupid cult of "Glee"?? No thanks.

[pbrower2a]

(09-03-2018, 08:01 PM)Hintergrund Wrote:

(08-24-2018, 06:41 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: Toxic feminism has ruined lots of stuff wrt males.

Who made up that idiotic term anyway? Show me a man more toxic than those obscenity-spewing, ugly, mentally disturbed feminists...

I might use the term "female chauvinism" with women who think that by adopting the vices that feminists ascribed to men they get empowerment.

We have much to work out. Women cannot be men in some basic things, and this is not about economic matters.

OK, men -- put the toilet seat down after you use the commode. Don't brag about going to the strip club, and don't buy suggestive lingerie as gifts to women. Don't waste family funds on overpriced toys like sports cars.

[beechnut79]

Wish to rejuvenate this thread with a viewpoint that it does seem to me that the singles and dating world is much more difficult to navigate today than it was during that halcyon period after The Pill and before AIDS. Don't know if being in the post-AIDS world has any bearing on it, but it does seem to me that in today's world folks can be quite discriminating about who they're in relationships with. This did begin during the mid to late-80s Yuppie era when dating services, once considered the last resort for losers, not only suddenly became respectable with the emerging "I don't have time" syndrome, but also ridiculously expensive to the point that the average single person could never afford them. Seems as if that trend has only accelerated since that time. The society began to value hard work and having healthy habits much more than having a whirlwind social life, which was highly valued during the past 2T and perhaps opening years of the 3T. Even among the young there is not anywhere near the social scene that there was during our own youth.

During the halcyon days I personally managed some semblance of the whirlwind social life despite of the Asperger's condition, which wasn't really mad public until well into the 1990s. Seems that society as a whole was much more tolerant at that time despite the fact that we have many more anti-discrimination laws than we did then. I once had the dream of becoming the vaunted ladies' man who could get a date with just about any woman he wanted. That never even came close to occurring, but the desire was so pervasive that anyone who tried to stand in my way was the enemy, even in my own family. I somehow feel that the very term "Ladies' Man" is much more derogatory today than it was in times past. Agree?

[beechnut79]

(07-24-2018, 10:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-24-2018, 03:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

Obviously I am speaking from a male perspective.

There are people without ideals. Lowered expectations can get people something -- someone broke, unattractive, unhealthy, witless, abusive, mentally unstable, or with a criminal record. Or, for that matter, people who have nothing in common. Anyone can dip low enough and find something. That's not that I suggest such. What people accept as tawdry substitutes for their dreams quickly show themselves as mistakes. Do you remember the awful car that you bought because it was $200 cheaper? You had plenty of time in which to kick yourself. Remember the dead-end job that you took just to pay off some bills? Did you keep that job when you had a chance to do something else?

Some compromises are realism. Some are self-destructive.

Quote:I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

The cycle suggests that practices lost in the past may return in somewhat different forms. People don't have time for dating? When they get lonely, they just might. People will get into accidental situations in which they might start talking about going out for dates that begin with dinner at some mass-market restaurant and then go further. Then there are mutual friends who try to set people up. If one is foolish there might be semi-pornographic sites that offer sex and nothing else. I do not suggest them.

There are dating sites. Put in your demographics, and meet someone. Some even have such fantasies as interracial liaisons (as in "such-and-such ethnicity" want to meet you). OK, so maybe her English is at best rudimentary, you will tire of her favorite cuisine, she can't get accustomed to your country music or to American sports, or she will hate a cold climate. Minneapolis isn't Manila even if it is better by practically any objective measure.   If you think that foreign women will show more tolerance for your drinking, drug use, gambling, or use of pornography, then think again. In such a case it is you who has a problem to deal with. Deal with your vices before you seek female companionship.

My suggestion is to get involved in activities that have nothing to do with romance -- religious activities, civic and fraternal organizations, hobby clubs, ethnic associations (like attracts like, as a general rule)... and you might show yourself interesting, available, and desirable. If you like bowling -- bowling alleys have people of both genders. Or sign up for a course at a community college... food dating is roundabout.  

Quote:Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Technologies and available venues will change, but core human nature doesn't. The rating-and-dating system works. It is surprising how some primitive traits in human nature operate. Dancing is a show of health. Flowers excite a sense that rarely gets excited. Financial circumstances matter greatly.

Even if it may be a show of health, it is obvious that dancing isn't nearly as popular as it once was. Can't figure out why the immense popularity of the "Dancing with the Stars" TV show didn't spawn a resurgence in dance halls and clubs.

[beechnut79]

I came across this article which I felt could be a springboard for discussion on this topic. Many believe in the old adage of happily ever after and till death do us part, and in many ways it is still viable. But this piece suggests that the intensity and passion in relationships has an expiration date, and the author puts the average at about three years, which is still four years short of the so-called "seven-year itch" mystique. When that expiration date arrives there no doubt could be some brooding and jealousy happening. If a man is suddenly less passionate that his wife, or vise versa, the neglected spouse could accuse the other of having a paramour on the side even if such is not the case. For men a case of ED could be in play here possibly. I would be more inclined to believe that the pressures of everyday living and constantly needing to chase the dollar sign is at fault here as well. That alone can grind one down to the point when the spouse may need to do something to give him or her the extra shot of energy need to start your engine. When sparks are flying you can think of a great idea.

https://www.today.com/health/how-long-do...ve-t108471

[pbrower2a]

(08-24-2018, 09:33 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(07-24-2018, 10:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-24-2018, 03:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I had a thread on this topic over on the old forum. I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it so I decided to start anew here. Do you all feel as if so many in the dating realm expect idealism and perfection in their relationships? Are both genders equally guilty of this? Are they more reluctant to accept things and people as they are? (Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, etc. notwithstanding). Do we all want to be loved  unconditionally?

Obviously I am speaking from a male perspective.

There are people without ideals. Lowered expectations can get people something -- someone broke, unattractive, unhealthy, witless, abusive, mentally unstable, or with a criminal record. Or, for that matter, people who have nothing in common. Anyone can dip low enough and find something. That's not that I suggest such. What people accept as tawdry substitutes for their dreams quickly show themselves as mistakes. Do you remember the awful car that you bought because it was $200 cheaper? You had plenty of time in which to kick yourself. Remember the dead-end job that you took just to pay off some bills? Did you keep that job when you had a chance to do something else?

Some compromises are realism. Some are self-destructive.

Quote:I have my own thoughts on this issue, and I often feel that we may have come in the wrong direction since the days when dating had a more genteel approach to it. When I started in the 1970s there was still a certain amount of old-fashionedness left, as it was still customary for the man to make the date, picked the lady up wherever she lived, go out for dinner, movies, dancing, etc., and bring her back at the end of the evening. Contrary to popular belief, sex was seldom on the menu for dessert. That all began to change in the late 1970s when it became much more commonplace for the couples to meet in a public place such as restaurant or park. By the mid-1980s the AIDS scare cut the heart out of the sexual revolution and made dating more complex. But an even bigger factor was the advent of the professional yuppie class and the whole "I don't have time" syndrome which hasn't really led up much to this day. To me the only real "pro" from this trend was that dating services gained respectability and will no longer considered the last resort for losers as had been the case before. They also, however, became ridiculously expensive, sometimes costing a grand or more.

The cycle suggests that practices lost in the past may return in somewhat different forms. People don't have time for dating? When they get lonely, they just might. People will get into accidental situations in which they might start talking about going out for dates that begin with dinner at some mass-market restaurant and then go further. Then there are mutual friends who try to set people up. If one is foolish there might be semi-pornographic sites that offer sex and nothing else. I do not suggest them.

There are dating sites. Put in your demographics, and meet someone. Some even have such fantasies as interracial liaisons (as in "such-and-such ethnicity" want to meet you). OK, so maybe her English is at best rudimentary, you will tire of her favorite cuisine, she can't get accustomed to your country music or to American sports, or she will hate a cold climate. Minneapolis isn't Manila even if it is better by practically any objective measure.   If you think that foreign women will show more tolerance for your drinking, drug use, gambling, or use of pornography, then think again. In such a case it is you who has a problem to deal with. Deal with your vices before you seek female companionship.

My suggestion is to get involved in activities that have nothing to do with romance -- religious activities, civic and fraternal organizations, hobby clubs, ethnic associations (like attracts like, as a general rule)... and you might show yourself interesting, available, and desirable. If you like bowling -- bowling alleys have people of both genders. Or sign up for a course at a community college... food dating is roundabout.  

Quote:Singles dances may still be around but they are much less numerous today. What do you see ahead to be the dating customs of the future, and might we someday see a return to more genteel approaches?

Technologies and available venues will change, but core human nature doesn't. The rating-and-dating system works. It is surprising how some primitive traits in human nature operate. Dancing is a show of health. Flowers excite a sense that rarely gets excited. Financial circumstances matter greatly.

But yet the heyday of the big dance bands and ballrooms was right in the midst of the Great Depression. But this 4T you are not seeing anything even remotely similar. Could the reduction in dating and sex life tie in with the fact that most of us are not happy with the current state of the country and how we're seen around the world?

It could be. But we are also more demanding of economic circumstances than we once were. Many things that we used to think of as luxuries (like inside toilets, radios, telephones, and recorded music) are now necessities. 

The economic ruling elite is nasty. It seems to be full of people who care only about their gain, indulgence, and power and to that end they impose insecurity and poverty upon as many people as possible even despite high levels of material productivity. I keep saying that we are out of the era in which people can find happiness just by buying more stuff. It is far safer to have modest expectations in life. On the other hand -- our economic elites seem to be the swine before whom the rest of us are obliged to cast pearls. 

Consider the background of someone who got an MBA in the early 1980's, got latched onto capitalism at its most privileged rather early, and has since become part of the Master Class as an executive. He may have been the low-life who was interested only in "sex and drugs and rock-and-roll" and found out at some stage that he could get those more reliably if he had a degree in marketing or finance. He was never interested in the liberal arts, so he took snap courses in such areas as languages and literature while putting his focus on accounting and economics. He studied psychology not so much to get deeper insights on human nature as to discover the dark science of manipulation and exploitation. By ignoring the complexity of human nature he could easily reduce people to their economic roles as customers, workers, or suppliers.  So what does he do as an executive? He reduces people to objects to exploit and discard as necessary.

Hollow people ordinarily gravitate to the basest drives in nature even if they have the means to do better. The costliest whiskey replaces marijuana; he never learns to appreciate art or classical music. He falls for the siren sound of the fraudulent word luxury, and he aligns with the reactionary politics of others in his milieu. He does insist on the finest car and a wife who looks like a Playmate of the Month ™... and when she no longer looks like an object of envy, he divorces her and leaves her with a ten-year-old Mercedes-Benz and children with a divorce settlement that sticks her with a house with payments she can never meet and an empty pantry. He gets a new luxury vehicle, a new house, and above all a wife perhaps twenty years younger than the last one, trading her in as if he were trading in an automobile. (Is the inspiration for that from Harold Bloom or Christopher Lasch?)  Considering his crass treatment of subordinates and clients it is no wonder that he ends up treating his aging wife and his children who have become spoiled brats who will be chips off the old narcissistic block because they know nothing else and could never adapt to living as a small-town minister or a farmer's wife, let alone a blue-collar worker of any kind.  

Let's look at the difference in the economic character of America in the Great Depression and the last decade or so. The Great Depression practically destroyed the power of the economic elites whose profits plummeted and stayed low. Those elites wanted to get "That Man" out of office and return to the norms of the Gilded Age, but lacked the means. Those elites learned a hard lesson about the dangers of economic speculation without genuine improvements in the lives of most people. Obama may have wanted to be the next FDR and had most of the personal tools... but Obama chose to get as swift a recovery from what started as an economic meltdown as dangerous that starting in the 1929 Market Crash. So the elites got to recover first... well, if that is the only way in which to prevent the misery that was the early 1930's that would seem reasonable. The elites would then have the means of investing in the recovery through profits. Those elites would also have the means with which to buy the political process by supporting the campaigns of politicians who believe as those elites do -- that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it enriches, indulges, and empowers the elites. That is indeed a primitive way of looking at economic relations, one well befitting feudal landlords, ante-bellum planters, mobsters, and the sorts of tycoons who supported fascism in countries that became fascist monstrosities inimical to democracy and freedom. These are the sorts of people Karl Marx warned us all about -- people who endorse the very conditions that Marx deplored, and the sorts of people who put their countries at the risk of proletarian revolutions.

[beechnut79]

I just found a piece during a random search dealing with how to handle a situation where a woman is torn between two men. There was even a popular song dealing with it back in, I believe, 1977. The ratio of articles for women on how to find a good man is about 7 times greater than those dealing with the reverse, that is for men on how to find and keep a good woman. I'm sure they are out there but haven't really been looking for them even though I am someone who once had ladies' man dreams. For discussion purposes only I am enclosing the link to the article and also the song I am referring to.

https://sexyconfidence.com/how-to-choose...n-two-men/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFB1yytGLRA


Didn't find a song dealing with it, but as a bonus here is a clip from the Jerry Springer show about a man torn between two women.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mZ6qEIjhA

[beechnut79]

(03-07-2020, 10:46 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: I just found a piece during a random search dealing with how to handle a situation where a woman is torn between two men. There was even a popular song dealing with it back in, I believe, 1977.  The ratio of articles for women on how to find a good man is about 7 times greater than those dealing with the reverse, that is for men on how to find and keep a good woman.  I'm sure they are out there but haven't really been looking for them even though I am someone who once had ladies' man dreams.  For discussion purposes only I am enclosing the link to the article and also the song I am referring to.

https://sexyconfidence.com/how-to-choose...n-two-men/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFB1yytGLRA


Didn't find a song dealing with it, but as a bonus here is a clip from the Jerry Springer show about a man torn between two women.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mZ6qEIjhA

The song I was referencing is here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFB1yytGLRA

This one no doubt qualifies as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa4MqpN-A2k

[beechnut79]

(09-26-2020, 10:54 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-07-2020, 10:46 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: I just found a piece during a random search dealing with how to handle a situation where a woman is torn between two men. There was even a popular song dealing with it back in, I believe, 1977.  The ratio of articles for women on how to find a good man is about 7 times greater than those dealing with the reverse, that is for men on how to find and keep a good woman.  I'm sure they are out there but haven't really been looking for them even though I am someone who once had ladies' man dreams.  For discussion purposes only I am enclosing the link to the article and also the song I am referring to.

https://sexyconfidence.com/how-to-choose...n-two-men/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFB1yytGLRA


Didn't find a song dealing with it, but as a bonus here is a clip from the Jerry Springer show about a man torn between two women.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mZ6qEIjhA

The song I was referencing is here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFB1yytGLRA

This one no doubt qualifies as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa4MqpN-A2k

Wish to resurrect this thread as it just seems as if dating in the present time is vastly different from the way it was when I was in my formative years. Even among married couples there seems to be less intimacy despite the often forced confinement due to the current pandemic.  But even long before then the fun loving, let your hair down, dance the night away single women seems to have landed on the endangered species list. Wonder whatever happened to them all? Anybody think we'll see a return once pandemic restrictions lift?

[pbrower2a]

The COVID-19 plague makes one of the usual means of dating -- bar-hopping -- much more dangerous than it used to be. Bars are super-spreader locations, which explains why states that did close businesses closed those in the first paragraph and have been slow to re-open them.

The sex drive is real and basic, and little so stupefies people as does the sex drive. It is so basic that evolution has dictated that animals will risk their lives to procreate. I think of the frogs that give mating calls even if those mating calls have a high likelihood of attracting a predator upon frogs. OK, so we humans are smarter than frogs, but it is safe to say that any failure of the sex drive is likely to put an end to a chain of spreading whatever genes one has, irrespective of whether those genes are desirable or otherwise.  People can be enticed to do some of the most unpleasant choices in life





Basically after some mind-numbing drills and a suppression of thought, the soldier in his flashy uniform will attract the girls. At one time a system such as the Second German Reich (the Hohenzollern dynasty of Kaisers Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II) needed plenty of cannon fodder to blackmail neighbors with the threat of war and plenty of cheap labor to supply the troops with weapons and food. The lyrics are mindless and superficial, so I will spare you those. 

War was sexy until it got soldiers killed in large numbers and left multitudes of cripples, widows, and orphans behind. Oh, Hans was so handsome in his German uniform -- we had you and he went off to Ypres, where he died for Deutschland and Kaiser... says his widow to her daughter Liesl. 

COVID-19 is a good parallel to AIDS for scaring people. The medical profession got very fussy very fast about used "sharps" once people got needle pricks and AIDS from tainted needles, about blood transfusions, and skin grafts. But do the crude calculus of the sex drive, and human instinct is much like that of frogs who call for mates even if a hungry bat can swoop down on an amorous  frog calling for a mate. If it does not make the call, then it never gets the mate. Then as now, bars were 'meat markets' for dating with a nearly-sure chance of getting a one-night stand. Say what you want, but fornicating is one way to get COVID-19 unless the contact allows people to keep from getting their faces close to each other should one or the other be infected.   

People may find other ways to date in the meantime or hold off until the menace of COVID-19 is no more. It will not disappear 'like magic' as the Great Fool in the White House told us. Not since polio will a vaccine be more welcome, and whatever team develops such a safe and effective vaccine will have Nobel prizes of medicine awaiting them. In the meantime, sex is a risky activity. It may not be coitus; it may be the kissing.

[beechnut79]

I do not follow horoscopes religiously the way some do, but there is a local magazine that comes out in my area that has what they call the daily weather for each day of the published month. Unlike a publication I used to get annually that ceased publication after 2013, this is not zodiac sign specific. Under today's date was the caption that it's time to let your hair down and have some fun. It got me thinking once again about how the fun loving, let your hair down, dance the night away single women seem to have made the list of endangered species.  This coming from one who for whatever reason never had any luck picking up women in bars. I meet the majority of my dates in other ways, such as organized singles dances (a coworker of mine actually met his wife at one of those). There was also a radio station that had a dating service at the time, as well as low budget dating services. Being within reasonable distance of the Chicago lakefront beaches, that was a common second home for me during the season whenever I had time off.  

The bloom seemed to begin coming off the nightlife as well as beach going rose circa mid-1980s when AIDS effectively killed off the sexual revolution. By the end of that decade there had been a significant decline in nightlife venues and activity as what was known as a cocooning movement took the helm. Baby boomers ending up becoming what so many had once ridiculed, couch potatoes. These were the same folks who had pretty much craved their nights on the town, and staying in on a weekend night was akin to blasphemy. Often the party started as early as Wednesday even though most folks still had two full workdays ahead of them at that point.

It might be easy to lay nightlife's decline at the feet of the economy, but the fact that folks were still going to hotsy totsy restaurants with high price tags as well as concerts and theaters to me discredits that. Some restaurants have cocktails that can be as expensive as the food. So I do not buy that theory.  Once the folks who were heavy into the scene became empty nesters as their offspring moved on, I would have thought they would have changed that much overworked buzz phrase to been there, let's do it again, thinking that they would have sorely missed those days of going out and kicking up their heels. Yet that never occurred either. Not letting the sweet energy of those earlier times infuse the Spirit.

I would especially be interesting in getting our resident astrologer's take on all this.

Previous post mentioned decline of bar scene being related it to COVID, but it was in decline long before that hit, and this post focuses on that. When I saw that horoscope post, I began to think, just where could I go in my area if I wanted to dance the night away somewhere and couldn't really think of any place. And I am situated in the country's third largest market. Sometimes I think there are actually a greater proportion of live music venues and such in some of your lower populated areas for whatever reason. Am also amazed how few people seem to miss those freer, more swinging times I came of age in, and often feel like I am just about the lone wolf.  I am definitely not a lover of the world we currently live in, especially the political correctness fervor.

An interest sideline of all this is that it was in the midst of disco fever that Jimmy Carter gave his legendary Crisis of Confidence aka Malaise speech which hastened his departure from the political landscape. When the 40th anniversary arrived two years ago I challenged folks on the forum to craft a malaise speech for the current time. Even prior to COVID we had a societal malaise much more acute than what occurred at that time.

So, do any of you think we were ever see a time like that again?

[pbrower2a]

(09-11-2021, 01:06 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: I do not follow horoscopes religiously the way some do, but there is a local magazine that comes out in my area that has what they call the daily weather for each day of the published month. Unlike a publication I used to get annually that ceased publication after 2013, this is not zodiac sign specific. Under today's date was the caption that it's time to let your hair down and have some fun. It got me thinking once again about how the fun loving, let your hair down, dance the night away single women seem to have made the list of endangered species.  This coming from one who for whatever reason never had any luck picking up women in bars. I meet the majority of my dates in other ways, such as organized singles dances (a coworker of mine actually met his wife at one of those). There was also a radio station that had a dating service at the time, as well as low budget dating services. Being within reasonable distance of the Chicago lakefront beaches, that was a common second home for me during the season whenever I had time off.

Quote:Much of what is offered as popular astrology is banal advice... "Today is a good day to salt some money away" or " it's a good day for a shrewd purchase". Boring! 

Quote:The bloom seemed to begin coming off the nightlife as well as beach going rose circa mid-1980s when AIDS effectively killed off the sexual revolution. By the end of that decade there had been a significant decline in nightlife venues and activity as what was known as a cocooning movement took the helm. Baby boomers ending up becoming what so many had once ridiculed, couch potatoes. These were the same folks who had pretty much craved their nights on the town, and staying in on a weekend night was akin to blasphemy. Often the party started as early as Wednesday even though most folks still had two full workdays ahead of them at that point.

End of the awakening... the party is over, at least as Boomers understood it. Generation X redefined what a party was and even introduced the word "party" as a verb. The style was different, with different music. It was awkward for late-wave Boomers, as I can attest. As real wages stagnated, people gave up on going out for a night on the town. Cable TV was cheap even by the standards of the day, and if one could not throw a party one could at least have "party" foods like beer and chips. 

Quote:It might be easy to lay nightlife's decline at the feet of the economy, but the fact that folks were still going to hotsy totsy restaurants with high price tags as well as concerts and theaters to me discredits that. Some restaurants have cocktails that can be as expensive as the food. So I do not buy that theory.  Once the folks who were heavy into the scene became empty nesters as their offspring moved on, I would have thought they would have changed that much overworked buzz phrase to been there, let's do it again, thinking that they would have sorely missed those days of going out and kicking up their heels. Yet that never occurred either. Not letting the sweet energy of those earlier times infuse the Spirit.

The people who either had money or pretended to have it -- or were still living with their parents and maintaining teenage patterns of spending could do that. For young adults in the 1980's, life was holding onto a hideous job that one saw as at most a stop-gap and often became a career by default, a time in which one took two cr@ppy jobs to make ends meet, and in which people in retail and food-service businesses lived under the order to suffer with a smile. I've known that all too well. I hated life when I thought too much. It's hardly surprising that fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity made a comeback... "pie in the sky when you die, but only if you comply". Suffer, but always make sure to express your undying love for the Master Class and neoliberal social order... and the sweatshop for which you toil. ARRRRGH!

Quote:Previous post mentioned decline of bar scene being related it to COVID, but it was in decline long before that hit, and this post focuses on that. When I saw that horoscope post, I began to think, just where could I go in my area if I wanted to dance the night away somewhere and couldn't really think of any place. And I am situated in the country's third largest market. Sometimes I think there are actually a greater proportion of live music venues and such in some of your lower populated areas for whatever reason. Am also amazed how few people seem to miss those freer, more swinging times I came of age in, and often feel like I am just about the lone wolf.  I am definitely not a lover of the world we currently live in, especially the political correctness fervor.

Parallel in many ways. Getting sick from a respiratory disease that supposedly no longer happens in advanced industrial countries or getting sick from a venereal disease that actually kills and has no cure? They are not the same  diseases, but the social effects are parallel. 

Quote:An interest sideline of all this is that it was in the midst of disco fever that Jimmy Carter gave his legendary Crisis of Confidence aka Malaise speech which hastened his departure from the political landscape. When the 40th anniversary arrived two years ago I challenged folks on the forum to craft a malaise speech for the current time. Even prior to COVID we had a societal malaise much more acute than what occurred at that time.

So, do any of you think we were ever see a time like that again?

Jimmy Carter was the one thing that a politician could not get away with any more: rigorously honest. Ronald Reagan was a masterful liar, a glib flim-flam man artist who got people hooked, burned them, and got them to say that it was all wonderful, Scam artists are like that, and neoliberal economics and a new harsh school of management that treated workers as livestock at best and vermin at worst took hold. Reagan was perfect for that.