Online dating

KERSPLAT!

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

There is no set time and I'm sure it varies greatly depending on the couple or couple to be but for me it wouldn't be something for the early stages of a relationship

Oh it is very individual of course. I would want to know because it would be really hard to connect with someone great only to find out later that he didn't want children.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Just cause he wants kids doesn't mean he'll be a good father. You won't know that before you meet. Ditto if you're male.
She might tell you she wants kids, then be the worlds craziest most unstable woman when you get to know her.

BlondeMoment

BlondeMoment wrote: »

What age ranges does everyone have in terms of profiles that show up for them?

Im 27 and have age preference of 26 to 34-35. I dont like men younger than me so 26 is pushing it!

Similar to the height preferences, do people dismiss possible conquests based on their age?

I'm 34 and my range changes around a bit. At the minute my maximum is 46 and I think my minimum is 29.

tomwaterford

Superhero1993 wrote: »

Im very mature for my age but older women (even only slightly older) won't go for a 22 year old which is kinda ****.

If your only 22....I'd say wanting to have kids would be a little off putting to wans your own age?

Want average 22 year old is planning that on the agenda for.... (Not meaning to have pop at you...nothing wrong per se with it.)

Superhero1993

tomwaterford wrote: »

If your only 22....I'd say wanting to have kids would be a little off putting to wans your own age?

Want average 22 year old is planning that on the agenda for.... (Not meaning to have pop at you...nothing wrong per se with it.)

No I know but like i've had 24 year olds say that I was too young for them. Like imo not many women in their twenties are looking for kids.

Mister Vain

tomwaterford wrote: »

Want average 22 year old is planning that on the agenda for....

An Eastern European perhaps? I've noticed the Polish for example settle down a lot younger than the Irish.

Witchie

armaghlad wrote: »

Ah now don't say that I've been on a few dates with Farney women in my time... they don't call me the border fox for nothing

How did you know I wasn't from the Wee County or over the road in Tyrone or Down? Smart guy!

BlondeMoment

Superhero1993 wrote: »

Im very mature for my age but older women (even only slightly older) won't go for a 22 year old which is kinda ****.

I have been with younger men in the past but almost all have been very immature. So I tend to avoid them now. Maybe the fact they've all been immature says more about me and the men I attract/go for than it does about them!

armaghlad wrote: »

I've been as low as 18 and as high as 38 though I'd maybe go a bit older (im 28)... Age doesn't bother me in that sense, if ya get on with each other what odds it's only a number.

This is true, if two people are on the same wavelength then it shouldnt matter what age they are.

PandaX9

to Lyaiera, I suppose at least the gentleman in question was transparent about his desire to have sex with you. It once happened to a friend of mine that he didn't even ask "shall I book a room?", he just went ahead and did! It made for an awful night for her when he kicked off when she made a move to call the taxi. He was genuinely shocked that she wouldn't be joining him and that she had the audacity to "let the room go to waste" :rolleyes:

Regarding age limits, my Tinder preferences are set to 22-28. I'm 21. Oldest man I've ever dated was 27 and we were at completely different stages of our lives. In general my rule of thumb is, don't try and get into a serious relationship with anyone who is older than my older brother who is 26 (would imagine that bringing the boyf home to my parents and brother would be awkward should that happen) but as you can see from my tinder, I don't rule it out :pac:.

Regarding kids, I absolutely know that I want children. But then again I also want to be married/in a stable relationship with the love of my life and pregnant ideally around 27 for that to happen due to cultural upbringing... But realistically the chances of that happening with an Irish bloke who will be the same age as me are slim !

Mister Vain

PandaX9 wrote: »

to Lyaiera, I suppose at least the gentleman in question was transparent about his desire to have sex with you. It once happened to a friend of mine that he didn't even ask "shall I book a room?", he just went ahead and did! It made for an awful night for her when he kicked off when she made a move to call the taxi. He was genuinely shocked that she wouldn't be joining him and that she had the audacity to "let the room go to waste" :rolleyes:

Regarding age limits, my Tinder preferences are set to 22-28. I'm 21. Oldest man I've ever dated was 27 and we were at completely different stages of our lives. In general my rule of thumb is, don't try and get into a serious relationship with anyone who is older than my older brother who is 26 (would imagine that bringing the boyf home to my parents and brother would be awkward should that happen) but as you can see from my tinder, I don't rule it out :pac:.

Regarding kids, I absolutely know that I want children. But then again I also want to be married/in a stable relationship with the love of my life and pregnant ideally around 27 for that to happen due to cultural upbringing... But realistically the chances of that happening with an Irish bloke who will be the same age as me are slim !

Yeah this can be an issue in your 20's alright. I was crazy about a girl who was 10 years younger than me. She was fresh out of college and wanted to explore and live abroad. I've done all that and am settled now in a steady job. It just wasn't working. She's now living in America.

Witchie

I am now 42 and will consider 36-47 really. I have always preferred younger men though so it is killing me that for me the younger men are now almost 40!

Last year I fell hard for a guy who was 29, he ended up being a total dick and absolutely smashing my heart so now I am trying to avoid the younger player types. I have had fun with guys quite a bit younger than me but for a relationship I suppose I need them to be in their late 30s now.

Dammit.

I don't think age is that big a deal but very few guys in their 20s up to mid 30s are in a place in their life where they know they don't want kids, are willing to take a career break and come travelling or are basically on the same timeline as me. For that I probably need to look at even older guys but am a big child at heart so not sure could deal with an older man.

Ach feck it all. Am away to get ready to go to a small room full of young lads and lassies getting all sweaty and drunk. Don't worry, nothing perverse about it, just going to watch my son's band play! School kids are defo off the agenda!

armaghlad

Witchie wrote: »

How did you know I wasn't from the Wee County or over the road in Tyrone or Down? Smart guy!

You Farney weemen have a bit of class about yas, unlike that lot from Tyrone/Down! And Louth is just an extension to Armagh, everyone knows that

Edit: plus I'm near sure you said you were from Monaghan :pac:

PandaX9

Mister Vain wrote: »

An Eastern European perhaps? I've noticed the Polish for example settle down a lot younger than the Irish.

You hit the nail on the head. cultural differences come massively into play when it comes to settling down. Growing up I thought I would be married and have a child by 25. Now I'm just praying circumstances allow it to happen before 30 if at all.. In theory. Because the truth is not something I think about often. In fact, my last boyfriend told me he couldn't wait for us to get married and have children and so I was like "oh haha yeah won't life be mad in five years or so..." And he was genuinely shocked.

When it happens, it happens. Like in my last post I said "hopefully by 28!" but the reality is there is no point forcing these things and racing to get them done by some arbitrary timer eg by a certain age if the more important factors (to me) such as financials stability, good relationship with prospective father, overall happiness with life and health haven't been established.

For now I am happy to Tinder away. Someone mentioned plenty of fish, what is that like? It seems a bit.. Formal to me. I've been thinking of signing up though. How do people find the quality of interactions they have there? How does it work by comparison to tinder?

Witchie

armaghlad wrote: »

You Farney weemen have a bit of class about yas, unlike that lot from Tyrone/Down! And Louth is just an extension to Armagh, everyone knows that

Edit: plus I'm near sure you said you were from Monaghan :pac:

STALKER!!!!!!

Oi and behave about Tyrone women....me mammy is one!

Superhero1993

PandaX9 wrote: »

to Lyaiera, I suppose at least the gentleman in question was transparent about his desire to have sex with you. It once happened to a friend of mine that he didn't even ask "shall I book a room?", he just went ahead and did! It made for an awful night for her when he kicked off when she made a move to call the taxi. He was genuinely shocked that she wouldn't be joining him and that she had the audacity to "let the room go to waste" :rolleyes:

Regarding age limits, my Tinder preferences are set to 22-28. I'm 21. Oldest man I've ever dated was 27 and we were at completely different stages of our lives. In general my rule of thumb is, don't try and get into a serious relationship with anyone who is older than my older brother who is 26 (would imagine that bringing the boyf home to my parents and brother would be awkward should that happen) but as you can see from my tinder, I don't rule it out :pac:.

Regarding kids, I absolutely know that I want children. But then again I also want to be married/in a stable relationship with the love of my life and pregnant ideally around 27 for that to happen due to cultural upbringing... But realistically the chances of that happening with an Irish bloke who will be the same age as me are slim !

Hang on

tomwaterford

PandaX9 wrote: »

You hit the nail on the head. cultural differences come massively into play when it comes to settling down. Growing up I thought I would be married and have a child by 25. Now I'm just praying circumstances allow it to happen before 30 if at all.. In theory. Because the truth is not something I think about often. In fact, my last boyfriend told me he couldn't wait for us to get married and have children and so I was like "oh haha yeah won't life be mad in five years or so..." And he was genuinely shocked.

When it happens, it happens. Like in my last post I said "hopefully by 28!" but the reality is there is no point forcing these things and racing to get them done by some arbitrary timer eg by a certain age if the more important factors (to me) such as financials stability, good relationship with prospective father, overall happiness with life and health haven't been established.

For now I am happy to Tinder away. Someone mentioned plenty of fish, what is that like? It seems a bit.. Formal to me. I've been thinking of signing up though. How do people find the quality of interactions they have there? How does it work by comparison to tinder?

Why the rush??

Mister Vain

PandaX9 wrote: »

You hit the nail on the head. cultural differences come massively into play when it comes to settling down. Growing up I thought I would be married and have a child by 25. Now I'm just praying circumstances allow it to happen before 30 if at all.. In theory. Because the truth is not something I think about often. In fact, my last boyfriend told me he couldn't wait for us to get married and have children and so I was like "oh haha yeah won't life be mad in five years or so..." And he was genuinely shocked.

When it happens, it happens. Like in my last post I said "hopefully by 28!" but the reality is there is no point forcing these things and racing to get them done by some arbitrary timer eg by a certain age if the more important factors (to me) such as financials stability, good relationship with prospective father, overall happiness with life and health haven't been established.

For now I am happy to Tinder away. Someone mentioned plenty of fish, what is that like? It seems a bit.. Formal to me. I've been thinking of signing up though. How do people find the quality of interactions they have there? How does it work by comparison to tinder?

Yeah I've dated a couple of Polish girls. In some ways its better. I find you can express an interest in them early without coming across too froward. They tend to be very direct with their feelings which I like. There's no mind games. But they do have very old fashioned gender roles.

I've used POF for a few years. It's mostly shyte but then its no worse than the other sites I've tried. I met one lovely girl on it but it didn't go any further than the first date.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

God, putting a timeline on yourself seems like an awful amount of pressure. Your 20s are supposed to be fun. My biggest concerns for most of my 20s was not accidently roofie-ing myself on a night out, or waking up after booking flights to a forgien country drunk to bang an ex.
I guess whatever makes you happy but that just seems like crazy pressure to put on you and a potential boyfriend.

PandaX9

tomwaterford wrote: »

Why the rush??

Boils down to different gender roles in society and life expectations really. from what I've been told, back all the way to the early 2000's people didn't really date in Eastern European countries. Premarital sex wasn't really a thing. Because got married, to have sex. The majority of weddings there are not a huge circus, usually just a ceremony in a registry office then maybe a gathering of friends and family afterwards. Even now, most couples tend to get married and start having kids by around 25. Culturally, there's no real focus on "career, first" then children - people just try to build a career and build a family and home simultaneously. I quite like it. Also most of these people don't have as great opportunities to travel and in general resources are limited by comparison to Irish standards. In Ireland I think there is a huge emphasis on travelling and "seeing the world" and getting "life experience" before settling down. There are a number of factors at play. Another big thing is while the incidences of marriages are higher, that doesn't mean they last. It takes at most one month to get married and only three months to process a divorce. I can't tell you how many single, divorced mums aged 22-30 I know! Obviously these are my own observations.

For me personally, there's no rush to get married and have children for the sake of it (I know many people who do is). I would only want to marry the love of my life because 1) romance and 2) divorces take a scary amount of time and financial resources to go through in Ireland :pac:.

I am content with dating. I think we all want to find that special someone at one point or other in our lives, for now I'm happy to just meet interesting people and see where it goes from there.

Mister Vain

I never put a timeline on myself but I did reach a point in my late 20's where I was like, "Woah I'm almost 30 and I've never been in a serious relationship. I gotta do something about this." I really put myself out there, started going to loads of bars and clubs and just doing a lot of shyte that I didn't enjoy. I found the more I tried the more depressing it got. Eventually I said, "feck this, I'm just gonna do the things I enjoy doing."

Superhero1993

PandaX9 wrote: »

Boils down to different gender roles in society really. from what I've been told, back all the way to the early 2000's people didn't really date in Eastern European. Premarital sex wasn't really a thing. Because got married, to have sex. The majority of weddings there are not a huge circus, usually just a ceremony in a registry office then maybe a gathering of friends and family afterwards. Even now, most couples tend to get married and start having kids by around 25. Culturally, there's no real focus on "career, first" then children - people just try to build a career and build a family and home simultaneously. I quite like it. Also most of these people don't have as great opportunities to travel and in general resources are limited by comparison to Irish standards. There are a number of factors at play. Another big thing is while the incidences of marriages are higher, that doesn't mean they last. It takes at most one month to get married and only three months to process a divorce. I can't tell you how many single, divorced mums aged 22-30 I know!

For me personally, there's no rush to get married and have children for the sake of it (I know many people who do is). I would only want to marry the love of my life because 1) romance and 2) divorces take a scary amount of time and financial resources to go through in Ireland :pac:.

I am content with dating. I think we all want to find that special someone at one point or other in our lives, for now I'm happy to just meet interesting people and see where it goes from there.

A friend of mine knows a 22 year old and she was looking for a guy to basically be her baby daddy just so she could have a child. Maddness imo, thankfully she was put off the idea.

Timelines are pressure inducing. If I had one then I would probably be in a state of desperation and fear of being forever alone. It will happen when it happens. That's what I tell myself. I just try to be easygoing about the whole thing and so far that's working.

tomwaterford

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Timelines are pressure inducing. If I had one then I would probably be in a state of desperation and fear of being forever alone. It will happen when it happens. That's what I tell myself. I just try to be easygoing about the whole thing and so far that's working.

At the end of the day....it's not really the end of world if it doesn't happen


Life's too short to be stressing it over it

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

That's all you can do though, whether you're single or in a relationship. I think if you're very unhappy single you'll be still unhappy in a relationship. God I can't tell you the amount of times I wish I was single. It could be because he hid the apple pie so he didn't have to share, or because I'm sick and he's getting on my nerves, or because he'll have the worst day in work, come home and shout at me and make me cry. I still need time by myself, time with my friends, nights out without him, weekends away without him. Although I love him very very much, it's hard work and being in a relationship doesn't fix any life problems.

It's good there to have support, someone in your corner, someone to give you a kiss when you're burning up with a temp and look like mr poo from South Park, but it's also so good to have nobody to answer to or consider in decisions, not knowing who or what's around the corner.

I guess, if you unscramble that mess of a post (I need feeding apologises) I'm basically saying it's good to have someone but not worth being miserable trying to find and abide a strict timeline. There's good and bad to both statues and a life to live while you're waiting.

Superhero1993

Deleted User wrote: »

Timelines are pressure inducing. If I had one then I would probably be in a state of desperation and fear of being forever alone. It will happen when it happens. That's what I tell myself. I just try to be easygoing about the whole thing and so far that's working.

Well you seem too lovely to be single for long

tomwaterford

tomwaterford wrote: »

At the end of the day....it's not really the end of world if it doesn't happen


Life's too short to be stressing it over it

The most important thing I have learnt from dating and being in relationships is to not put your life on hold and allow yourself to become consumed either by another person or in searching for that person

PandaX9

LexieOnRale wrote: »

God, putting a timeline on yourself seems like an awful amount of pressure. Your 20s are supposed to be fun. My biggest concerns for most of my 20s was not accidently roofie-ing myself on a night out, or waking up after booking flights to a forgien country drunk to bang an ex.
I guess whatever makes you happy but that just seems like crazy pressure to put on you and a potential boyfriend.

I don't really live my life by this code, I just used it as an example of what I would like to think my future will be like. However I know that is not a very realistic or likely thing to happen and in no way is it a goal. It's more a "what if..". Though there definitely is some pressure from members of my family, luckily none from my immediate family as they ultimately want my happiness and health.

Though I do have an irrational fear of getting reverse cold feet and caving one day and as you say, flying to a different country to marry my ex. Hopefully not.

The one thing I like about online dating rather than meeting someone face to face in a club is - in a club, people approach me for my physical appearance. Online, they may swipe right based on looks but I like to think my personality draws them in at least. Certainly get a lot of messages based on my short tinder bio anyway

Karmella

Superhero1993 wrote: »

A friend of mine knows a 22 year old and she was looking for a guy to basically be her baby daddy just so she could have a child. Maddness imo, thankfully she was put off the idea.

Eek - That sounds really psycho! :-o

when I had my first child at 34 I still wasn't really sure that I wanted children! I mean obviously I wouldn't hand them back now but I had to do a lot of soul searching before agreeing to it!

I'm 40 and my dating age range is 38-49. And I'd really only consider younger guys if they were definite about not wanting children. I think someone else mentioned they wouldn't date someone older than their older brother and I'm the same I guess - my eldest brother is 48 this year.

Coincidentally the guy I've been on a couple dates with that I really like is 48.

PandaX9

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The most important thing I have learnt from dating and being in relationships is to not put your life on hold and allow yourself to become consumed either by another person or in searching for that person

For the life of me I do not understand people who change themselves to try to fit into a relationship. In my opinion, a relationship should be a union of two independent people who are perfectly content with doing their own thing but happen to enjoy each other's company and find it beneficial to their overall happiness. It should not be about losing yourself in the process of letting someone else mould you. The relationship should adapt to you, not the other way around.

I don't understand why some people are content to let go of all of their interests, friends and idiosyncrasies and general autonomy for someone else. My ex boyfriend did that in our relationship and it made him lonely, dependent and bitter. And ironically he didn't see the fact that he was the architect of his own unhappiness and thought that because I still wanted to hang on to my independence and hang out with my friends now and again, I didn't love him as much as he loved me because he wanted to spend all of his time with me. That is unhealthy and unnatural.

Superhero1993

Superhero1993 wrote: »

Well you seem too lovely to be single for long

You're a sweetheart