What's the deal with women anyway?

[Denny]

there's one on the flute forum that has one...

[Congratulations]

On the other side of the coin...where do middle-aged single women go to meet decent, fun-loving, intelligent, liberal thinking men with a wide range of interests? Not having access to Owen's bar, I can tell you it's a desert out here (literally and figuratively). It's been so long since I was asked "what's your sign?" I can't recall if I'm a "Leo" or just "Help Wanted."

Yeah, I know that feeling. Try being a mildly-overweight, conservatively-dressed gay man in Charleston, SC. I have dozens of girlfriends, but the few guys out there won't even talk to me.

And really, so far, I've not found a single available guy who interests me. They're all so caught up in some sense of "community" that they have no idea who they are as an individual. Meh.

[gonzo914]

Hey. What happened to the Mexicans?

[Jack]

Hey. What happened to the Mexicans?

I deleted it because it seemed a little bit xenophobic when it was only supposed to be a joke, since not everybody would know my boyfriend used to be a Mexican.

[Denny]

so...what is he now?

[Jack]

so...what is he now?

Gone.

[Charlene]

Some people do have luck on the Internet dating sites. Our friend WS met a woman through an on-line dating service. She lived in British Columbia, so they e-mailed a bit then finally met. Things went well and after almost a year he proposed. They've been married for 3 years now. This is her third marriage, his first (he was almost 60 when they got married.) She has kids, one of whom lives with her. Her daughter doesn't really like WS. She and her daughter own a house and the daughter lives downstairs with her kids.

The odd thing is, since he doesn't want to give up his US citizenship, and she doesn't want to give up her Canadian citizenship, they don't actually live together. Seems a person has to live at least 6 months out of the year in their own country or they loose citizenship, at least the way I remember him telling us. So he has an apartment here and lives here alone most of the time, and she has the house with her daughter and lives in BC most of the time, and they meet every so often and travel. They haven't actually had any time together to see how they handle the clogged toilets, or the sidewalk that needs to be shoveled, or the garbage that needs to be taken out, or the top that needs to be put back on the toothpaste, or any of the day-to-day irritations that crop up. When they start getting on one another's nerves they go home.

I met my husband at his bookstore.

Before that, I had dated a few guys I met at contra dances, but those all fizzled out real fast.

At my age, if anything were to happen to my husband, I don't think I'd even bother trying to find anyone else. I think I'd just enjoy having all the closet space instead of only about 1/4 of it, and having the whole bed to myself, and not having to buy both butter AND margarine; Jif AND Skippy (peanut butter), etc. But I wouldn't like mowing the lawn, or getting stuff down from the rafters in the garage, or getting stuff up out of the storage space under the house.

Anyway, I hope you find someone who will actually follow through when you set up a date. Good luck.

[Wombat]

Going back to the OP, I think it's not really possible to diagnose what's going on from the description given. Obviously her answer is no, but I can't tell the reason without hearing her side and perhaps without viewing the exchanges. I do think that people have been a little hard on the girl.

That she flirted with you is no reason to expect real interest. Good bar staff are brilliant at making the punters think they are having a real personal exchange when in fact they are simply talking to a professional sympathiser and listener. Good bar staff sense what the punter wants and make him feel good. If they want to take it further and really get to know you, you'll know after 6 months, not after a couple of flirty exchanges.

Bar staff have to deal with a large number of people. When they meet you, they don't know whether you are the potential love of their life or the axe murderer. How could they? But they have to make you feel welcome; that's their job.

For most people, men and women, the biggest turnoff is intensity and anxiety. How many of us have had the experience from time to time of finding that the people we desparately want relationships with want to be just friends, at best, while the people we just want to be friends with make us feel awkward as they pursue us anxiously? Intense and anxious people can't take a hint. Intense people sometimes don't take no for an answer or waste hours arguing before they do. Gee, there are stalkers out there. Intense and anxious people are hard to dump if things don't work out. Put simply, you don't even want to be put in the position of having to say no. Finally, anxious people don't come across as sexy.

Before you go chasing bar staff, take all of the above seriously, I think. It's their job to make you feel welcome in the way you want to feel welcome. But it's just a job and when they clock off, any personal relationship you thought you had with them is over. After many months, the boundaries can blur. But not in a couple of meetings.

[MagicSailor]

Hi all

Just back from visiting an Australian family on their yacht and off to bed in a minute, but before I go, I have to thank you all for all the positive comments.

BTW, I reckon I do know how to groom myself, nosehairs included. I actually reckon I don't look half bad, but it apparently it takes a bit more than that.

And, I sent her an SMS last night which was as polite as I could be, but didn't leave much doubt about whether I'd ever ask again.

Perhaps it's your choice of fishin' hole

I don't normally go "fishing" at bars or even go to bars much. Come to think of it, this is actually the first time since I was 21 and working as a DJ that I've attempted to "pick up" a woman at a bar. I had more success back then, but the girls seemed to get a bit disappointed when they discovered that I was just a regular guy when I got off work.

I go to the yacht club bar a couple of times a week with my friends because that's the two nights a friend of ours (guitarist/singer) plays there and because I make my living fixing stuff on boats, so I need to be out and about where cruisers meet. Cruisers are transient in nature, so they rarely have other places to meet. Most socializing is at bars or on each other's boats. Back in Norway I rarely went to a bar as often as twice a year.

Women really aren't all that difficult to understand (no matter what you boys think)

You're right of course. The problem is simply that us boys are too damned dumb to understand them...

I think that an internet personals ad is a good way to find a mate.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I find that most of the people there are people who like the fantasy, but are not willing to take a chance on the reality. I also find that the ads often include words like "God fearing" etc. I have no problem respecting someone else's religion whether it's a friend or a girlfriend/wife, but it get's a bit much for me when the other person's religion becomes a "job requirement".

I did meet my last girlfriend online. She came sailing with me last November from Trinidad to the Tobago Keys and back, and we had a great time. Then she went back to Norway to tie up loose ends (like quitting her job) and was going to come back out and join me for increasingly longer periods. Then she felt lonely (back in Norway) and had a one night stand with someone so that was the end of that. Funny thing is she was the one always accusing me of screwing around, but I never did.

Online dating from my present location means the best I can hope for is a long distance relationship, or as in this case spending several months of my life waiting and being faithful to someone I end up never seeing again. I did get in contact with a local girl here in St Maarten through online dating, but she stood me up... twice. Funny thing is there was an e-mail from her this morning after I haven't heard from her for a couple of months.

And following Ben Franklin's advice in Poor Richard's Almanac, "If first you don't succeed, try, try again.".

Then quit, there's no use being a damned fool about it...

BTW - If you're just looking for a fling, you are getting just what you are investing in. Nothing.

Probably nobody is going to believe a guy saying this, but I've actually never been interested in flings, not even when I was a teenager. The few times I've had a one night stand was when the woman approached me. I generally find they are a waste of time and just leave me emotionally drained. If it was good, I want her to stay and feel bad when she leaves, if it wasn't good, it wasn't worth doing in the first place.

Being told no is a hit to the ego, but being stood up is worse, and it wastes your time.

It's not even on the same planet. Being told "no" simply means the attraction is not mutual and there would be no point. It will sting a little, but I'll bounce back. (Or it could be a "not yet", which is OK too). Being told "yes" and then stood up means she regards me in the same way as she would regard something she stepped in on the sidewalk.

Personally, I never have and never would stand someone up, just because I had second thoughts or didn't really want the date in the first place.

If the man was half civilized, there would be no reason to. Simply turn up, spend a relaxed evening enjoying friendly conversation with someone who obviously likes you and make sure in a friendly way that he (or she) understands that friendship is all that is on the cards. If it is clear that the other person was hoping for more, then apologise for leading him or her on even if you didn't mean to do that. How hard can that be?

If this particular girl had done that, I would of course have been a little disappointed, but I would have felt a heck of a lot better about the evening than I did last nigh. Contrary to popular belief, most men do not expect a date (and certainly not the first one) to end up in bed.

Mexicans

What a relief it was only a joke, Cran. I deleted the quote, but will leave my comment.
I broke up with a girl in Cape Verde (Islands off the west coast of Africa) a couple of years ago because she didn't show any interest in learning each other's languages. I speak a little Portuguese, but needed to learn a whole lot more and she spoke very little English. (Since I have no intention of living in Norway again, I thought it would be more useful to teach her English than Norwegian.)

I couldn't see much future in it if she didn't want to learn to communicate with me. By the way, this was one of the ongoing problems I had with my last (Norwegian) girlfriend. She reckoned I'd been to Africa on some sort of sex holiday taking advantage of poor young women... I didn't go there looking for women at all, I simply stopped because it's on the logical sailing route across the Atlantic from the Canaries (go south to find wind) and ended up staying longer than I had intended.

Oh, and someone mentioned going to church. I'm an agnostic with atheist leanings, so that would simply be hypocritical. I know of a cruiser who would routinely go to church for the purpose of "fishing" whenever he got to a new location and he apparently had a good success rate, but I have this damned "honest streak" that keeps messing up my life.

Regards,

Owen Morgan

Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten

My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)

[anniemcu]

Well, sailorguy, it sounds to me like she's missed out. Good luck on finding someone worthy of the investment... they are out there, and it's worth it when you do find them.

[avanutria]

Some people do have luck on the Internet dating sites.

Internet pennywhistle sites worked for me. I think the trick was not looking.

The odd thing is, since he doesn't want to give up his US citizenship, and she doesn't want to give up her Canadian citizenship, they don't actually live together. Seems a person has to live at least 6 months out of the year in their own country or they lose citizenship, at least the way I remember him telling us.

Not quite, at least for American citizenship. You can't "lose" your US citizenship except by going to a US embassy and formally renouncing it. (I think if you fight in an army against the US you might lose it, but getting rid of US citizenship is actually very difficult to do.) The US recognises dual citizenship and you can live overseas and even become a citizen of another country without it affecting your US citizenship. Though I don't know what would happen if someone tried to become a citizen of Cuba or Iraq or something.

I think there's some kind of 6-month rule for Canadian citizenship, or possibly residency; I had a friend in Seattle who was Canadian and described having to make sure his kids stayed in Canada for at least 6 months and one day of the year.

[chrisoff]

Over here if you spend less than 6 months of the year in the UK you pay hardly any tax. Maybe there's some kind of tax reason to stay in the US or Canada for 6 months.

[avanutria]

I get to keep paying US tax no matter where I live, unless I give up citizenship - and if they think I'm giving it up to evade taxes they can still tax me for ten years or something. The US is one of the few countries that tax non-residents.

[MagicSailor]

Hi

Over here if you spend less than 6 months of the year in the UK you pay hardly any tax. Maybe there's some kind of tax reason to stay in the US or Canada for 6 months.

In Norway you loose your right to free medical care if you leave for too long. I don't think you can loose your citizenship anywhere by staying out of the country. I'm a British citizen and have never lived in Britain.

However, if you're a newly newtralized citizen somewhere, they tend to expect you to stick around for a while. A cruising couple I know are Australian / Philippino and will have to stop in Australia for several years if she is going to get Australian citizenship. Their main reason for wanting it is all the extra hassle they get because of her nationality when travelling.

Owen
(PS. Posting from work which is why the bits down here are missing)

[mutepointe]

well, now that you filled in some more of the detail, i have a different view of you. i figured you for a trust fund baby who was wasting a life away in the lap of luxury. and you no longer look like the former owner of a place i worked who did live in bars while looking for his 4th wife. he was sure good as growing nose hair.

and that is just another one of the downsides of being agnostic/atheist. you folks should consider joining a church as a social member, just for the fringe benefits.