......is to meet a nice guy. Where are they? Is there a huge shortage of single men in their mid 30's? It seems that way.

I have been doing the online dating thing since July. It has been an adventure. Went on some dates and had some fun, but I am just not meeting the kind of guy that could be relationship material.

The holidays always make me more aware of the fact too that I am single. I hate those darn Jared and Kay jewelry commercials with the loving man giving the woman the jewelry...They are on every five minutes! Uggh!

How do you keep your chin up in the dating world and not get frustrated? Should I join more then one online dating site? I am currently on match. Any recommendations?

Men in their 30's are being tortured by adulterous wives at the moment.

It seems that the best guys all have the worst wives...

My brother is 31 and single. Sweetest guy in the world but all he does is work, work, work. He never gets out and he got fed up with the online dating thing. My guess is there are a lot more like him out there, but I have no idea how you get them to get out and have some fun.

I have some other guy friends in his/my age range who have "guy" hobbies. I race my car and play sports in local city leagues with them. I'm one of very few girls vs the plenitude of single guys who participate.. maybe time to take up a new hobby? It's a thought,

Good luck!

Enjoy life, get out and have some fun with your friends, and when the time is right maybe you'll run into the right one. I don't have a lot of faith in on line dating. Too many people have agendas.

I spend all my spare time with my birds.

If I ever get remarried, that woman will have to love my birds as much as I do.

WXH gave me a fabulous piece of jewelry in Sept of 08....within a few months he was in an affair...was probably already an EA when he gave me the jewelry....so those commercials don't give me good feelings...


I believe in two pieces of advice in dating....make yourself into the kind of woman that will attract the kind of man you want (I mean a REAL make-over if you need it...or improvement if you don't) and then go to the places where those men are.

Do you have a list of qualities you want in a man? It helps.

Be careful not to judge too quickly on whether or not some guy might not be "relationship" material. I'm not saying lower your standards or "settle" for less, but I think sometimes women are unrealistic in their expectations. For that matter maybe some of us guys are the same way. I've felt like my standards can be a bit too high sometimes. It's funny because now that I say that and think about it the woman I'm dating now is actually NOTHING like what I expected to see myself with...ever.

Sometimes you have to NOT be looking for love or a relationship and let it find you by accident. Seems the harder we look...the harder we criticize and find reasons NOT to be with someone instead of seeing all the reasons we SHOULD be with them. Maybe some of our divorces (mine included) wouldn't have happened if we'd been doing that all along.

My standards, apparently, have not been high enough! I raised the bar and don't care if it's ever met or not!

This sounds disingenuous (did I spell that right?) coming from me since I DID find someone relatively quickly...but I DO believe that being alone is better than being with the wrong person. If I had not had a child with my X and 26 years worth of property division I could have moved on very quickly. I was glad to be rid of him. Being alone was peaches compared to being with him.

SW,
I couldn't agree with you more! I don't mind being alone, I'm happy, there are times it'd be nice to have someone, but I've pretty much given up on that idea and adjusted to the idea of staying alone. I'll wait on God and He can either supply me the right person in His time, or I'll keep on keeping on like I am.

Thank you everyone for your responses.

I have spent the last 2 years really trying to focus on me and my kids. I have gotten back into shape, lost weight, revamped the wardrobe, gone back to church, made new friends, etc.... This past summer I finally felt like I was ready for the dating world. I have had fun on most of my dates and the last guy even told me I looked about 27 when I am 36. That was a nice compliment. So I am definately trying to improve me first and hope that mr right falls into place. I decided to do the online thing because being a full time parent doesn't allow for much time to go out and just happen to meet someone. I am just not finding it very successful. I guess patience should be my next thing I need to work on...lol

lol....

They haven't been betrayed by their unfaithful wives yet. Or they don't know their wives are cheating on them yet. Give it time. With 2/3rds of all divorces being filed by women, and few of them according to Dr Harley are divorcing unfaithful, addicted and/or abusive men, the right guy will soon be available. He's simply not aware he's about to be returned to the husband store by an unfaithful wife.

Perhaps had you not had an affair, you wouldn't have been divorced either.

Own it. You messed up. (Insert stronger language if you need to to grasp how much you messed up.)

First, stop equating jewelery with love. No better way to run off a guy than to set the standard that he has to spend 3 months salary on some piece of glass!

Well thanks I guess for some of the responses. So it looks like the men in their 30's are currently married and the men that are currently single are bitter and hate women. Wonderful....so much to look forward to.

To EE

"Perhaps had you not had an affair, you wouldn't have been divorced either."

Hope this was directed at the other person responding to my post and not me. I was most definately NOT the cheater in my situation. I left that to my lying, drug addicted, ex husband. I was the one to do the divorcing but it wasn't because I had someone else.

"First, stop equating jewelery with love. No better way to run off a guy than to set the standard that he has to spend 3 months salary on some piece of glass!"

Not talking about the jewelry. Just the whole lovey dovey couple thing. I can count on one hand the amount of jewelry I have received from a man. I have hardly lived the wined and dined type of life. I have worked hard all my life and have never expected a man to buy me expensive jewelry to show me he loves me.

I am just a single mom currently trying to find my way in the not so friendly dating world. I am looking for kindness, honesty, and someone who has similar values to me. I have worked hard to get my life together. I work 2 jobs, I am raising 2 kids on my own, I pay my own bils, etc. I am NOT looking to have prince charming save me. I just have a lot of love to give and feel like I am missing that special someone in my life to share it with. I naively thought that there were more men out there looking for the same thing. Instead I meet men that have these nightmare exs and lives and say they are looking for someone just like me. At some point they seem to get scared..and don't know what to do with me because I might actually be a genuinely nice person and they have no idea what to do with that. The dating world is new to me. I didn't do a whole lot of it before I met my ex. So I am learning.... I just thought in posting I might get a little advice from some people that may have some words of wisdom.

I'm actually well into my 40's, so I'm already DQ'ed. Well, I'm re-married too, that the most important DQ'er.

I thought it would be obvious by quoting Captain76's post that my comments were directed at him. I'm sorry if that was unclear.

I think you have it. They've tried the "Barbie Wedding" before and they ended up hurt. Thinking about what I wanted, I wanted a partner, not someone who placed a lot of what appeared at times to be irrational demands. I didn't want a lot of drama, nor complexity.

Guys want partners, women want lovers. I've come to that conclusion. Until you are ready to be a partner (not saying you are not) then it will be hard to find a lover.

MB is really about meeting your spouses emotional needs. So if you want to find the one, you have to be the one. Instead of looking for someone who will give, I think you find the one to whom you want to give AND will give as well.

I think anything else can/may/might come across as needy and one-sided. Especially given 2/3rds to 3/4's of all the divorced men you meet were likely abandoned by their ex-wives and the majority of those were NOT guilty of marital misconduct.

So you can thank many of your sisters for turning the majority of divorced men into very nervous and hurt creatures.

My husband is in this category.

I agree....just wait and watch. And learn some good marriage principles. As I said earlier, turn yourself into the kind of woman that will attract the kind of man you want.

Actually the ones that I have dated a little bit were in committed relationships not ever married. But they still managed to come out of it damaged. EE, I was in a really bad marriage and I probably should have come out of it a bitter man hater. But it is just not in my nature. I tend to be a giver and never expect enough in return. It made it very easy for my exh to take advantage and I am trying to not go down that path again.

"I think you find the one to whom you want to give AND will give as well."

ah...I am looking...where is he?...lol..hopefully a higher power will step in and help me out a little. Maybe I need to start wearing my mini skirt and heels to the grocery store from now on.

"So you can thank many of your sisters for turning the majority of divorced men into very nervous and hurt creatures."

oh boy......:)