Oh Miss LoveBoatExpress!
Forgive me for not realizing that you were in India! I was in Chennai just last February, by the way!

My advice was tailored for the American culture! We North Americans have a very very limited support structure around us and many times have to rely on ourselves or our spouses for almost everything, and this can create enormous pressures. We also have very little family or community involvement in what happens inside the home, and so there is little outside influence over a spouse who is lazy, cheating, abusive, etc.

North Americans may also be under less pressure to marry or have kids. So please forgive me if my advice was misplaced. Your situation can be very different than what I imagine.

Wow. Andy, that drifted to interesting places; all good stuff, though!

Miss LoveBoatExpress,
I can't add to what Andy said, but would like to back up a bit and cast doubt on some assumptions which I infer you made from your original post.

It appears that you must get married soon, and worry that the person you marry may not be your "soul mate", and may not even be the correct gender, as you are unsure of your orientation.

I'd like to suggest that you do not need to figure all this out anytime soon, and you certainly shouldn't be selecting a mate in a hurried fashion. I also wouldn't worry about finding your soul mate. The whole idea of finding someone to complete you, well... it's nicely romantic but my personal life philosophy is to be happy by myself, and to refrain from rooting my self esteem in the approval of others, if I can help it.

So my advice is to kick back, love yourself, invest in yourself, stay social, do good work, and be your own party.

"Wherever you go, well there you are."

Thanks, KLC. Nice sentiments. I hope that comes true some day, but today is not some day. My yesterdays were full of loss. Today is pretty darn good. My cup of regrets is only half full, and I have many more mistakes yet to make. I'm just careful not to repeat the same mistakes. Some day, I will write a book called, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Ladies,
First, let me compliment the previous posters -- ladies, one and all -- on their compassion and understanding.

Men,
While these are great ladies, please notice that they did NOT say that this awkwardness and nervousness was an attractive trait.

Confidence is probably the most important trait, according to the wikipedia page on dating (God, I love the internet, sometimes).

Men tend to suck in their gut, stand/sit tall, and make good eye contact, when they feel they are being evaluated for a match. They speak clearly and express warmth and humor, avoiding negative commentary and especially avoiding self-deprecating humor. Being at ease is perhaps the best way of putting your date at ease.

Watch your body language. Lean in, sometimes, keep your hands apart, watch for mirroring postures (a good thing), make eye contact, don't get caught looking at your watch or phone. Ask questions about her and don't drone on and on about how smart you are or how accomplished you are at your work.

Although men cast a wider net and women are more selective, if you already have her sitting on the other side of the table, surface attributes become less important. A woman may remember the part of your hair or the wrinkles in your shirt, but she will remember more vividly how you made her feel. So if you're watching your watch, cell phone, or football game, but look like James Bond -- you blew it, anyway.

Women -- Feel free to disagree; your opinion outranks mine.

In my divorce, I lost my best friend (spouse), almost all my family (biologically my ex's), my social group, and my two eldest daughters. I thought loss was universal and my sentiments empathetic toward the widowed. Perhaps sympathetic would be the better word, if they are that different. Either way, my heart goes out.

As you say, "some of us planned to stay married and wanted to stay married but our spouse died. "
but there is another ending, too...
"but did not die, but instead took another path."

Those not widowed cannot know all that it entails. But loss of some sort appears universal in this world.

Where I live, the society is very supportive of widows and widowers, and very unsupportive of divorcees. That's Ohio, by the way.

My neighbor of many years ago just last week related a story to me about something my then-wife told her shortly after she moved next door. Here: Let me find the quote and paste it:

"I remember your ex's comment about being uncomfortable about having a divorced woman and 2 kids living next door."

People here have an affinity for people like themselves: White, married stay-at-home moms socialize with other white, married, stay-at-home moms. They go to the same fitness center, shop at the same grocery store, drive a minivan and vacation at Disney World. They don't shift to different social groups and feel threatened by people who made choices different than they made. A married working mother just doesn't fit in, for example. Many times, their men do not have their own social lives: I asked my friend Kevin if he was free to do something that Saturday. His response: "I have no idea what we're doing this weekend. When Josie tells me to get in the car is the first time I know where we're going or who we're seeing."

So when I became divorced, I was ejected from the social group. And no, it's not because anyone took sides; it's just that they feel uncomfortable. They don't know what to say, they don't know how to help, and they don't know how to maintain the friendship with someone who is no longer part of a couple.

If my wife had been killed in a car accident, I think the response would have been more compassionate, and the loss perhaps easier to take??? I don't know, but that is my suspicion.

So GreenEyes, did you experience anything similar when you were divorced vs. widowed?

"I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue."
-Casablanca

Well, I can tell you what I know. I can't say it's exactly the male perspective, but here it is, anyway:

As a man living in Ohio, a man is expected to be forward and make the first move, but really it's not as formal as you might think, and neither is it so difficult; I will explain.

First, let me say that I suck at talking up a woman and taking her home in some meat-market environment. But I don't think that's really what we're talking about, here, so allow me to continue.

A couple of posters have inquired what a good date might be: dinner, movie, etc. The consensus was, and I agree, that something casual where you can talk is appropriate.

I would like to add that the activity should be something that YOU like to do, and something that YOU were going to go do, anyway. If you're not comfortable being in public by yourself, treating yourself to dinner, or enjoying a live band by yourself, then you need to start doing that. Being comfortable with yourself is a great prerequisite to inviting someone else to join along.

That also decreases the rejection factor if your offer isn't taken. Heck, you were going to go anyway. People are more likely to join you, or even to bring friends if a) they are interested, but b) have the same fears you have about it being a big scary "date".

Meanwhile, be positive and fun in all that you do. That's a very attractive trait for friends and lovers, and when you're all alone... you can be your own party.


Good luck!

Are you sure?
Let me check.
Whoa.
No wonder I look so good in a red dress!

Great.
Were you hoping to find happiness in a relationship with another?

Miss Charmed Girl,
I will pass, for the moment, on the opportunity to vent my own frustrations and I will instead answer your question at face value.

So where are you looking?

If Capetown is like the USA, many people are uncomfortable left in their own thoughts and seek distractions in the form of television, internet, or other solitary endeavors. Those who join a club or volunteer at the hospital, etc. may have better luck finding a decent guy or girl. But if there's some secret to finding a great girl or to starting a relationship... well, I'll let you know when I discover it.

T

...and while you're waiting for Mr. Right, allow me to submit myself as Mr. Wrong.

Thank you for your consideration.

I'll be wearing a red dress and sneakers this weekend!
Of course, so will a hundred other runners in Sincity.

Illicit, perhaps?
heheheheh.

I smiled when I saw a shirt that reads, "It's not cheating if my husband is watching."

Thanks for posting, Sandlewood4!

Before I get into this, I'd like you all to know that my signature line has been this for the last five years:

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

...and I live by that; I really do.

That having been said, everyone on this thread should be wondering by now why it is that saying "Hello" is
considered kind. After all, it doesn't feed us, house us, or help us propagate our DNA. Furthermore, if
we're not using the greeting as an introduction to a more useful conversation (such as to arrange for your house
to be painted, for example), then it's even less obvious why anyone would say "Hello" or "How are you?"

After all, the last thing someone wants to know when they ask, "How are you?" is how you are.

It's clear, then, that most of these trivial greetings must satisfy some social ritual. Eric Berne (author of
"Games People Play" tried to explain some of this in the 60's with something called Transactional Analysis.

These greetings are known as "Strokes". Babies require lots of "stroking" for proper development and it appears
that even as adults we "stroke" one another dozens of times a day. It tells us that we exist and that others
know it. A mentor once told me, "People like to hear their names." Now, I know why.

Mr. TallDarkAndIrish pointed out that at his gym, the males acknowledge his strokes, but that females do not. Berne
explains this by observing that people are picky about whom they can receive strokes from or give strokes to. In our society,
it isn't acceptable for a woman to exchange strokes with many types of men -- particularly men they don't know.
(Flaming gay men, on the other hand, are okay to stroke, it seems. Or hot guys. Not single engineers; sorry.)

Since compliments and greetings are essentially free, it seems reasonable to wonder why ANYONE would withold greeting
and complimenting everyone everywhere. We all know people who are more gracious than the average person and it seems
that they "didn't get the memo" to be stingy with niceness. Yet on the whole, we ration our compliments. Why?

Another researcher (Steiner) points out that there seems to be a "stroke economy". One web page suggests it is some
sort of parental control conspiracy. I don't know about that. But it does seem that where compliments are given
too freely, that they lose their value.

For hallway acknowledgements, it seems that I use it to say that "I recognize you to be an important member of our tribe."

And I suppose that's the kind thing to do, but it's also the proper tribal thing to do, so it's self-serving in a way.

But I'll never ask "How are you?" unless I want the question answered.

Have a great day! And thanks for letting me blabber.

I'm not sure, but the real situation may be a bit worse than the reported flat unemployment rate.

My understanding is that the unemployment rate is calculated as the number of persons who do not have a job but are actively looking for work divided by the number of persons in the labor force.

The key part there was "in the labor force". Those who are permanently disabled are not considered to be "in the labor force".

We may not have noticed an increase in disabled persons, but there has been a HUGE increase in those filing for and getting benefits. Economists fear that these recipients are unlikely ever to return to the labor force (for fear of losing the benefits, including government-provided health insurance). But the takeaway here is that unemployment statistics do not include these people leaving the work force.

So I think it's worse than you think.

Well, if you were serious about having sex with my girlfriend... uh... I guess that one caught me off guard.

Is it a sin I watch you two?

Not the same gun type.

The Glock 23 uses the 40 caliber round devloped by the FBI following the Miami Shootout of 1986 in which two special agents were killed and four others wounded despite outnumbering the suspects four to one.

The Glock 19, on the other hand uses the standard NATO round, the 9x19mm parabellum. The Glock 19 has become popular amoung pilots in the United States Air Force. They almost never jam.

Both are used extensively by police forces in the United States and abroad. And yes, both are the same brand, Glock. I wouldn't say they are the same "gun type", however. It doesn't make sense that the newsletter writer would compare one to the other.

It's a Huffington Post editorial. I thought surely other legitimate papers would have picked up the story, but not so, or not yet. Odd.

Well, Cathy, I am often asked, "Would you want your daughter doing such-and-such?"

Now before I tell you my answer, you will note that I live my life as a very conservative, church-going white boy. Your question is basically asking if matches made here are good and true.

And so, I give you my answer: If there was a single path to finding a legitimate relationship, I don't know what it is.

I have seen matches made through arrangement, through mutual friends, through chance bar encounters, and even through meeting each other at a swinger's club where the original motivation was purely sex.

So... I'm pretty sure that how you find each other is irrelevant... just be yourself.

Good luck to you.

According to Ms. Manners, a date involves a mix of food, affection, and entertainment, and when the affection becomes the entertainment, it is no longer called "dating".

With that in mind, the focus of your invitation should be the shared entertainment, since good company and good entertainment will always be a good date, even if there is no romantic connection.

I'll have to agree with singmesweet on this one: Send her a message.

I would have to reject joy4gud's suggestion that you do it on her wall: Many people like to keep their private lives private.

I have deleted posts on my own wall that I felt were too overt or suggestive, and I had the feeling that the poster was trying to stake out territory... sortof like a cat spraying or a bear leaving scratch marks on a tree. And that's not cool. And I never do that to someone else.

So man-up, find some piece of entertainment that YOU want to go to and see if she'd like to join you. Good luck to you, my friend.

To quote Red Green,

Remember, I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together!