<p>Don’t want to squelch discussion of any topic that people find interesting - but I think the dating manners/spending money/ dropping off/heel heights etc warrants a different thread. </p>
<p>I’m not even sure they need to have had a “long term” relationship by 25- as long as they are interacting successfully and developing some one-on-one skills. She could date a guy a bit- as long as there weren’t some warning signs that she couldn’t get along other than in a group, or at all. Or just for the hook-up aspects. </p>
<p>I was more worried about D2, who establishes relationships too easily- longish, yes, but (can’t tell the whole tale, too long) not what I thought was any real benefit to her, as a person. D1 played the field. I found DH at 24, married at 28. Dated before that, sure, but no one before that was keeper material. </p>
<p>As far as the gentlemen techniques… usually they learn those type of things from watching their parents. For example my husband taught my sons that whenever we come home they are to hold the door open for me and any other women. It doesn’t matter if I stop at the mail box and they have to wait. that’s it just the way it is in our house … However my dad certainly didn’t teach that to my brother… Perhaps the boy just didn’t know any better.</p>
<p>I think people can live very happy, fulfilled lives without dating or even any couple’s relationships. As long as they have friends and don’t sit at home staring at the TV or computer they’re probably fine. There are two such 29 yo’s in my extended family. One has a pile of friends, a good career and I’ve rarely seen her not smiling. The other prefers cars and machines and a few close friends who prefer the same. He is close to his family and happy with his own company. I don’t think there’s a problem for either of them.</p>
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<p>First, not everyone…including parents would agree with that. Especially considering the relatives in my generation who were in long-term relationships by 25 and ended up getting married not too long afterwards ended up in divorce. One was a male relative who many felt was pushed into marriage before he was ready. </p>
<p>Another was a female relative whose seemingly respectable and gentlemanly SO turned out to be a sleazy asshat. I got to see some of that even through his seemingly “gentlemanly” front while visiting them at 11. </p>
<p>Every marriage concluded at the family’s more common age of late 30s and up are still happily humming along…with some 20/25th anniversaries coming up. </p>
<p>Also, in some school/family cultures, getting into dating was looked down upon for reasons ranging from not prioritizing academics/career highly enough to dating being regarded as “old-fashioned thing done by conventional socially conservative boomers”. </p>
<p>The former was widespread at my public magnet* and the latter was the case at my LAC when I attended as hookups were the “in” thing back then…not dating. </p>
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<li>This wasn’t helped when pressures from academic workload and/or college admissions results contributed to many breakups. Some of which were encouraged by parents who felt their kids were being “too distracted by frivolous relationships”.<br></li>
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<p>The guy may also be in the midst of rebelling against that very upbringing. Especially if he’s having tense relationships with one or both parents and rejects the values they taught him. </p>
<p>Sometimes, it may also be confusion over when it’s appropriate to be “gentlemanly” or not due to confusions or even male anger over changing gender norms brought about by the Counterculture and Feminist movements. </p>
<p>This is one of the contributing factors to male subcultures where being a gentleman is treated like a contagious virus. In fact, some corporations proudly market to this demographic as shown by this absurd commercial:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZWCdW_WaqU”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZWCdW_WaqU</a></p>
<p>Let’s upset the young’uns: how do you parents feel about fixing up your late blooming kids? </p>
<p>I was not late blooming, but my dad started trying to fix me up when I was in my late teens. Predictably I hated it and did the opposite. (He knew a lot of med students and thought a doctor was a perfect shiduch!) My folks have had better luck with cousins and more distant relatives once these relatives reach their late twenties or older. Some of the set ups were subtle, just inviting the singles to the same place at the same time but in a mass of people and being sure they met. Others were true blind dates. I guess the singles were more amenable to being fixed up and meeting new people when 1) they were older, approaching thirty and 2) it was done by someone trusted but not someone too close, like a parent. </p>
<p>I do find that my single girlfriends, and these would be women in at least their forties, are interested in being fixed up. I am in my fifties, but have had some seventy something widows flat out ask me if I know any available men! </p>
<p>Would I fix up my kids? Not yet. They are still too young and I am not that concerned yet. But if they reach thirty and aren’t in relationships? Well, yes, I will have an eye out for nice young women.</p>
<p>cobrat: I know MANY people who were in relationships at 25, got married, and are still married 30+ years later. I know just as many couples who met in their late 20s/early 30s, married a year later and got divorced. There is no one way to do this.</p>
<p>And as I said – I’m not saying I want her to be married. I’m saying I think it is healthy for a 25-year-old to have had a romantic relationship. </p>
<p>In my culture, the one my kid was brought up in, there is nothing prohibiting a woman from dating. </p>
<p>And I know plenty of people who went to your public magnet, and dated. And had long-term relationships. In their teens. </p>
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<p>It wasn’t about prohibiting women from dating. </p>
<p>In HS, most HS classmates and parents had the feeling dating was a huge distraction from HS academics, college admissions/career preparation, and part of the negative distracting influence from the larger US pop culture. This included many multi-generational Americans. </p>
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<p>The few classmates I knew who dated were mostly gone by the end of sophomore year as they transferred back to their zoned HSs. The handful who remained were either genuine gifted geniuses who could balance the heavy workload effortlessly or more commonly…ended up crawling to graduation in the bottom portion of the graduating class. </p>
<p>That and it seemed they all broke up before graduation. Including one couple who already placed a “Couples 4ever” entry in our yearbook in the fall semester senior year only to have a nasty public break up sometime in the beginning of spring semester senior year. When these breakups happened, the rest of us classmates expressed the common sentiment “Thank goodness we avoided all that dating drama/BS by not playing that game in HS”. </p>
<p>Well, my kid didn’t go to your high school. And she spent four years in college. And now 3 years in the working world. So I’m really not sure how your (endless) anecdotes about your high school experience many years ago have even the slightest bit of relevance to me. </p>
<p>^ I think it’s safe to say we all went to hs, had some friends with this experience or that one. We often find that it’s our more current concerns, ideas and observations that shape our awareness and our feelings about certain topics.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine fixing up ds1. I don’t know his type. The thought makes me uncomfortable. lol</p>
<p>Ds2 is in a long-term relationship and will have no problem finding another girl should he and this one break up. They find him.</p>
<p>The few cases I’ve known of parents tried setting them up with dates and/or pressuring them to get into a romantic relationship/marriage are commonly recounted by the adult children as utter disasters and further justification to go contrary to parental wishes and/or leave/cut off phone call whenever the parent brings up the subject. </p>
<p>In one particular case, it got so bad I had to be the one to tell an older post-college’s roommate’s parents to stop asking me and other roommates to serve as their “spies”. None of us had the desire/time to do so and their constant calling was preventing the medical intern/resident roommates from getting enough sleep due to their sometimes wacky schedules. </p>
<p>Rules of the house preclude dating until 16. So 16 would be definitely ‘early bloomer’.</p>
<p>S1 really didn’t date in HS. He took a girl to Homecoming one year and Prom one year. Prom girl also got another date for a school banquet, but it was not until graduation that they actually went out on a ‘date’. The other events almost seemed like they picked each other as a safety ‘school’. Not sure how things are going to go from here. They are going to schools about 6-8 hours apart via car and her family is moving out of town, so she will not come ‘home’ to the same place.</p>
<p>I would love to ‘set up’ my niece though. She is tall, gorgeous, well spoken, highly educated, athletic, religious and an awesome person. Spent way too much of her college years pining for a jerk. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t think of setting up S2 with someone. I even quit setting up playdates by the time he was in 1st grade.</p>
<p>My 2 younger sons IMO aren’t quite old enough to date(13 & 15) and the oldest(19) has a GF but even if he didn’t there is NO WAY I would try and set him/them up on a date.Not now or even when they are older. I think that could be a recipe for disaster… X_X </p>
<p>Re setting up, I met a newly discovered distant cousin a few years ago and thought my oldest might like him. She was amenable/interested in a sort of undercover meeting, so I tried to organize a Thanksgiving dinner - his family couldn’t make it and he had just started seeing someone else. On one other occasion she came with me to a group situation to discreetly look over a guy I’d already met. Expectations were low that time and nothing happened beyond exchange of very small talk. She was perfectly okay with all this. I know that neither of the kids has ever felt any pressure from me or my husband to find boyfriends (or girlfriends, if that’s what they end up preferring) and they’ve never felt we’re invading their emotional space either (our younger one is almost too forthcoming without any encouragement…).</p>
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I can understand the confusion over when to be “gentlemanly”. You have the girls who say men who practice chivalry are sexist and then you have the ones who expect it…</p>
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Upset if my mom introduces me to a fine young lad who checks the boxes? No. I’d say, “Thank you, Mommy.” My mom doesn’t and wouldn’t actively search for someone for me to settle down for. She has faith in my own capabilities and would only introduce me if she just happens to know this man. Now, if I told her to not set me up with people and she did anyways, that’d be another story. </p>
<p>Re: setting up by parents.</p>
<p>We tested the water a little bit to see if DS is open to this idea after he had had a miserable experience by finding one by himself. The answer we got from him was an absolute no. We had received the picture of the potential date (the other side was willing to give us her picture) and we dare not send it to him. So, we are partly guilty of this: tried a little bit and stopped after hitting a brick wall.</p>
<p>One of DS’s friends back in high school came to visit him after they had been graduated from college. He was going to go back to his home country for his career. My wife said this to him before he left: “if you happen to know some good girl you could introduce to my son, please do so.” I was very surprised that she would say this. (We have been very familiar with him for more than 15 years. But still…)</p>
<p>I was set up by my grandmother of all people, and twenty five years later we are still happily married. I was not a late bloomer though and had dated a lot beforehand so I was more open to giving it a shot. I actually gave him more of a chance than I otherwise would have because I was very close to my grandmother.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine my sons being open to this though, lol.</p>