Smoking …blech! never would date ANYONE who smokes…yuck! I don’t even have friends who smoke.
must be intelligent and educated.
religion is important to me…I tended to date mostly only Catholics.
cheating…never had to deal with any of that. Don’t think I could handle that. I might turn into Lorena Bobbit.
politics are important, but I did date some opposites…it wasn’t a big problem, but may have been in the long term.
I never dated anyone who was married before…that was a deal breaker for me. If widowed, I would have considered, but I never encountered a youngish widowed male…
I preferred tall men, even though I’m only 5’ 2". I only dated one “avg” height guy and I didn’t like it. I know, shallow. All others were at least 6’, H is a foot taller than I am. yay.
had to be decent looking…heck, I do have to look at him (ok, hit me again for being shallow)
Must have a good job. (again, that may be shallow, but that was a requirement). I could never be married to someone like my BIL who sits around playing computer chess all day while his wife worked. What’s up with that?
Ditto for taller men - and I am not even 5’1. Wondering if many shorter women also feel that way?
As far as looks, I think average looking men can become really attractive if they have great personalities. Michael Smerconish comes to mind. He has the most “winning” personality I have ever come across.
I think male who is unemployed finds it hard to get female interested, in general, who would want to sign up to support somebody forever, I wonder it’s the same for female?
One does not want to spend time with someone that isn’t great for one date, let along developing a relationship.
I think many do need to be open to at least meeting/talking to someone unless you sense creepy. We do need to listen to our gut/intuition.
I never would have thought I would have liked H enough to actually then fall in love with him (and he with me) and have a long time marriage. We started dating as friends. The other fellows dropped out for a variety of reasons - one went back to former GF. One I realized had a bad relationship with his parents and was not willing to borrow a car so we could go to an out of town wedding of a friend of mine (his car’s clutch went out) - so he didn’t care enough about me to get over things or be a little humble (this was probably before he could rent a car - he was over 21, but may not at that time - early 1970’s - easily rent a car, or he didn’t think it was an option; I was under 21 so I couldn’t rent a car and no public transportation to the wedding site)…I knew all of H’s former dates; he married just fine. One gal that dumped H ended up marrying a classmate of H’s but after a few years of marriage cheated on him and they got divorced.
^I kind of wish I had, since my kids have inherited physical and mental illnesses from my husband’s side of the family. The thought never entered my mind, though.
Absolutely. Growing up with pretty bad asthma was a rough existence to the point of not wanting to pass it on to kids. W has huge lung capacity, ran a sub-2 hour half marathon with zero training. Our oldest ran at XC states twice despite it being his third sport.
We have friends with a short mom/tall dad pairing. Their D is 2" taller than their S.
Evidently I got all the recessive genes and ended up 5’1"even with a 5’4" mother and 6"3" father. All my siblings are much taller. I dated some tall guys. One was 6’6" and my mother, in a very round a bout way, asked how “comfortable are you with him?” I married someone average height. When my sons were toddlers, my father commented that we could rule out their being basketball players. That had been his sport. Everyone in the extended family was very careful not to tell them they weren’t tall and they didn’t discover this (obvious) fact until they were in their late teens. It caused them only momentary distress. At that point we just told them they were the perfect height. And so they are. They still did sports. Just not basketball after elementary school years.
I only dated “gentlemen” so a lot of these non-negotiables had already been screened out. I married the most interesting man I have ever met and still feel that way. After 36+ years, he is still entertaining me.
I too cared about height. I don’t mind being short at all and people tell me I do not have a short appearance. But I did know some really short men in my 20’s and it seemed to bother them. So I was thinking if I had a son I wanted to give him some chance of having height. My H is about 6’2 and I think S will end up pretty close to that.
My parents talked about importance of our potential partner’s health (both mental and physical) with us. I also spoke to my daughters about that. Good health is a lot more important than money.
You don’t have to have tall parents to have tall kids. As long as there is tall gene in the family. One of my brothers is no taller than 5’7, his wife is no taller than 5 feet and his son is 6’3. In fact he GRE the last inch after he turned 21.
And I’m the average of my parent’s heights, my sister is shorter than both my parents, and I haven’t grown an inch since I was 13. Goes the other way too I guess.
I was definitely the shortest in my immediate and extended family. No one else was short but me. My brothers used to reduce me to tears when I was little by teasing me and telling me I was the “runt of the litter.”
Bravo for post 186. My s’s got my short genes. Oh well. its the lest of my worries. Sorry, but I find a height criteria just a little bit shallow. DH is average height. Two of his brother’s s’s got the tall genes from their mom’s side of the family. They have other challenges. Significant ones. Unlikely their height will help them in a relationship, if either ever has one. The short son is doing well, (and is in a relationship). So are my short s’s (doing well- and also both in relationships. One is married.) And my average height DH is doing well too (and… yes, he’s in a relationship )
I am slightly shorter than 6’. My S is about the same height as me. So I think both of us are about average or slightly above average in our height (the latter is in the context of our ethnic group.)
Who said each generation would be taller than their previous generation?!
A friend of mine told us (when our child was in preschool) that, if we want our child to be taller, let him play more and study less. Not sure if he has a point or not. If his theory is valid, DS would be taller if he had attended a Podunk college. LOL.)
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