<p>[Dating</a> Advice: 7 Mistakes Single Women Make - Love + Sex on Shine](<a href=“http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/dating-advice-7-mistakes-single-women-make-580573/]Dating”>http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/dating-advice-7-mistakes-single-women-make-580573/)</p>
<p>This thread reminded me of this article online this week…and what this woman says about single women and dating etc…</p>
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<p>Not to turn this into a pro/anti womens college thread, but there are plenty of men on most AWcolleges. MHC is part of a consortium with coed colleges. There is no real absence of men!</p>
<p>and maybe DS isn’t too thrilled about having to call GF’s mom, Mom. @#50.
:)</p>
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As I said, that wasn’t the issue.</p>
<p>Hey Mom of three boys</p>
<p>re sons and their path—</p>
<p>we are in the same camp</p>
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<p>Dream on, ladies. Maybe if your son is under, say, 25, you can make that stick with new girlfriends. Temporarily. But once she has her hands around your son’s various lives – emotional, financial, sex, genetic – which is to say sometime between the engagement party and the birth of the first child, the power dynamic changes utterly. Unless you have millions of dollars to withhold, your choices become exile, craven submission to the whims of your daughter-in-law in exchange for whatever scraps of favor she grants you, or wrecking your son’s life. (If you have the millions, you can maybe bargain for some kind of detente.) It’s not a pleasant prospect. Start practicing your bowing and scraping now! And pray that the pretty young things don’t realize that they hold all the cards until you’ve gotten it right.</p>
<p>Mother of two sons here. Younger son has a fistful of applications out. I find myself twisting in the wind on each possibility (I know! His life, not mine, but hey, I’m a mom). Do I want him safely at a strongly male tech school? (Where there is little opportunity to gain the social skills he needs).</p>
<p>Will he have a target on his chest if he goes to Vassar? Will those strong women on campus (any campus) ridicule him for his devotion to Boy Scouts? And his even greater devotion to Dungeons and Dragons?</p>
<p>I am keenly aware of the maturity gap. Math – not a problem. Physics – got it nailed.
Grooming? Ah, not so much. He will be a great date at 25 or 30 – but not so much at 18. </p>
<p>I am hoping that the more mature gal students will throw the little fish back to grow up and do what one girl was in the article – she was dating older professional men from off campus. Smart lass!</p>
<p>So my worry is some HIV positive man eater will see my pimply kid and think “LUNCH!” Don’t flame me. It is my current worry. Bizarre when you read parents of daughters post about their worries about campus assaults. My guy would never attack a girl. If he’s got a new D&D book he would walk while reading and not even distinguish her from a lamppost. I could see where that could be very frustrating to a young lady who is ready for a relationship.</p>
<p>S1 is finishing up college in a relationship with a wonderful young woman he met at college who graduated ahead of him and actually has a great job. She is perfect. She is smart, very attractive, kind, thoughtful, and great with kids (seen her interact with the very little ones through older at family gatherings). I believe they are together because both are kind, considerate people, who also like to have fun. I firmly believe, and have some evidence, that S1 has only treated women with respect. I have emphasized that even if another guy “gets the girl” by being a jerk, he is not to do the same. </p>
<p>S2 begins college this fall. He is immensely popular in high school and has a very attractive, talented, and nice college GF (they met in HS). I asked her not long ago, much to his dismay, what she saw in him. She said he was funny and always considerate. As a dad, I could not be more pleased to hear this and value this more than athletic accomplishments or 4.0 GPAs. I think the kids know this and I hope it is maintained in college for S2 as it was for S1. I am a little more concerned for S2 as he is looking at schools with a reputation for a larger social life component than did S1. We discussed this before he applied and continue to discuss it throughout the process. We can only hope the values are in place and solid. He is looking at colleges that swing from nearly 60% female to nearly 60% male. I asked if the ratio made any difference and he said no, he thought he could find someone nice to hang out with no matter what. Perhaps that is just a “guy” thing.</p>
<p>Olymom, don’t fret…oblivious is OK. Both my H and I have strongly advocated that the boys not marry at the earliest until their late twenties…marriage is a long, long road and even my husband will admit that for the most part the vast majority of guys just aren’t ready for that until their late twenties. I’m female and I certainly had no desire to get married until my late twenties. Most of my college girlfriends married very late or not at all, I was one of the “early ones” at 29. I remember being in the ladies room with a gaggle of girls at our fifteenth high school reunion laughing our heads off because some of the best looking guys at the reunion were the total geeks in high school.</p>
<p>R6L, You rock!</p>
<p>It’s interesting to me that a lack of men indicates a “shortage” verses the grief that women have been given on their road to becoming a majority.</p>
<p>I wanted to add that Mr PMK and I were 22 and 19 when we married over 20 years ago. Our advice to our son is to carefully consider where you are in life and all of that but if you know, then you know. Sad to say we’ve seen a lot of friends and family who married in their late 20s/early 30s who are now divorced.</p>
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<p>LOL–if truth be told, I think that describes many college males. Add in that there are college females who aren’t looking for a college male to date, but for a relationship. Can you picture that at college age?</p>
<p>For any college male who is presently hormonally motivated, but relationship deficient, he seems to be twice-damned. If he acts on his hormones he will likely (a) stagger around blind until the female declares the *relationship *at an end with all that aftermath, or (b) either be easy pickings for the grinding man-eater you mentioned or be the grinding *Animal House *jerk.</p>
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<p>I do not and I know a lot of people who do not want that for their children unless it’s what the child really wants. I want my son to be a productive citizen who is at peace with himself. Selfishly, I would like my son to marry a great guy and have my grandchildren. But I’m more than happy to appropriate other people’s grandchildren if that’s not what my son wants. </p>
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<p>That the vast majority of people are doing something does not mean it’s what they want. Countries where the pay gap has closed and maternity benefits mean that women are not punished for motherhood, the percentage of people marrying drops sharply as does the number of births. </p>
<p>Do we all want to be married? Or is that what was required to survive? I don’t think the final answer is in but I do know that all the things that one “needed” to marry for (companionship, children, finances, etc.) no longer require matrimony.</p>
<p>JHS, My MIL is one of my closest friends. I adore her. We have a wonderful relationship. There are other options.</p>
<p>I don’t particularly care if my children get married- if they do find a ‘life partner’, I prefer they be LIFE partners and not go through a series of divorces and remarriages. I’m DEFINITELY not thinking of DD at 18 getting married or comitted any time soon. I married at 23, right out of college, and while it’s worked for me, I wish that DH and I had travelled more and taken more chances at 23 than we did. It’s NOT on her radar screen at all.</p>
<p>pugmadkate: I’m NOT saying that men’s mothers and wives always have bad relationships. What I’m saying is that, fundamentally, the wives dictate the terms, and if the moms want good relationships, they have to conform themselves to the dictates of what others here are sometimes calling “the grinding man-eater”.</p>
<p>In other words – and you can tell me that I’m completely wrong, but this is how I would bet based on experience and observation – if you and your MIL are best friends, it’s because your MIL accepted you, not the other way around.</p>
<p>JHS, You hit the nail on the head and that is the lesson I have learned. I don’t care who my son dates/marries, I’m going to accept him for who he is (baring abuse, etc.) But I will add a second, equally important factor. My husband has always handled his parents. Too many men are happy to have their wife and mother fight over them (I don’t care how much they are complaining about it.) Mr. PMK stepped up and had the difficult conversations. </p>
<p>My in-[aws and I are very different but they were mature and secure enough to put that aside and build bridges at a time in my life when I was just trying to find my footing as Mr. PMK’s wife. For example, my in-laws never demanded that we show up for a holiday or the like. “Come anytime, we’ll celebrate when we’re together, the date doesn’t matter.” And so on and so on. </p>
<p>Ironically, it was that attitude that made us put such an effort into getting together with them while my friends whose own parents or in-laws were being pushy spent their time hiding from the phone!</p>
<p>Here’s the real kicker…it turns out we have so much in common on the things that really matter in life. They were patient and kind enough to smooth things over until we were able to establish that relationship. And, yes, I thank them often and cherish them always.</p>
<p>I never got to know my MIL before she passed away. I do know my H gave her much grief in his younger years. I like to think she looking down and smiling at what a great guy he turned out to be. I actually feel sorry for young people these days. For the most part the role models in the media are just so awful. If that is reality I’m glad I came of age when I did. My husband always joked and said Jerry and Betty Ford and their family were his role models. And our kids got Bill and Hilary. It’s no wonder so many girls and the guys have such dysfunctional social relationships.</p>
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<p>As a soon to be mother-in-law it was quite a surprise to me how very ready I was to let another woman take responsibility for the emotional, financial, etc. of my very beloved son, who has always been an extreme example of a “mama’s boy.” It literally felt as though I had been holding my breath for 24 years and was finally able to exhale. All this really caught me off-guard and I am so grateful that all that “bowing and scraping” which I had already been planning on since his birth, is going to be a whole lot easier than anticipated. When he shared with me he planned to propose, I told him she was number one in his life from here on out. However, it was sort of a shock to me I actually meant it 
It may be easier on some of the rest of you than you anticipate. Retirement is really kind of great :)</p>
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<p>The second thing I told my son, after he told me he was going to propose, was they should spend their holidays however was easiest on them. If they ever, at any time, wanted to come to us we would pay for their travel, but to never feel obligated or stressed. I spent too much of the first half of my adult life trying to manage the impossible feat of satisfying two sets of parents. Impossible.
I am saving up brownie points for access to my future grandchildren, but even there it has recently occurred to me that if my future DIL’s mom wants that job all to herself, I may be okay with it. She is an excellent mother; she will be an outstanding grandmother. Of course, I may have a hormonal reaction when I actually lay eyes on that grandbaby but who knows? I am finding the journey into parenting adult children an unexpected one. Interestingly, at least in this aspect of my life, I am evidently not my mother.</p>
<p>I read the NY Times article with interest since my daughter is having the complete opposite experience as an engineering student. She’s at a large state school where the overall campus gender ratio is close to 50/50, but of course, within her major she is in the extreme minority. It is really strange how popular those female engineers are, especially considering that the rest of the campus has no shortage of women. Needless to say, she’s having a lot of fun in college.</p>
<p>Last summer I asked my now college junior (at a small LAC) S how he had met all the people he talks about. He said it was easy to get to really know people within a group who love the same activities/have shared passions.</p>
<p>He did say that he had known several people (males and females) who really didn’t get into any specific activities (especially the freshman year) and that they either seemed to be more adrift socially or went out “to party” with their same-sex dorm coharts. He intimated that the one time “hook-up” that parents seem to fixate on flowed from this. My nephew who is a soph at a very large state university said basically the same thing.</p>
<p>I sent this thread to my god-niece at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is graduating this year (out in 3 years) and is heading on to law school. She emailed that she had not wanted a relationship since she had intended to go to law school all along. She said she never had to struggle to have the level of social life/interaction with males she desired since there were bright guys who weren’t looking for relationships, but didn’t want bar pick-up hook ups. She said she did know several females at UNC who were seeking “romance” in college who did complain.</p>
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<p>I should think not! It’s hard to imagine any bright guy, not looking for a relationship, who would turn down a hook up that didn’t require buying drinks for women he doesn’t know.</p>