LOL!
Kentucky Fried Movie - i loved it! Especially the part with "For a fist full Yen".

Guess I was lucky.

When I was single, they tended to go psycho on me by the third date when they did.

Talking about contraceptives and having been tested for STDs is a good first filter.

I'd say at least a good third of your dates will go crazy on your ass and claim you are calling them sluts and whatnot right then and there (so yeah, it's best not to bring the topic to discussion while you are eating at a restaurant unless you enjoy causing a scene).

I always figured that if they were not intelligent or rational enough to see the merit in all that, we wouldn't get along in the long term.

Oh, i really took my time to sift through the offerings. I'm 44 now and only had about 8 relationships in my life of which only two lasted longer than a year. After my last girl left me last week after 15 years, i guess i'll pass for a while, maybe forever. Way to much stress to find another one, now that i'm old, broke and chronically ill. Plus - right now, i'm such a downer, i could get the pope to commit suicide. And my sarcastic humour could use a good refurbishing. <insert random rant here>.

You may be surprised, but there is a certain kind of women out there that just wants to feel needed, especially after the kids have left for college or gone away. An old, broke, chronically ill guy is like a magnet for this kind of woman. I learned that a few years ago when i was homeless and it turned my life around.

LOL "It takes one to know one." The sooner you leave those kinds of girls the better.
Ha ha. That would actually be a good solution :)

I'm 30 and so far, I've had one meaningful relationship. I don't include flings and dating that never materialized into serious commitment into this figure though.

It will be 6 years with my gf soon.

I was single until mid-24 and I didn't date anyone until I was 22 and I was doing just fine.

I think most people nowadays don't tend to be in a lifelong relationship anyways.

Sometimes, even after decades, relationships implode for some reason.

Not saying it doesn't work for anybody, but I think the view that this is a requirement to be happy is flawed. A skewed view that the media tend to give us.

I think most people should try to be happy without it and if they get an happy stable relationship, it's icing on the cake.

I think making friends, networking, developping many hobbies is more important. Basically, making sure your happiness doesn't revolve too much around one single person.

And finally, there are a lot of terrific single women your age anyways.

My mother met the man of her life when she was 40.

Agreed, there are two other PC's in my house; bugger off and use those! My PC is locked down with a large password that only I know. Plus, I use LastPass with added mobile authentication. No-one uses my PC but me and it will always remain that way

I could not agree more. You can't look to someone to 'fill the hole' in your life, it's a bad mentality too many people get into. Believing your life is fudged without a partner is a one way ticket to depression. Probably the reason many relationships fail is because people have too much invested in it. That's a lot of pressure to put on a relationship, if you go into it thinking your whole life revolves around it.

A relationship can augment a happy life, but it can't fix all your problems.

Whimsical rambling aside, there are some horror stories in this thread, and all I can say is I feel sorry for the people involved. Luckily I don't have anyone else using my PC, and only one nosy friend who would ever want to sneak a peek. I still have an account password though! Computing is an extension of 'normal' life these days, sharing a system seems more and more ridiculous as time goes by.

Rob

I'm certainly not looking for a big Mama to pamper me and treat me like a child.

I amen to that. Magnitus had the right words for it : icing on the cake.
On the other hand - there is nobody left.

Most people are a bit too scared by my appearance to try a nice conversation.
A female co-worker described it as a constant imminence of rape-murder and it was very confusing for her to hear me talk about scientific stuff and not death and carnage. The harder i try to be nice, the scarier the impression. There are girls who would like to date a monster but they are put off by the fact that i don't actually torture them.

That leaves me with other rejects.

I can't believe someone would say that about you. Even if you look like Ted Kaczynski, it's awfully mean to say something like that to your face.

Ted Kacynski is a good comparison. Though i actually failed in university and went an alternative route to become an IT specialist, not a scientist as planned. For most people, i simply have the look & feel of an evil clown. Almost 2 metres of evil clown.

Addendum :
Looks like I went completely OT in this thread. Sorry.