Why is modern dating so incredibly difficult?
Really, if romance had always been as hard as it is in twenty-first century Los Angeles humanity would have long gone extinct. Buffalo would roam in the millions across Ohio and lions would still be the king of the jungle. Something is wrong with romance today. Think about it.
When was the last time you were involved in a stable long term relationship with a beautiful, compassionate woman – a woman who really valued your opinion, your presence? It’s probably been a while, right?
Well, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
It’s not our fault – not completely – but it’s the way it is in the dating scene today in the West. I was in your situation once.
I lived in LA, worked in the entertainment industry. God, did I work sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week and more. I was on the road at least six months out of the year and I had some good times. Then one day at the end of a long shoot everyone was talking about how good it would be to get home. I realized I was the oldest guy on the set, at the ripe old age of forty-two, and I really didn’t have anything to go home to – nothing.
I hadn’t seriously dated in years. And when I tried to get back in the game – OUCH! I wasn’t so much rejected by women as simply never considered.
Literally I couldn’t get back into the game. I had apparently missed my chance for a happy relationship, because when I was in my twenties and thirties I put my career in front of my personal life and then when I decided to make an effort to find happiness it was – GAME OVER!
Women just were interested in me. Most barely knew I was alive.
I found that the chances of getting a good date in New York, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles or Des Moines — or any American city — are about as good as hitting the random daily double at down at Santa Anita – maybe 80-1.
And I was in the entertainment industry. I wasn’t exactly a star, but I had met a lot of them. If you watch reality television you’ve seen my work. It isn’t Lawrence of Arabia, butI still had a little pizzazz – at least I thought I did.
- I had a good job.
- I was making great money.
- I had interesting friends.
- I was in better shape than most guys ten years younger….
But I might as well have been the invisible man. At first, I was baffled. Then I found out that I wasn’t alone. A lot of guys who had focused on their careers to the detriment of their personal life and others getting out of a bad marriage were finding it almost impossible to get a date. And we’re just talking about a date – a simple date.
If you want more than just a date – a real relationship – with romance, affection, caring, well, then it was REALLY tough.
You’ve probably experienced the same thing. I’ve been shocked over the years of how many guys who really had their business and professional life humming were just treated like flotsam and jetsam by the average single woman in the United States, Canada, or the European Union.
I bet your story is more or less the same. You worked hard to build a career, because that’s what everyone said you should do. Maybe, you didn’t really focus on finding a long term relationship or maybe you let your focus on work wreck the relationship. Regardless, when you finally got ready to pursue a serious relationship, perhaps at thirty-five or forty, you found it was a more or less the same.
Women treated you like the biggest loser on God’s green earth regardless of how great you were doing professionally or how great of shape you were in you found that American women barely noticed you were alive.
It sucks.
A Day in Dating Hell
Ask any Western man over thirty-five to sum up his recent dating experience, and you’re likely to hear comments like the following:
“95% of the decent-looking, smart females is either taken, not interested – or with another man”
“Most women are super-critical, don’t appreciate men, or view us as predators. Approach a woman in the supermarket? Are you crazy? She’s as likely to report me to the manager as give me the time of day”
“Most women see a friendly, flirty approach as creepy or offensive. They seem to carry around not just baggage about men, but truckloads of it”
“Women don’t seem to know I’m alive.”
What Happened?
Why have so many fit, intelligent, compassionate, professionally successful men resign themselves to being alone? Is romance DEAD?
What about those Hallmark moments sitting together in a coffee shop, looking into each other’s eyes? What about those little precious bursts of discovery with that beautiful woman you’re sitting next to, laughing and joking with…
I really missed those romantic moments. Let’s face it…and spare the niceties: dating in the early 21st century isn’t what it was even 15 years ago.
What we’re experiencing is the new world of dating – don’t delude yourself and believe it’s just a blip and everything will be back to normal soon.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Especially if you’re 35 or above the dating game stinks.
BUT here’s the good news, there is an alternative – and I’m going to share it with you. So, read on and remember, there’s a silver lining at the end.
If you really think you can initiate, – develop – grow – and finally – end up in a great relationship, I hate to tell you but the odds are probably less than 10% that dream will come true today. At least here in the west: America, Canada and some parts of Europe.
If you are male and in your forties, you have few dating options. Go online and read the countless studies that show it – or go out to any bar on a Saturday night, and you’ll know it first-hand – men seriously outnumber women.
Try this. The next time you’re in a bar or other place you could “potentially” meet a woman, count the number of times you feel you have a chance at striking up a conversation with a nice, friendly woman. You might not even get to one!
I don’t need to give you statistics, do I? Your life testifies to this dreary dating reality day in and day out, doesn’t it? And the worst part? It’s not your fault.
Not really, social, cultural, and technological meta-trends pushed us all into this situation. Almost no one in the United States, Canada, or the European Union lives in the same small town they grew up in. We tend to all go off to college or for work and that means you don’t meet women the way your granddad met your grandma.
The world is different today.
And dating is very different than it has ever been.
Consider these facts for a moment. It’s not fun to read, and it won’t brighten your day – but it explains why we struggle and suffer in the minefield of shattered or non-existent dating relationships. It will help you understand why dating is more like dating hell!
I could cite many factors that caused this situation, but consider a few of the major ones:
1. Women and Money
Women’s role and status in society and in the workplace, in particular, has changed dramatically. Women have opportunities today that their mothers could only dream about. And I applaud that, many of these changes were long overdue and badly needed.
But this also created dramatic changes in how women relate to men – and not for the better. The National Bureau of Economic Research says that, as of 2003, US four-year college graduates tallied 135 women for every 100 men.
Forty-five years earlier, that number showed 160 male graduates for every 100 female graduates. According to a 2014 article in the Washington Post women earn nearly 60% of all college degrees.
And that’s a good thing, we can’t deny that but you know what else it’s meant?
It means that today a lot of women also decide to spend their twenties focusing on their careers before considering marriage and children. Today an amazing number of professional women do not have their first child until they are nearly forty.
So, now both men and women often spend the first decade or two of their adult life focused on their career goals instead of personal happiness.
And women’s earning power has skyrocketed and many no longer need men financially, so when you try to strike up a conversation with some woman in her twenties or thirties she may well ignore you, because she’s focused on her career and she doesn’t need your money. And if you are too charming it will simply upset her plans and today a lot of women have plans.
2. The Social Freezer
A lot of “men’s” websites and magazines bemoan the women’s movement, but the advancement of women’s rights is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that Western society has fundamentally changed economically, politically, religiously, and socially.
Before 1900 most Americans and even Europeans still lived on farms. More than likely a man married a girl he had known all of his life. Marrying the “girl next door” was very common and if he didn’t actually marry the girl next door he married the girl down the street or over the next ridge or something.
Today most people move a lot. Very few Americans live in the same house long enough to marry the girl next door. And then there is college and starting a career. We all live in a transient society.
Heck, when I was working in Hollywood I was gone six months a year. I didn’t have time to seriously date anyone.
And the Sexual Revolution beginning in the 1960s changed things too. It became easier to have hook ups, but not develop serious long term relationships. For men, this was fun, but it often meant that guys find themselves at forty looking for a serious relationship for the first time.
That is a problem.
Americans work a ton. I did in my twenties and thirties and you probably did too, but everyone knows the dangers of workplace romances. Every company has a sexual harassment policy.
Most guys are terrified to so much as look at a woman at work, because who knows, one innocent comment can get you fired. So, for most men meeting a woman at work is off limits.
I’m not making any excuse for the assholes who do sexually harass women, but let’s face it none of us know where the line between friendly and flirtatious stops and sexual harassment begins, so for the most part none of us want to say anything.
We all end up frozen in fear and uncertainty. We are lonely, but what do you do? If you didn’t marry your college sweetheart where are you going to meet a woman?
Is it any wonder the United States is considered the second least flirtatious country in the world? Women, with their high-brow, ultra-strict restrictions and expectations have bled all the fun, lightheartedness, and joy in life that men and women enjoy in so many other cultures.
And the new technologies of social media, cell phones, and digital cameras just made it worse. Give a woman your business card and in an hour she will probably know everything about you or at least she will think she knows everything about you.
And if she ends up on you Facebook account, well that can be interesting to say the least.
And this all works the same way for women too.
When was the last time you felt comfortable telling jokes around women? Don’t you hate how you have to tiptoe around, watch your use of certain phrases or words, and be so damn vigilant about how you speak, for fear of offending some women’s sensibilities?
And you know the worst part of this? It means that every day, you and I need to give up a part of our spontaneity, our uniqueness, I’ll even go so far as to say our charm – just so we fit in and don’t step on some poor defenseless woman’s toes.
What do you think the price is for this? I’d say we compromise who we really are, we take on a role, a persona, that isn’t really who we are. And women wonder why men aren’t genuine, honest, and forthcoming?
REALLY!!
3. Women’s Changing Roles Have Affected Male-Female Relations
The feminism movement, which charged onto the scene in the 1960’s and has gathered steam ever since, dampened and discounted the ideas of romantic love.
Without a doubt, the movement had many advantages and spectacular accomplishments, but at what cost? Many men would say at the cost of the “romantic ideal” which for centuries drove men and women to meet, mix, and mate.
It’s no secret that the romantic notions that many of us knew in the 50’s, 60’s, or even the 70’s, are now considered laughable, sappy, out of date and as popular as men in hats.
The bottom line is that many of us who attempt to bring a soft, warm, inviting approach to women may be doomed, if not outright laughed at, or ridiculed. I don’t know about you, but I hesitate to show my “nice guy” side many times because it’s just not cool.
It is a scientific fact: A lot of women do like bad boys.
And maybe when you are twenty-one you could pull it off, but by the time you are forty-one you know that all the real bad boys are probably dead or in prison. That’s not you and you aren’t even going to try to play the game.
You want something serious and probably sweet and romantic. But approach a woman like that and you might be looked upon as weak, effeminate, and certainly not the kind of a man many women would consider prize dating material. There goes another piece of yourself, offered on the altar of political correctness and woman’s sense of what’s good.
Have you had experiences like this, either in the dating world, or worse yet, in a relationship? A lot of men I know have. And it’s one of the reasons so many men have dropped out, figuring a life alone looks shades better than the kind of treatment they encounter in the dating world.
4. The Disposable Man, The Disposable Relationship
You know the numbers: Nearly than 1 in 2 American marriages march inevitably toward divorce court – and second marriages fare even worse!
But we all know, most divorces are prompted by a man going through a middle age crisis and running off with a younger woman, right?
Not so fast: According to a 2012 study conducted by the American Association of Retired People (AARP), more than two-thirds of divorces in the 40-50 age group were initiated by women. An even higher number of separations, as well.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but let’s face it, the bottom line is that you and I are more disposable in a woman’s eyes, whether in marriage, as the study cites, or in dating. If you consider women’s elevated status in the workplace and couple it with the attitudinal changes brought about by the women’s movement, our chances diminish rapidly.
These numbers bear out the fact that people are often more inclined to chuck the marriage than work to make it successful. And do you suppose this disposable view of marriages carries over to the dating world? No question, it does. Factor in the fluidity of movement in our society generally, and it becomes a big contributor to the destruction of the dating world as we once knew it.
What Do You Do Now?
Those are the facts, so what do you do?
If you’re a man, especially a man who is 40 years or older and dating in Western society – could be the USA, Canada, or some parts of Europe, these statements should speak to you. It’s not just a truth I am telling you, it’s a truth you can feel. A truth you know deep inside.
And undoubtedly, you and I could cite many more reasons that would account for the dismal dating world we live in.
But what does that prove? And aside from setting a basis for understanding why today’s dating world is the way it is, it serves little purpose, and only contributes to the high blood pressure so many of us suffer from as a result of this crazy dating world we live in.
What we really need is to re-instill our life with hope, with the belief that we really can find a world where dating is once again successful, fun, rewarding. A world where women respond warmly to friendly gestures, to innocent flirting and a man’s desire to get to know them.
Is it possible? Does this world really exist?
The answer is YES.
But, as you may have guessed, it’s not the world you have been playing in. Instead, I want to briefly introduce you to the idea of casting your dating net much wider and farther than the shores of the US.
I have done it and it’s opened up a world that I never knew existed. And it has shown me a world filled with women who share absolutely NONE of the horrifying traits we have been talking about.
The Case For International Dating
What I am suggesting is that you look at dating women outside the shores of your home country. These could be women from Eastern Europe, Russia, the Philippines or Central and South America. You need to know: There is an alternative to the way you have been dating.
The old saying is so true, “continue doing the same thing and you’ll continue getting the same results”.
And I don’t think that’s what any of us wants, is it?
It’s a lot like the successful real-estate mantra: Location, location, location: Well, here’s a little secret. That holds true for dating just as well. Chicago isn’t Paris; New York isn’t Manila; and Cleveland isn’t
Prague.
Just as the food varies immensely from culture to culture, so too do the women — and their attitudes about life, about dating, about MEN. These women grew up with different views and different outlooks about men.
Most of them haven’t made men their mortal enemy. They still crave the interaction, warmth, closeness and sharing that a relationship between two loving people can produce. It has a high priority in their lives and often they are totally over the bad boy thing; Foreign women are often running from bad boys.
All you have to do is watch some foreign movies, read or look at some foreign magazines and books and you can see it’s glaringly obvious that there is another world out there – one that brings life, hope, and LOVE back into the realm of possibility.
Can you imagine what your world would be like if you had access to a willing pool of attractive, smart, emotionally and physically available women? Women who didn’t just tolerate your interest but instead welcomed and cherished it. It is no joke, you are really more attractive to foreign women.
And responded to it! Damn, there’s nothing like it, especially if Western dating is the yardstick by which you measure the dating world.
Who Would You Be in This World?
How would you see yourself personally if you found yourself being noticed, approached, accepted – even desired? And not by one – but many – women!
Could it be that the society you swim in determines who you are, how you act, and what you accomplish? Could it be that your constant state of low grade depression is shaped by your environment?
Many men, like myself, have taken the bold step and slammed the doors on American, Canadian and Western women and flung their dating fortunes to the waters of international dating. We will never turn back. And once you begin meeting some of the thousands of available international women, you’ll understand why.
We have discovered a truth those who limit their dating hopes to Western women will never know personally: Not All Women in The World are Like American and Western Women. Consider that for a minute: Not All Women in The World are Like Western Women.
What we have concluded – or what our experience in international dating has shown us, is that the problem was not us but the Western dating culture we dated in. We no longer criticize ourselves for the disasters we encountered once we discovered that other cultures, other women do react differently.
All of a sudden, a man who feels shy, depressed, unwanted, and socially awkward encounters a pool of women who value, desire and cherish him. Imagine the effect that has on your ego, on your self-image. And most especially, on your dating life.
I’m Not Sure I Could Do It
Does the idea of dating a Filipina, a Russian, or a Brazilian scare you? How would you meet them, how would you speak their language (surprise: many speak perfect English). How would you work out the logistics of meeting and getting together?
You’re not alone. Every man happily married to such a woman once sat in your chair and asked himself the same questions. It’s normal. But the good news is that every one of us men found the path was much easier than we feared. It was only fear, itself, that held us back from being happy. But isn’t that the way life always is?
Open yourself up to a woman who truly is cut from a different cloth than the women who have been ignoring you, rejecting you, and failing to see just what a wonderful man you are.
Make it Happen! She’s out there, somewhere, waiting for you to take that first step.
If you are ready to take that first step, you might want to check out our complete A-to-Z Guide to Mail Order Brides.