It's tricky but I'm not sure that it's trickier. I can't really get older women to date me anyway. My dating pool is sadly limited to young lassies. Well, those are the only ones that I ask out now anyway. I can't take this humiliation with women my age refusing to date me anymore because I blow all my cash on drugs and fast women.

Well, yes. It's interesting because I did have a conversation with a young hotty about it and she said that it hadn't worked out with her ex because he just thought that she just wanted him for his money.

It's not all black and white though. Just because a girl is used to guys trying to buy her drinks and stuff all the time that doesn't mean that that's all that she wants from a guy, or even needs from a guy.

I only date locally but I don't find the internet brilliant as a way to meet a "partner".

Think of it this way: This site is slow but even if I register on loads of them it means trawling through hundreds or thousands of profiles that may or may not be real and may or may not be active members on the site. Then I somehow have to find somebody that wants to talk to me and might be interested in dating me. So then I message loads of women and they usually say something about me not being for them. They don't even know me and all that they do know about me is what's on my profile and what I said in a few lame emails when I was bored but they've decided that I'm not boyfriend material anyway.

So, that's mostly a waste of time and you end up just letting random floozies message you because at least some of them are up for it.

It's different if you meet somebody through some activity or hobby that you get involved with. It can also help when it's organised. At the moment I'm going to a creative writing class at the university. They go to the pub afterwards. It's a mixed bunch but we all have a common interest at least.

Basically, it's not easy on the internet to narrow it down to compatible people. It's far easier to just go out and mix with people that you meet through your job, social circle, hobby, or anything like that than trying to find a needle in a haystack.

This is a topic that anyone can chip in with I suppose. Someone was saying something to me about how middle aged men usually need a wad of cash if they want to date young hotties though and she maybe had a point there and they probably don't want to date a bum or a cheapskate.

Obviously, it would be inappropriate for me to ask you how much you would usually spend if you wanted to have a really good night out with somebody and totally out of order for me to expect you to itemise your expenditure by asking how much you spend on alcohol, cocaine, jewelery, taxi fares and the like.

So then, just sum yourself up in a word or two maybe. Bum; cheapskate; big spender; or what?

Because that's right. To take my example, of the idiot that can't help being an idiot, every day would indeed be torture if you kept asking him if he had read a book yet.

To stretch the analogy further, if I can; if he was getting more idiotic every day the torture would surely become unbearable.

Well, let's just put it this way. If I was making a lot of dough I wouldn't actually broadcast the fact on the internet, if you know what I mean.

Yes, It is a bit like the thread about the guy that didn't like his bird pooping I suppose. I'm not that bad though.

I think that I would rather judge people about things that they can't do anything about. I mean, say someone is an idiot. Well, he's just an idiot then. No point in telling him to go and read a book. He won't. It's not like when someone, say, wears a silly hat that makes them look like an idiot. They could take it off. They don't have to look like an idiot.

Well, I thought it would be an interesting topic.

Maybe I do a bit though. I'm concerned at the minute that I might have to have a back tooth extracted. The tooth isn't visible anyway but once you start losing them your face starts to look all shrunken, like Beethoven, if you don't wear dentures.

Yeah, there's a mirror in my bathroom. I can shave without it though.

Now, I believe that you can alter your ideas about what's atractive. I wouldn't have looked twice at a chubby girl when I was in my twenties. Wasn't interested in older women either, although the likes of Jane Fonda still looked alright. Tried dating an older woman later and to a point they can still look sexy. It's hard to say exactly what that point is but to give an example: falling over drunk is only really a look that a young woman can pull off.

But anyway. What happens if you've tried dating "appropriately" and you did love her and all of that but it didn't work out and you aren't going to grow old together after all? What happens if the next one shows similar signs of aging but you're even less inclined to look beyond that because what's beyond it isn't what you loved and she's not the same woman?

I brought it up because I think that there is a bit of a double standard. As I said, some women like pretty boys and some don't. I've never considered myself to be a pretty boy but some women still fancy me, so I'm fine with that. I certainly wouldn't want to date a woman that looked like me. Why should I have to? I just don't get it.

Women could want an intimate encounter with a stranger for all sorts of reasons. Yes, they're likely to be insane, struggling with issues, or damaged goods in some way.

Let's see though... What do you call a crazy girl that gets her thrills by doing risky things like sleeping with strangers? I believe the old fashioned term is "nymphomaniac". So, if you come to think about it, you could be getting porn star quality sex there.

This is why a guy doesn't necessarily have to be desperate to do it. And frankly, I'm not really sure anymore why a guy would go on a dating site unless he was just looking for nymphos.

People often try to say that old women are great because they've got all of the maturity, life experience and maybe they've even read a few books. You do indeed come across the ocasional senior citizen that's a really interesting person and they're not just all a bit doo laly, like your granny.

Now, the problem is this. Compared to when you meat a young dolly bird you can find yourself thinking, "Ugh, no. This is maybe a bit shallow of me but what I'm noticing here are physical imperfections and it's like, you know; some women like pretty boys and some like craggy faced types and that's fine and it should also be alright for me to say that I just like pretty girls."

Well, let's put it this way. It's not something that I really need to prove to someone that's actually looking for a serious relationship. I mean, if I say, "Want to come back to my place darling?" they just take one look around and it seems to dawn on them that I'm a batchelor that's not domesticated. That's the first thing. They can assume that I'm not the type of player that poses as a relationship type of guy.

So then, assuming that the bedroom at leasts passes inspection, how do I prove it to them after that? Well, I guess that I keep taking their calls. We just see how it goes. She could be the one that's the player.

If you were asking me to somehow demonstrate it to the sort of women that would log on here and read this thread though, I suppose that it would be similar. First thing would be that nowhere would I come out with cheesy lines about what an upstanding citizen that I am that totally respects women and is looking for one that goes to church, is "financially secure" and stuff. Then I would probably just say that I don't really need to prove anything to you because you live too far away anyway.

Well, the latter is a sure thing and if they're advertising for sex and keep saying that they need to meet for coffee somewhere first that means that they're jerking you about and you're unlikely to even get the coffee. It's just one of many delaying tactics that internet prick teases use.

It depends. I met one in a public place once because I wasn't that bothered because I was interested in somebody else at the time but I decided that it would have been rude not to meet someone that had actually asked me out just to be faithful to somebody on the internet that was messing me about and wouldn't make a date.

It depends a lot on how I'm feeling at the time. One time I turned down a woman that was a bit drunk because I was looking for more than a one night stand and she didn't seem like a good bet for girlfriend material, as she was only just seperated from her husband and not over him at all. Also, I had a date with someone else the next night and wanted to see how it went with that one first.

I may not be that bothered and feel like going to the pub or whatever anyway. I mean, I'm not desperate. If I want uncomplicated sex I can get it and somebody new is an unknown quantity that might not be that good if I just want a shag.

You should spank them when they're naughty. Apart from that I don't know, or care really.

Well, you're saying that you can't go to her, so what else are you offering her and how really is that using you? You may be stupidly throwing your money away on somebody that takes you for some kind of fool or helping a woman that won't allow herself to love a man that she can't be with.

Anyway, whether you fell for a sob story or pushed the money on her, expecting something in return, take her to court unless it was a gift because otherwise she owes you nothing and it is true that people only treat you the way that you allow them to treat you.

It's hard to advise you because you haven't said how she is just using you. For what? Sex? Money? What?

You love her but maybe she doesn't love you. All of a sudden she's just using you when you were happy with the way that things were before. Maybe you had unrealistic expectations. Is it that she doesn't want to take the relationship to the same sort of level that you want? Could be that the way that a woman sees it she's the one that's getting used when she marries a man. What does a woman get out of marriage? Does she need your money? Can you cook your own dinner and wash your own socks?

Yes. It's bad to waste people's time and it's rather creepy.

That's the simple answer. What are you talking about? Someone in a relationship that wants a pretend one on the side? What do you mean by a "relationship"? Do you mean like with a penpal or is it more like visiting someone on death row, or a lifer, that you say that you love, when you can never be together in any normal sense?

Why don't you want a normal relationship? What's wrong with you is the real question.

First thing to say here is that you start of by listing what you want. That's it, is it? That's the deal? You've not left any room there for other things that she might like to do. Why don't you just hire an escort girl, you cheap bastard?

How's this deal with them not being clingy going to work? Don't call me; I'll call you? Treating her like a call girl again.

Who pays for dinner and all the rest of it John?

Now switch it and let's say that I'm on a date with a woman that says that she just wants a friend with benefits. Well hey, it would be absolutely super if they just like to do the same sorts of things that you do when you're entertaining a lady but wait a minute mister. This isn't the little lady or GF that's there to laugh at your lame jokes and go to your favorite restaurant with once a month. As a matter of fact, she doesn't want to marry a man like you and you're just deluded if you think that you're going to find a woman that's going to find your terms satisfactory and not start to get pissed off with you acting like you're Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate.

I think that a lot of it does depend on how conformist and conservetively "normal" you are how you're going to feel about dating any sort of a quirky or eccentric person. There's also perhaps what I might call ignorance, or willful ignorance, operating when people say no to it.

If you had been diagnosed with a personality disorder how would you feel about being stereotyped, with people taking the atitude that "they're all the same if they have diagnosis X?" There would seem to certainly be a compatibility issue here if a lot of people are coming to conclusions about certain types of people because most of what they know about such things comes from the media or anecdotal evidence. People like to play amatuer psychologist and not just on internet forums.

So, imagine that you're sitting there and you're trading life stories. Your date tells you that they had a difficult adolescence and hated high school. Red flag or not if you're "normal"? They continue to tell you how they're a bit of a social misfit. "This guy's weird. He's never been married and doesn't have what I would think of as a normal social life."

Then there's just bigotry. Your date tells you that they smoke marajuana sometimes. Well, this is just a big no no for a lot of people that think that it automatically makes you a scumbag, or someone that needs professional help, or they say that they just don't like druggies; or drunks if that's their prejudice. But wait a minute. I had someone that said that they don't like people that drink or drug sending me a friend request on here the other day, so what's that all about? Why was it alright for The Beatles to experiment with drugs but you wouldn't date somebody that had? Does a person smoke marijuana because they're self medicating and avoiding issues, or is it the opposite and are they some sort of artist that finds that it helps them to be creative? Would you even just back off if they told you that they were an artist because they tend to be eccentric and may well be using their art as some sort of therapy? Or would you reserve judgment until you had seen their work and be alright about it if it turned out to be quite dull and unoriginal?

Well, technically too much sex is bad for the woman because there's only so much of a pounding that that thing can take. I suppose it can be "bad" for you in other ways. You might miss your bus, for instance.

Well, my spelling isn't perfect and grammar nazis often have a go at me about my punctuation.

No, it only really bothers me if their messages are boring. I get bored easily and I would rather read a short mesage containing typos that said that they were interested in meeting me so that we could have a proper chat than reading a lot of waffle. I don't generally date school teachers anyway, although I did have one girlfriend that worked with kids. Most people aren't using a proper keyboard these days and not everybody is a particularly good writer.

It depends on the context though. If I'm writing to someone in another country I want a proper letter out of them at least, or I'll find a penpal that can write well enough to do that. That's not something that I really make a habit out of doing though because I'm not looking for a long distance relationship.

Well, a lot of the binge drinking that goes on is people going out and drinking quite a lot in a short space of time before the pubs shut. It's quite common and I don't think that you can call them all alcoholics. But maybe it doesn't matter and if you want to call everyone that goes out at the weekend to get drunk alcoholics, then whatever. They aren't alcoholics in the same sense that someone is when he drinks every day though.

I didn't really want to talk so much about that anyway. I think for the sake of this discussion it's enough to say that someone has a drinking problem if he can't digest alcohol "normally". Say, I've had five pints and my speach isn't even slurred yet. I feel fine, so I have another and a double whisky. All of a sudden I'm hammered and I'm also drinking more before I feel that I've had enough or got a proper buzz going, so that's likely to slide into full blown alcohol dependancy if I'm not careful.