This man wants to know where to go find love

We have a number of male readers on Mamamia – some that comment, many that just read and one that has asked this group therapy question we all want to know the answer to. Gavin* writes

“Why do men visit prostitutes?” I was slightly taken aback by this out of the blue question from a girl friend. Then again she had just discovered that her husband was doing just that so I suppose it is an understandable question to be asking?

At the time I did not have an answer to her question, I’ve never considered the option myself but it did leave the question lingering on my mind about the dating game, expectations, just how do people meet up these days and what on earth they are actually looking for in the first place?

Maybe it just me but I don’t think meeting the “love” of your life has ever been easy road to travel – apart from those who got in early and were too young and dumb to realise the world of pain they were saving themselves from. Those of us left on the sidelines after this initial frenzy have had a lot more time to get ourselves into trouble. Yet some things from these early misadventures remain the same. Like the terror of saying hi to that gorgeous someone for the first time still seems just as fresh as ever. I suppose it’s because so much is wrapped up in this one great adventure, so many hopes, dreams and deepest of yearnings.

So for those of us still single shouldn’t this be the golden age? A time where we can quite literally randomly meet people on the other side of the world. Yet for all these advances why do I feel more isolated from real interactions with people than ever before? Is it worse because it is the promise that never actually delivers?

Worse still is the danger when one actually does venture far from the cave – it’s a boy thing! The lightly hood of being shot down in flames seems even greater than it has in the past. I’m just alarmed and saddened by the way I see girls responding to relationship situations, particularly if they aren’t interested in particular person doing the asking. It seems that a simple no thanks is no longer good enough but only a wholesale character assassination will do. Very much like one I saw from a friend reacting to a facebook friend request from a man she didn’t know yesterday – the offender was immediately labelled a freak and then got derided as some sort of a sleaze bag, pervert or worse. All the while another friend is asking if he was cute or not? Was his indiscretion of asking to be a ‘friend’ so outrageous, so perverted as to warrant such a harsh response? Well probably not.

This leaves me slightly perplexed by the constant moans from my thirty something single girl friends as to why they never get asked out? Maybe it’s because it’s hard enough at the best of times to put yourself out there, risk failure and embarrassment asking someone out without adding the thought that you’ll also come away with your reputation in tatters?

Sadly now after a couple of year of consideration I would answer my friends question very differently than I did the first time.

Am I wrong about this? Maybe but just start listening to people’s language and how they are referring to people particularly in relationship situations where one party is interested and the other isn’t.

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