
By: Arianna Jeret for The Good Men Project.
I was recently talking with a man I had been seeing casually for a while about being set-up on blind dates. Or rather, we were talking about friends and family who have tried to set us up with people who are entirely NOT either of our type.
In our back and forth detailing of ridiculous mismatches, he launched into one he seemed to feel would come across as particularly amusing:
“So my uncle said he had found me the perfect woman! Get this: she is in her late-30s or early-40s, divorced, and has 3 young boys! Are you kidding me?!” Pause with eyes wide open for my expected giggles and snorts — yes, I snort when I laugh. Deal with it.
Except I was not laughing. I happen to be 42 years old. I am divorced. And I have two boys.

I asked him what the problem was with that particular description, and all he could come up with was, “Well, come on. That’s a lot.”
I don’t know. Is it?
This particular man is in his mid-40s, has never been married, and has no kids. If I wanted to be snarky, I could write about how his having reached this point of life without having made a lasting commitment to anyone but himself could be seen by some as liabilities lined up in the cons section of a pro/con list regarding dating him.
I just don’t see it that way.
The guy in question is a good man. He is kind, responsible, thoughtful, classy, respectful and self-reflective. He has had plenty of responsibility to take on for himself and for others in his life, and I sit in no position to judge whether or not his choices have been wise or foolish. His choices have been his choices and his life has been his life.
What irks me to no end is the way that men and women in the dating pool today have assumed free licence to negatively judge those of us who gave the commitment of marriage our best go, and who now have beautiful children who come along with our package, all under the guise of the labels “baggage,” “drama” and “damage.”