This is Why You’re Single – The Top Dating App Dealbreakers Revealed, by M. Notkin

This is Why You’re Single – The Top Dating App Dealbreakers Revealed, by M. Notkin

(Link): This is why you’re single — the top dating app dealbreakers revealed

by Melanie Notkin
May 5, 2023

…A sizable number of single females have had their fill of tofu nibblers. A new study on dating app dealbreakers reports that 1 in 5 women will summarily reject a man who indicates he’s a vegan on his dating profile.

The study was conducted by Alexander, also known as @Datepsych on Twitter, a behavioral and cognitive neuroscience graduate student with a passion for information gathering. He keeps his last name private, he told The Post, due to his sometimes controversial research into topics like incel culture, promiscuity and facial attractiveness.

For this study, Alexander collected 130 different dealbreakers from his 18,500 Twitter followers, coding them into a survey for a social media “convenience sample” — meaning easily accessible dating app users on Twitter — of 438 men and women, with a mean age of 32.

He then asked participants to imagine a dating profile with a photo they found physically attractive enough to consider accepting. (Or, in app speak, swiping right.)

Next, the respondents scored each dealbreaker from one to five, with one being something they could overlook, and five being an absolute no-no that would lead to an immediate rejection, or a swipe-left, no matter how attractive the profile photo. Alexander then shared the absolute 5/5 guaranteed dealbreakers in his report.

The dealbreakers with the highest percent of fives were not shockers. For example, the overwhelming majority of women say they reject male profiles that exhibit violence, or sexual and bigoted content.

Men, on the other hand, were highly unlikely to want a date with a woman who uses her dating profile to promote her OnlyFans.

But that’s where the survey responses stopped being predictable. Turns out, when it comes to dating apps, the dealbreakers are not always the ones you’d expect.

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin – Why Women Are Still Single in Their 30s and Older

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

I’m a conservative, but I’ve been beyond fed up for years now at how so many other conservatives, as well as sexists of whatever variety, assume that the reason why most women are single past the age of 30 is because they chose career before marriage.

Along with that is the other annoying, very wrong, and sexist assumption by men online that all of us women who remain single past the age of 30 had lots and lots of “nice guys” who wanted to date us back in our 20s, but we coldly, cruelly turned them all down.

I don’t know what the hell those men are talking about, because I did not have lots and lots of men asking me out on dates when I was in my twenties.

But it’s simply not true that all women choose career over “marriage and family.”

Why aren’t men giving up careers to be stay at home fathers, taking care of children?

I never cared much one way or the other if I ever had children, but I had wanted to be married. And I’m not single because I “chose career over spouse.”

I have more observations about this essay below:

(Link): The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

The image of the single, childless “career woman” is drawn so sharply in our minds, so deeply ingrained in culture and overused in media, it obfuscates the real story. Contrary to popular belief, most working women are not putting their careers ahead of love, marriage and motherhood.

Never mind that there are no “career men” — no one accuses a single, childless man of prioritizing career over love and family just because he’s single and can pay the rent.

But women are made to wear this label — though I have yet to meet a woman who has declined a date with a guy she’s interested in because she’d rather be on a Zoom call.

While college-educated women are settling down and having children later than was once the case, the “career woman” is mostly a mid-century myth, an outlier like Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, who belongs to a time when women went to college to earn their “MRS” degree.

The One Question You Should Never Ask a Single Person at Christmas by J. Hocking

The One Question You Should Never Ask a Single Person at Christmas by J. Hocking

(Link): The one question you should never ask a single person at Christmas

Excerpts:

by Jana Hocking
December 15, 2022

This time of year can put a shiver up the spine of most singletons.

Yes, it’s Christmastime, and oopsy daisy, you forgot to bag yourself a partner in time for dinner with the family.

You’re armoring up for the “Why haven’t you got yourself a partner yet?” question from annoying relatives with good hearts, and the idea of waking up by yourself instead of to a boisterous house full of children and a sexy husband can seem pretty darn crappy.

Except … it’s not.

You see, we focus so much on the traditional side of Christmas, we forget that this time of year as a singleton is actually ridiculously fun.

Don’t believe me? Let me point out a few reasons why you can thank the Lord he didn’t throw your soulmate into your direct path this year.

1. Sweet, sweet freedom

Unlike partnered-up couples who are arguing about who will be designated driver, and trying to figure out whose family gets Christmas and whose gets Boxing Day, you get the glorious gift of freedom to pick and choose to do whatever the heck you want for Christmas.

Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single? by Emily Brown

Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single? by Emily Brown

The essay I am excerpting below is pretty good and contains a lot of truth.

It’s certainly true that a person who wanted marriage but remains single can eventually learn to accept their own single status, mostly make peace with it, but well-meaning friends and family (Christians are the worst, they worship marriage),
can make one of their well-meaning comments, and it can send you spiraling – until you learn to let it bounce off you, develop boundaries, and let that well-meaning person know that their comment does offend or hurt, even if that wasn’t their intent.

I also recall years ago seeing Christian singer Carman, who died in 2021, who was single until he got married in his 50s, say on a TBN program (while he was single) that he would be going along okay in life doing just FINE with his single status,
until he’d run into a Christian friend or family member who’d make those passing, sometimes well meaning, comments or questions like, “Why are you still single? Aren’t you depressed or lonely being single?”

Carman said on those occasions, his thoughts were, “You know, I WAS doing okay with being single UNTIL you had to rub my single status in my face and act like I SHOULD feel inadequate about it.”

The following is from Relevant, which only permits a person up to around five free articles per month:

(Link): Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single?

Excerpts:

by Emily Brown

As a lifelong single person, I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with my singleness. And not even just come to terms and begrudgingly accept it, but truly learn to enjoy and love being single.

So when people ask how I feel about being single I don’t have to fake a smile. I excitedly share the happiness and joy I feel about being single.

That being said, there are still moments where I do feel sadness or shame or embarrassment about my singleness.

Do you know why? It’s because of the response people give me when I tell them how I feel about being single. Because when I tell people that I’m single they often respond with some iteration of:

“I’m sure you’ll find someone soon!”

Uh, thanks?

Nowhere in my explanation of my relationship status did I mention I was upset or worried.

Yet why do people — and let me be clear on which people I am specifically talking about: already married Christians — always assume I am sad about being single?

It has been a long, long journey to finding happiness. I worked really, really hard to unlearn the lie that being with someone would make my life complete and replace it with the truth that God is all I need.

I had to realize that there isn’t anything wrong with me and being single is not a curse.

…But it can take just a few words from well-meaning, ultimately misguided people to crack holes in my happiness.

Woman Says Why She’s Rejecting These ‘Lonely, Single Men’ – also: Male Entitlement In and Out of the Church, Men Who Won’t Take Personal Responsibility for Their Singleness

Woman Says Why She’s Rejecting These ‘Lonely, Single Men’ – also: Male Entitlement In and Out of the Church, Men Who Won’t Take Personal Responsibility for Their Singleness

Below this article, I have a lot of comments, before I resume with providing another link related to this first one:

(Link): Woman says why she’s rejecting these ‘lonely, single men’

Aug 18, 2022
By Jana Hocking, News.com.au

Unless you were hiding under a rock this week, you would have read about an article published on Psychology Today titled “The Rise of Lonely, Single Men.”

It was written by psychologist, Greg Matos, and revealed that dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.

The psychologist explained that women are now only dating men who share the same values, have great communication skills and are emotionally available. Praise the lord!

Toxic men are out, respectful studs are in.

Now first of all, may we get out our violins and play a sad melody for the men who have treated women like absolute rubbish and then realized that they’re now single and alone. How unfair for these poor creatures.

You see, while they were bed-hopping, ghosting, breadcrumbing and doing all sort of mind f–kery to us women folk, we were quietly, and subtly embracing this ‘self love’ culture that started to emerge in TED Talks, TikTok videos, YouTube channels, and various other online forms.

Oprah preached: “If you feel like he is stringing you along, then he probably is. Don’t stay because you think ‘it will get better’. You’ll be mad at yourself a year later for staying when things are not better.”

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

A few weeks ago, Sheila Wray Gregorie, who maintains a Christian martial advice blog, shared (Link): this on twitter.

A woman who runs yet another blog (called (Link): “True Love Dates”) featured a post by a single adult woman who I guess posted under a pen name, or as anonymous.

This single woman explained in her comment that, no, it’s not God’s will for all single women to be single, and for so many Christians to keep mouthing this assumption or repeating it in their sermons, books, or blogs is hurtful and discouraging to some single women who’d like to be married but who have not met the right person.

I too have done several posts over the years attempting to correct some of the wrong, hurtful, or insensitive teachings and attitudes that a lot of Christians have about singleness –
– such as, (Link): God told you to marry your spouse;
or, it’s (Link): God’s will for most to marry;
or that (Link): single adults exist only to serve married couples;
or that (Link): unwanted and protracted singleness is a “gift” God bestows upon some. (There are so many Christian fallacies about singleness.)

Here is the featured content for this post, and I agree that Christians need to stop saying that singleness (especially unwanted protracted singleness) is “God’s will.”

(Link): Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will?

Excerpts:

[by Sheila Wray Gregoire]

If you’ve never been married, does that mean that it was always God’s will that you would be single?

I think we talk about that a lot–that people are “called to singleness”, as if God decides before you were born, “Oh, I’m going to make sure that Jennifer doesn’t get married,” or “I’d prefer Stacey never meet the man of her dreams.”

Now, I do believe that God puts on some people’s hearts to be single, and to dedicate their life to a singular purpose to serve Him, in which singleness is necessary.

But I don’t think that’s the majority of people who are single.

The “Dating Market” Is Getting Worse by A. Fetters and K. Tiffany

The “Dating Market” Is Getting Worse b A. Fetters and K. Tiffany

For anyone who cannot wait to get to it, here’s the link to the piece on The Atlantic:

(Link): The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse

Some of my comments about that piece before I put in some excerpts from it:

About the only “numbers approach” I have ever mentioned on my own blog here is that Christian women really do unnecessarily limit themselves if they try to live out the “Be Equally Yoked” philosophy in regards to dating and marriage, because the reality is, yes, the math is that there are not enough single, Christian men to go around for all the Christian single women who’d like to marry.

So, it makes sense to forgo the “equally yoked” rule, if one is a Christian, to date outside the Christian faith.

At the same time, though, I have seen other adults singles make much too much out of the “numbers game” philosophy on dating sites or comments sections on blogs about dating, where they make finding a romantic life partner sound so cold, or as though they’re shopping for a car.

There’s nothing wrong with having standards, but I am afraid there is a category of single adult who is too stringent or unrealistic with their lists of “must haves.”

I am personally turned off by anyone dispensing dating or “how to get married” advice who behave  as though there is a sure-fire guarantee way to land a spouse – because (Link): there is no such thing.

So, I’m really turned off by the many (sexist) attitudes and lists out there telling women if only the women do X, Y, and Z, they will absolutely get married to a great guy.

One problem is that most of these lists (which go viral on Twitter) are predicated on the notion that all men want and prefer 1950s, submissive, uber-feminine women.

Well, I lived that way for many decades – I was raised in a very traditional family that was into conservative values – so I had many of those prized traits sexist men online say will grant a woman a husband, but I remain never-married into my late 40s.

I was a very meek, docile, passive, sweet woman with traditional values, and no, it didn’t get me a husband.

(As I’ve aged, I’ve realized that it’s not a healthy or safe dating strategy for a woman to fit the picture of docile, overly feminine, passive, etc, that the “dating advice” gurus suggest on twitter and elsewhere, because many abusive, selfish, or controlling men intentionally seek out women with such qualities so that they can control, abuse, or take advantage of them.)

There are many conservatives – including women authors, unfortunately – who keep writing dating advice books for women, or who go on to FOX cable news morning shows, who keep encouraging women to engage in these dangerous dating strategies (of being a doormat, where being “feminine” is associated with doormat behaviors), which I’ve written about before (Link): here and (Link): here, among other blog posts.

The article below states at one point that men out-number women on dating sites. That may be so on some sites, but certainly not all.

Years ago, I had a paid membership on a dating site, and the site was forever claiming they could find no matches for me, most of the time.

For the four or five month paid subscription I had, I was only linked up to a total of about three men in that time.

My research on that particular online dating company found it’s the same with a lot of women, as it had been for me: that site tends to only “dribble out” a tiny number of matches for women, while they send male members more matches per month, every month.

Here are excerpts from…

(Link): The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse

The old but newly popular notion that one’s love life can be analyzed like an economy is flawed—and it’s ruining romance.

…It’s understandable that someone like Liz [a 30 year old single who is using dating apps to find dates] might internalize the idea that dating is a game of probabilities or ratios, or a marketplace in which single people just have to keep shopping until they find “the one.”

The idea that a dating pool can be analyzed as a marketplace or an economy is both recently popular and very old:
For generations, people have been describing newly single people as (Link): “back on the market” and (Link): analyzing dating in terms of supply and demand.

Christians In Love With Non-Christians (and Their Christian “Friends” Who Object) by John Shore

Christians In Love With Non-Christians (and Their Christian “Friends” Who Object)

(Link): Christians In Love With Non-Christians (and Their Christian “Friends” Who Object)

Excerpts:

[The author reproduces some correspondence from Christian women who say they are or were dating Non-Christian men, but their Christian friends objected]

…You know what else is not a Christian thing to do (or what shouldn’t be, anyway)? Putting religious dogma ahead of being a friend.

Depressing Books And Spiky Plants Could Be Turning Your Home Into A Man Repellent, by R. Reid – Bad Dating Advice

Depressing Books And Spiky Plants Could Be Turning Your Home Into A Man Repellent, by R. Reid – Bad Dating Advice

This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read (link is below). A therapist took a look at a single woman’s apartment and told her that her decor could be acting as a “man repellant,” so she told the woman to get rid of pictures of herself, spiky houseplants, and a t-shirt with a woman’s face printed on it.

Most dating advice will admonish you to be yourself, which is good advice. Articles like this one I am quoting below contradict that solid, timeworn advice.

If you are a single woman with your own apartment or home, you’re being told to change it to be more appealing to any men you have over who you are dating.

This is like the advice that tells women to “grow your hair long, because men are turned off by short or medium hair on women.” That is terrible advice.

I’m not saying that all relationship advice is terrible.

The Incredibly Condescending and Presumptive Singles-Shaming Posts of Gladys Wisener

The Incredibly Condescending and Presumptive Singles-Shaming Posts of Gladys Wisener

In my few years of writing on this blog, I am still sometimes amazed at the comments I get, especially the remarks I get from the most innocuous of posts.

Never would I have imagined that linking to some article about a 105 year old woman who says she is happy and still alive at 105 because she has never bothered with men would induce someone to come on to my blog to leave me nasty and presumptive comments, but that is what happened.

This married woman named Gladys Wisener stopped by this blog recently, and she engaged in some singles-shaming under (Link): that post about a 105 year old single woman.

When Gladys began saying or assuming some weird, offensive, negative, or insulting things about me, and I understandably got irate and offended in response to her attitude and comments, and I let her know, she replies by telling me I sound “bitter.”

Because that’s what entitled married cows such as her do – they assume if you have a legitimate complaint against their obnoxious- married- people- attitudes and- presumptive- assumptions about you, they assume it can only come from a place of… wait for it… yes, that’s right, it must be due to bitterness.

And the unspoken assumption is that you, you single woman, must be bitter because you’re single and don’t have a husband.

In their thinking, bitterness could be the only possible reason you are correcting a married woman on your blog about singleness for being obnoxious.

Your anger cannot possibly be due to the married person’s hideous, insulting comments to you or about you or about singleness, no, it must be because you are not married!

If only you were married or in a steady relationship, you would not take umbrage at the married person’s condescending comments about you or your blog – married or engaged people would love to be on the receiving end of your lousy assumptions and comments and take them so well.

The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

According to DePaulo, aspects of this study are very victim-blaming and tell single men, ‘the reason you’re still single is that you are a big, fat, loser.’ (This is the sort of rhetoric that single women usually receive.)

(Link): The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

Excerpts:

… If you are not familiar with Reddit, take a look at Andrew Marantz’s New Yorker (Link): article. He notes, for example, that on Google, three of the top auto-completions for Reddit are “toxic,” “cancer,” and “hot garbage.”

Presumably not all the Reddit threads are terrible, but the one in which users answered the question, “Guys, why are you single?”, drew comments such as:

-“Jesus titty-fucking Christ, this whole thread is depressing as fuck. If you like being single you can stop reading.”
-“This thread is Reddit at it’s finest.” [sic]

…The answer he expected to find came from his evolutionary perspective: In the past, marriages were arranged, so men did not have to have any social skills to have a mate.

Now, however, “men who have difficulty flirting or are unable to impress the opposite sex may remain single because their (Link): social skills have not evolved to meet today’s societal demands.”

Also important to Apostolou’s perspective is the assumption that men generally do not want to be single.

The entire empirical test of those ideas was that one Reddit thread [that asked men of that site why they think they are single].

In what strikes me as a very poor decision, the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science published Apostolou’s article. The title is, “Why men stay single? Evidence from Reddit.”

The Millennial Caregiver – from WSJ – Some Adult Singles Have No Choice But to Delay Marriage Because They Are Too Busy Acting As Caretakers to Elderly Family

Some Adult Singles Have No Choice But to Delay Marriage Because They Are Too Busy Acting As Caretakers to Elderly Family

(Link): The Millennial Caregiver

The Call to Care for Aging Parents Comes Sooner Now

More millennials are responsible for their parents and grandparents, sometimes derailing careers and family life.

… As the country grows older, its caregivers are growing younger and more squeezed. Millennials now make up 24% of the nation’s unpaid caregivers, up from 22% of young adult caregivers in 2009.

…Their numbers are expected to grow and so, too, are their challenges.

Maria Aranda, an associate professor of Social Work and Gerontology at the University of Southern California, says caregiving responsibilities can come at pivotal times in the lives of millennials and threaten to derail expected milestones, like starting families and buying a house. “Those things are being eclipsed,” says Dr. Aranda, who conducted a study of millennials … who are caring for those with dementia.