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Where Have All the Good Ones Gone?
I get so much email asking this question and there is no politically correct way to truthfully answer the question for you. So, if you want me to say that we are all simply different people with different preferences and that is why it is so hard to find what you are looking for, then don’t bother to read this. I can only speak for America’s dating scene right now and it probably doesn’t match what is going on around the rest of the world. The truth is, my foreign readers never ask the question. As a matter of fact, it is a select group of Americans that even ask.
The young teens and early twenty-
The folks in their late fifties and older don’t ask. Unlike the younger generation, this older generation has very clearly defined roles, dress codes, and dating rituals that work perfectly well for them. They expect each other to conduct themselves within a certain narrowly defined range of acceptable behaviors, mannerisms, and belief systems. Finding compatibility is not as difficult for them because as a generation, they are all very much alike and all one needs is a bit of chemistry and the rest will pretty much fall into place.
The group who asks more than any other are in their thirties and forties. They fit within two groups ‘average nice guys’ and ‘super women.’ Why are they asking the question, “Where have all the good ones gone?” How do we get these two groups together romantically? The biggest easiest piece of the puzzle to understand is that this is a transitional generation. They are caught between two extremes. This is a generation that had lots of choices and free will, but also had a lot of rules and expectations too. It is the first generation to grow up in broken homes, with birth control as a normal way of life, and partying was a recreational sport worthy of bragging rights. We were told we could be super wealthy, super sexy, and super parents if we simply worked hard, dressed for success, used our day planners, and went to the gym.
I have not seen any research on this topic, but I believe that a lot of the girls from this generation had fathers in Vietnam and show the classic psychological symptoms of those who grow up without fathers to teach them what it means to be loved by a man for who you are and not for your body. We had dads, but they weren’t around during the very young developmental years when we were supposed to be ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ so we do not know how to be coddled and taken care of. Then there is the element of those dad’s coming home from war and not being shown any love, respect, nor gratitude. Our fathers were those men who were drafted into war and then treated like garbage for having been there in the first place. What did that do to us? How did it roll downhill? How many kids in this generation were raised by fathers who drank their way through the memories of war? How many of those dads had Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome that went untreated? How many of us were emotionally, physically, or even sexually abused as a result? How many of our mothers left our fathers because they were so different when they came back home? Is it any wonder that when we became teenagers that we threw out all of the rules but carried with us all of the wounds, the secrets, and the pain of those who went before us?
How does this transitional generation define ‘a good one’ in reference to finding
someone compatible and loving that they can trust and commit the rest of their lives
to? The average nice guys say they don’t need super models and yet we women have
spent years not being flirted with or approached unless we put on the push-
The women who complain about not being able to find compatible men are mostly super
intelligent, physically fit, attractive, funny, financially independent, mentally
healthy, and successful in their careers. Why can’t they find a man? They worked
their butts off to become almost perfect people and yet they have no equal to date.
They are approached by alcoholics, underachievers, couch potatoes, old men, sleazy
married men, and young boys. Where are the equally successful men in their thirties
and forties to marry these super women? Most of them married stay-
What’s the answer? There is a whole group of average nice guys who think that nice
girls don’t want them and there’s a whole group of super women who can’t find super
men to sweep them off their feet. The super women could lower their standards and
then try not to allow their bitterness to seep out into their relationships. The
problem is that they face dating men with issues around women making more money,
having more power, or being more intelligent then them. These women suffer a lot
of backlash for settling for a guy who is not at their same level. It’s impossible
for them to dumb down just to keep a man happy. It doesn’t work. The other option
is that the average nice guys could step it up a notch, raise the bar, and start
making themselves more attractive on a number of levels to the lonely super women.
So the question that really remains is, “Will the average nice guys figure it out
and decide that the super women are worth the time, energy, and self-
Copyright 2005, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow’s Edge