h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I did have a relationship that lasted two years with both of us bringing brains, so yes, I do still like being with men who don't bring brawn.

But yes, as I get older it is on my mind that my ideal bloke isn't the one who wants to sit talking current affairs, but wants to get out in the outdoors for a long walk, followed by some mowing of the lawn while I bodge up the dinner.

Actually the closest to ideal man I've ever met is on h2g2. But he's taken.

I think what most independent women are lacking in their life is a dildo that can mow the lawn, in that case.

Once that's been patented, all that's lacking is a special friend who likes you in particular for who you are

There's no such thing as an ideal man.... but there I still like to believe there *is such a thing as the ideal person to be with; and hopefully one day I'll meet mine.

I was brought up (I'm 35 if that's any help) in a family where if you wanted something done, you did it yourself. Only at desperation stage did you ask anyone for any assistance, practical or emotional. We all grew up fairly self-sufficient.

As a teenager, through my 20's, and into my 30's, I lost count of boyfriends who dumped me saying 'you just don't need me'. I never 'needed' a boyfriend, they were fun to have around but I was quite happy on my own and if I wanted a laugh, that's what girl friends were for. I once got dumped when my boyfriend at the time couldn't believe I would rather stay in with the girls and watch Eurovision than go out with him! You can't go shopping and on the lash with blokes who want you to take them seriously when all you want is to have a few drinks and a laugh. I had my own house, own car and enough friends and interests to always have something to do if I wanted. I can handle most DIY and can sort my own car out. If I can't, then I get professionals in.

I met my husband (on here, amazingly!) and neither of us need each other for any practical reason. He's as independent as me! To coin the old advert, 'we just wanna be togevva'!

Evadne, you're a woman after my own heart I'm glad I'll not be the only one in the row of cottages I have picked out... I'm allergic to cats so I'll be keeping the ghosts of the dead ones to talk to while I lean over the front gate in me pinny and saggy stockings... My friends have booked several of the other 'cat cottages' in the terrace and we'll be having 'my bit of pavement's cleaner than yours' and 'Young man!' competitions monthly.

Hairnets will be optional. Having a laugh with your chosen alcoholic beverage and the rest of us is not.

Enjoy the pinnies and hair nets! (I've done the cottage far out in the country, you see)

Me? I'll be seriously whooping it up in foreign parts, behaving disgracfully and generally catching up on lost time once the lads are nicely settled.

I have several ambitions left to fulfil; the final one will be to be buried in a Y shaped coffin, and my epitaph will be "What a Way to Go"

But I might drop in for a bevvy every so often before then.

I wonder though if you find that you attract a disproportionately (as compared to less independant female friends) higher number of dependent potential partners?

Can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, yes -up until *now, and whether I was aware of it or not, I've attracted lot of very dependent men.

In my youth, it was for my earning abilities.

As I got older it was mainly because they were looking for a mother figure, someone to be kind to them

And now,at 50,and disabled it seems to be because I "can cope with *anything" (which usually means they've got a problem they can't cope with and hope I'll sort it for them!)

Maybe when I'm in my 60s it'll be easier?

"I wonder though if you find that you attract a disproportionately (as compared to less independant female friends) higher number of dependent potential partners?"

This is a good question. I seem to end up making all the decisions all of the time (in the end it was the trigger for me leaving my husband many years ago) and really I get sick of it.

Now that may be because I naturally take over decision making, the fellas in my life let me, then I am so cruel as to leave them because of it. Or leave because I don't like the decisions that they make...

I thnk it's telling that the one person I really fell for, and was the only one I could imagine living with for the rest of my life was very good at making decisions and never really needed prompting.

Unfortunately he was a complete nutty mental abuser and I had to leave.

*nods*

Yep, I dont want to be a pseudo-mother, I'm young enough to be a mother if I want to, and do you see me with child? No!

Lack of decision-making ability, logical thought-processing and ability to look at oneself critically and openly (i.e. being honest with yourself about who you are and how you feel, and why) are major reasons why I've broken up with people/dismissed them out of hand.(I'm not cruel but I dont hang around either. It's a waste of both our time!)

I'm willing to help someone help themselves but I'm no trellis You'll never climb all over me and hide me from the sun. I think that I come across as quite demanding of people when they get into relationships with me and I used to think it was something I had to stop. Then I figured out that all I was doing was demanding they stood on their own two feet instead of sitting in a wheelbarrow and shouting for me to push them everywhere *and* decide where that everywhere should be!

So all in all, if a chap is threatened and intimidated by me, so be it, he's not strong enough to be in an equal relationship with me. I've gone through a lot to find out and believe in who I am... If you're not going to do the same for yourself, or at least want to try, I know what will happen. you will flutter around like a moth round a candle flame, fascinated by me, burning yourself whenever you fly too close but unable to leave of your own volition either. And then I get blamed for you being too lame to realise you can have it for yourself, but you have to look inside, not outside. I cant give it to you. I can help you find it, but you have to look first!

I went on a few dates with one bloke who said things like 'you just haven't met the right man yet' to me, and things like 'I'll be able to change her mind' to my SIL behind my back about decisions I had made.

The issue he was talking about was... having another child!

I didn't stay around long after that one - although what really broke the camels back was hearing him say 'so anyone sleeping with you won't have to bother then' after I told him I WOULDN'T be changing my mind about a kiddie and I'd gone so far as to have an op for it.

What an idiot.

ugh. When it comes to men like that, I dont worry about me, I am not an idiot and I'm confident, but I do worry about the women they will find who will hang on their every word, believe them and base their self-image and make decisions on what a man like this thinks of them with their half-thought through, moronic attitudes and comments.

They really rile me.

I'm sure there's women out there equally as disturbing and damaging to other people but it's the men I've come across and had dealings with.

One chap even now contacts me occasionally to find out if he was proven right about me never finding someone who will love me if I dont conform to his idea of what a woman *has* to be like to keep a man. I've always maintained if I have to lessen myself to 'gain' a 'good' man, hes only good in his own mind and that's not the way I roll. What an idiot.

I've seen my nutty ex a few times lately. Sadly I still fancy him as much as ever. He really is gorgeous. Tall, dark, handsome.

Unfortunately that's given him a lot of practise at feeding women lines, and his nutter problems all started in childhood. I'm not going there again. Too dangerous!

I feel your pain.

I have another alarm zone too... If I am immediately transfixed by a man's charisma, I find I am very wary of them for a very long time. It's saved me some serious hassle too many times for it to be ignored now!

Men can (or various reasons, not least the inequality in wages) do more in general for women than women can do for men. Having said that the things that women can do or men are way more important.

In general the straight guys that I know and count myself amongst them have a great old time making a dogs dinner of their lives without a woman to ground them and give them a more meaningful purpose in life than drinking more each weekend, getting involved in more dangerous sports amnd sleeping with more women.

Womena re more likely to do more sensible things with their money, yes they may have a wardrobe full of shoes that are medically inappropriate but atleast they *have* the shoes rather than the faint memory of the previous nuights drinking.

Independent women are the bain of the bachelors life, they are wise enough to know they can get what tey want without you and brave enough to go and do it. It is almost as if they are a new gender. What hey are infact is what women have always been minus the social strictures that used to bind them and restrict their intellectual and emotinal flourishing.

The book is expressing the thoughts of a fictional character about the emrgence of real women from behind the facade of the centuries old lie that women need men in their lives. As such it is a valid peice of writing, but not something that should be taken any more seriously than the contents of any other fictional book like "Sons and Love's" or the "Bible".

Its men that need to raise their game and change according to the new social the landscape not women who need to go back to being simpering, gingham clad domestic slaves.

Wow Ladies,

Are ALL the blokes you meet as deserving of your ire ?

Novo

I dont know about the other women in here, but I certainly dont find it's a decision I make. It's all about how a chap behaves. He makes his own bed, as it were.

"I'm sure there's women out there equally as disturbing and damaging to other people"

Yup, I can safely confirm that for you, unless a couple of ex'es are reading this, in which case...

Hmmm, we've tapped a rich seam here I think!

Robyn, post 29 moved me to tears (of recognition, I hasten to add, of relationships past where I lost count of the times I said "I'm not your mother, and I'm not your bl---y analyst)

So. Self awareness is a factor in independent women. Is it the case that since men are less likely to do that "cissy stuff" like analysing their behaviour and understanding their responses, that the gap between us widens?

Are we less likely to do that?

Woody Allen films managed to get fairly healthy audiences were most of the male viewers laughing at him or with him?

ONce again iction is creeping in to cloud things and its a iction that men dont analyse, more importantly we are told not to by fiction and by our parents. It took a lot or me to get to where I am in terms of self awarersness and I feel there is a long way to go.




The other night we went for dinner as agroup me and some o the some of the women from the rugby team I coach. We played a game called Lent. we picked names out of a hat and told the person whose name we had what they had to give up or 40 minutes o the game. Boys tend to withdraw becuse of Aspergers and learning difficulties such as dyslexsia more than girls. What I saw from Rachael when I made her give up speech or just 40 minutes was the same frustration and expression of anger, which is easier to express with gestures than joy anyway (try it), that I see when working with boys, and its always boys who are long term excluded from school.




Men are actually quite capable of being articulate when it comes to emotions its just that we are taught that independence and self reliance are better. This can lead to some serious breakdowns for men and boys when their self esteem is crushed by outside circumstnces or they have their expressed feelings hurt. Then we are more likely to fall back on the popular unemotinal and uncommunicative male stereotype. Lots of guys I know never really give emotions a second chance once they have sufered severe emotional pain and there is a lot of fiction and socail convention telling them not to, reinforceing this mood into a life long attitude.

>>Are ALL the blokes you meet as deserving of your ire ?<<

Noo.... my sons are great! And most of their friends are also "thinking/self aware young men, as well. There's hope for this generation!

And the blokes of my own generation I know and like, and think of as friends are good human beings as well. There just isn't that necessary chemistry between any of them or me to link up.

I'm not angry with men in general; but I did get a bit vexed with myself sometimes for invariably being attracted to the Lame Ducks amongst them!

It must be something to do with those great big soulful eyes....

Perhaps we're just in the process of creating a new gender?

Men, Women,and ....Humans?