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A few weeks ago, this column ran a story about a 26-year-old single
mother who suffers from dating fatigue. She keeps on dating
different guys, but never progresses into a relationship with any of
them.
This story touched a chord with one reader who
had much to say about the article. An excerpt of the column as well
as the entire letter are printed below:
I admit it. I’m a serial dater.
I have a pattern of going out with the same kind
of guy over and over again. It’s become a habit. I can pick them
out with sickening precision that only other serial daters like me
would understand. They were always the bad boys, the players with
commitment issues, the ones with no future. It was easy to weed them
out—if he was someone that I wouldn’t dream of bringing home to
meet my son, he was someone I should date.
In an effort to mend my erring ways, I ventured
out on a date with a unlikely victim. He was unlike all the others.
For one thing, he didn’t always say the right things and didn’t
always make the right moves, but he gave me space and waited for me
to feel comfortable talking about my son before asking any
questions. He didn’t even flinch after getting a glimpse of my
double life and all of its complications.
Letter from a Reader in reaction to “The
Serial Dater:”
Be careful of the guy who doesn’t seem to
mind, the guy who doesn’t ask too many questions, who just seem
[sic] to go with the flow. You’ll enjoy him for awhile; you’ll
probably even enter into a domestic relationship with him. But just
as he doesn’t mind, he’ll hope you won’t mind that he drift
[sic] away someday as well.
Men are all the same, we hate complications.
Some are just more upfront, like the guys who just disappear on you,
the others drift away slowly and hope that you don’t really
notice. You’ll have to be a really fantastic compromise like Ate
Vi and Ate Shawy (who’s [sic] got tons of money, popularity, and
political pull) for a guy like Ralph and Kiko to come along that
such “excess baggage” can be overlooked, unless he himself comes
with his own “baggage.” The rest, you’ll notice, rarely ever
work, like Janice, Kris, Pops and so many other single moms or once
married women out there.
Yes, men are pigs, it’s true. We eat, sleep,
drink, fart, have sex and go on [sic] our merry ways. Instant
families just aren’t our thing. And very few of us can really
imagine being under [sic] societal rebuke, having people sneer at
us, even in jest, for our un-instinctive decisions, as the first
instinct is really to flee as far away as possible.
We men don’t judge women who has [sic] been
there, done that in the ways of the family. In fact, we love them,
especially since they know that it’s a long shot that someone
would do anything counter-instinctive, so they’ll have to be nice
to us. But then again, we surely don’t want to be given instant
[sic] headache of raising an instant family, we’d prefer to build
it from scratch. That is, not to put down single moms out there.
I think it’s really brave of them to live
defiantly against the world who’d [sic] rather pity them, judge
them as they play mom and dad to their kids. And I have many single
mom friends, too. But then again, the more conservative and closely
knit the family of the man is, the less likely is he to be the first
one to rock the boat, unless he is the black sheep of the family.
All I can say is, good luck in [sic] your search
for the right man for you.
[Speak for your self, man. The 21st century
Filipino male now credits women with humanity and all that simple
realization implies: that she has her own past, takes her own
chances like everybody els, makes the best of what she’s got and
has every right to find happiness. To think of women as any less is
simply Neanderthal.—Ed]
Please e-mail your comments and reactions to thesinglefiles@gmail.com.
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