I am no stranger to the world of online dating - in fact many people would call me an expert in this particular pastime. I understand that the internet allows people to be braver and bolder than they would in real life, but the way that some people go about trying to get people’s attention will always baffle me.
When you get to my age (over the hill) I think you have to almost expect that potential partners will have a past/baggage/children. Dating someone with children has never been an issue to me, maybe because to extent I am a big kid myself :) I have dated people with children in the past and whilst the relationships haven't worked out (massive under statement) that has never been because of the children involved.
What I am not liking is the trend of men (I am not saying all, just speaking in general terms here) who have on their dating profile that they have a daughter who they adore/love/cherish/have made their world and message you to come to your house for casual sex within 15 minutes of exchanging your first message.
I had a conversation like this with a man a few weeks ago and I asked him how he would feel if his (when she is grown up) daughter met men she knew for all of 10 minutes on a dating site and invited them to his house. Understandably he said he wouldn’t be very happy with this and would want her to act differently - I told him, I imagined that my dad had the same wishes for me.
In the end I ended up ranting at him, I know it's unusual. I told him that whatever happened, he she teach his beautiful daughter that the world is a big, bad place full of men (like him!) who will want to use her for her body, come to her house and then never see her again. I told him that he needed to teach his daughter that she is WORTHY of her place in this world and that however bad things seemed, she never, ever needed to invite a stranger into her house in order to feel loved or wanted. I asked him to teach her that if she does meet a man it is because she WANTS to and not because some random man on a dating website has messaged her to invite himself round...
In the end, he agreed with me - but I can guarantee that he went on to send the same copy and paste message to another girl on the site. I can only assume this 'send as many messages as possible to meet a girl for sex today' approach works because guys don't seem to change their tactics.
I don't have children, I more than likely never will, but if I did I would tell them that they are beautiful and worthy and never need to compromise who they are in order to feel loved.
I read a piece on Tumblr this week about how to talk about your body in front of your children. As a weight obsesses generation we are talking more and more in hated about our bodies - but if your daughter hears that your thighs are too fat or your son hears your husband talking about how his muscles aren’t big enough, then your children will grow up thinking these same things about their bodies. I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert on this subject, but if you have children, do you want them to have the same hatred and misconceptions about their body as you do yours?
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| I found this on Tumblr, I do not own the copyright. Borrowed with thanks. |
Let's create a generation of men and women who know what it means to love their body and to not have to message hundreds of girls online in order to meet just one of them for meaningless sex. I am sure that things like this have always happened in varying forms, but if we teach our daughters that they are worthy of love from a man who offers more than to come to their home, love them once and leave then we'll be half way there.
Happy Tuesday x
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