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Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 5, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Mottizens who have dated: what percentage of your partners would you say were Marriage Material? How many Marriage Material partners did you have a shot with?

I'll define Marriage Material here as any of: you would have wanted to marry them OR wish you would have married them OR you feel in an objective sense they "deserved" marriage even if you didn't really want to.

Partner and had a shot with I'll mostly leave to you. I'd say anyone after age 16 with whom you had a romantic relationship that lasted more than 5 dates or with whom you made love while in a romantic relationship. But I feel like that inquiry is more fact specific and context dependent.

For me: it's 5/25 I'd say could have or should have married, including my wife who I did actually marry. A rate of 20%, and five real opportunities across my youth. I could fiddle one or two either way, but after that it's a steep dropoff into people I couldn't imagine being with today.

My first impulse is always to avoid these sorts of threads but it occurs to me that I might be remiss in doing so. Hopefully something in here might help out the younger guys.

I'm a middle aged male married with kids. I've had maybe half a dozen or so one night stands and random summer flings in addition to 3 relationships before my current partner that I would consider "serious". Of those the first was absolutely marriage material. We knew each other in High-school but didn't start dating until after we had both graduated. Relationship ended because we were both young and dumb. She'd shipped off to college, I'd shipped off to the military and neither of us was really interested in putting in the effort to make the long distance thing work, we parted amicably and remain close friends, but with the benefit of hindsight she is "the one that got away".

The second is one that I thought was marriage material but all my friends (including the girl described above) kept telling me was a evil psychotic bitch that I should get the fuck away from. I ignored them because she was hot and the sex was amazing. At the end of the day it turns out that I was thinking with the wrong head. She is now my "psycho stalker ex wife".

The third is one that I find hard to classify because while I really liked her, we were both coming out of pretty abusive relationships (in my case the previously mentioned "psycho stalker ex" and in her case a guy that used to beat on her) and were both each others "rebound". She was sweet and there are a lot of things about that relationship that I wish I had handled differently but in the end she cheated on me and in response I cut and run.

Current partner/waifu was the room-mate/bestie of one of my friend's GF, and the two of them basically conspired to get us together. She wasn't exactly "my type" being bubbly perky and petite as opposed to the "leggy femme fatale" sort I usually go for. But we got along well and became friends with benefits. After about a year I was looking at relocating for a job and called her with the intention of cutting things off, only for her to reply with "I've got something I need to talk to you about to". We met for coffee, I told her that I was leaving town, and she told me she was pregnant. After a brief moment of panic I asked her if she would like to come with me.

Edit to add: that was about 9 years ago now, and we've been together since.

This post made me appreciate why you have such a strong brand on here that you get brought up in conversations you aren't even involved in all the time.

Please don't take this as fishing or trying to undermine because I'm actually kind of curious, how so? what was it that stuck out?

Quite distinctly different than all the other stories here. A very distinct voice and character to it. Read the other replies, just focusing on content you're the only guy with an ill considered marriage and a psycho ex wife to show for it, or a shotgun wedding from knocking a girl up. I don't mean any judgment, but you have different sins than most of the other posters. Different sins than me, mine are mostly of the "timing" variety of your first relationship.