A single delimma: Baggage, and how it affects dating

Imagine walking into a dealership. You have $500 in your account and terrible credit which includes repossessions, department store defaults, evictions, and several more financial infractions. You find the nearest salesman and tell them that you like the mercades and that it's everything you've ever wanted. The salesman takes a look at your credit and says the best they can do is something in the 10k-15k range and that they have several vehicles that are in that price range. The issue is, this Mercades at 45k is not one of them. The salesman then suggests that if you want to purchase this Mercades that you need to either come up with a much larger down payment or find something more reasonable. Instead of taking this advice, you opt to go to another dealership. The problem is, This is the 10th dealership you've visited in the last two months and you're getting nowhere. You're 35, you've been through enough troublesome vehicles that have set you back and you feel you deserve this Mercades and expect these dealerships to understand.

Now I want you to imagine, that this dealership is actually a person, the mercades is all of the desirable attributes they posess, your credit is the baggage you've aquired up until that point and the cars in the 10k-15k range are the men or women you just simply do not want. Imagine that them telling you that you need to come up with a bigger down payment is them telling you that you need to work on yourself a little more or them telling you to consider something a little more reasonable cost-wise is them telling you that you need to compromise more.

Make sense?

Before I delve deeper into this topic I must say that this is only a theory and I could be way off. I'm merely speaking on what I've learned throughout experiences and studying both men and women throughout the 34 years I've lived.

Now, before a person can understand why they aren't the catch they once were we must first understand what the people that we desire, desire in us. And when we do this realistically, we determine the prime years of each sex.

I've asked several men what type of woman completed them in terms of a relationship and surprisingly(or not), very few characteristics were financially driven. Things that take years of adulthood to acquire like a college education, a house, a great career, established and outstanding credit weren't mentioned. When I asked women this same question, these things were a high priority.

This study led me to believe that the primes of men and women, or the years in which each were considered most desirable differed drastically. A person graduates high school at 18, enrolls in college for the next 4-6 years if not more and normally isn't established financially yet upon receiving their degree. So let's say 4-5 years out of college this person is ready to realistically take on a family and has a home, a car, established credit, and a nice savings. To a woman who's looking for something serious, a man truly doesn't reach the level of prime adulthood until he's close to reaching his 30's if not older.

Now here we are with a man who's got everything together at 30 and he wants a family, he wants kids, he prefers to start fresh with someone and by fresh I don't just mean kids. He wants a woman who's aquired the least amount of "baggage" as possible.

Baggage: 

• Emotional damage - someone who's been through a lot so their views on relationships and the opposite are a bit tainted by their experiences. They are closed off, hard to work with, temperamental, etc.

• Too experienced sexually - someone who's been with a lot of people. The kind you can't take anywhere without her running into someone "they know".

• Kids/baby father's/mother's - I hate referring to children as baggage but for someone who has everything together that is desirable to most, it might be just that to them.

• Financial issues - Someone that has been set back years even because of poor choices they've made throughout life which affects their progress level

Based on my own research, especially in today's age, for a man to find a woman with the most desirable characteristics to him, he has to in fact pick from a younger pool and for a woman to find a man that posseses the same, she must now date from a much older pool. This determines the prime years for a man and woman or the age in which a desirable man or woman feels the other is most desirable.

It could very well be that a woman's prime is somewhere between the ages of 21-29(prime age for body, mentality, and fertility) while a man's prime is somewhere between the ages of 30-39(prime age for mentality, financial security and still in good physical health.)

Now, in terms of women, many many MANY women I personally know do not use their prime years to establish themselves in relationships. They love the idea of being in one but often do not take it seriously enough and lose out on the more desirable men that they actually see themselves with long term. "He's too old, he's not edgy enough or he's boring, or I'm just simply not ready yet." They tend to date their own age because the relationships are less serious, with less expectations because a man who's 23 or 24 or 25 is figuring out life and really isn't worried about settling down. These relationships tend to be full of drama and start to shape a woman's views on men and the more of these relationships she ends up in the more tainted her views become. She might have a child or two and is now tired of drama and wants a solid foundation but now when she meets someone nice, these men notice that it's an uphill battle trying to get them to open up and trust.

Also, I find that women who put love on the back burner for their own education and financial stability fall out of their primes and deal with many of the same challenges as women who do for other reasons. Their mother's and father's taught them to be independent early on and now that they are successful it's become hard to find someone that's on their level that can also accept them at their age. (The exception being women who meet men while pursuing an education.). These women are generally the ones that find it the hardest to understand why it's so hard to find a man. No kids, successful, not tainted by earlier experiences in relationships, but perhaps age and a feeling of feeling rushed to find something serious in order to have a family puts unnecessary pressure on the guys she's dating.

And then last but not least, you have women who refuse to settle down during these prime years at all as they would rather frequent  clubs and bars. They are very adventurous sexually, acquiring more and more bodies on their resume until they gain a reputation for it. These women didn't value intimacy and no man who knows will take them seriously. She might have a child or multiple children from multiple men which becomes hard for a desirable man to accept.

What I've seen in men is that so many of them are in their 30's but don't feel they are where they need to be and maybe they aren't.

Maybe instead of going to college he opted to work, make a little money, get a nice bachelor pad, enjoy the freedom, and test the waters. Now he's 30+ and at an age where he should be successful but he isn't because he never took financial success seriously and the women that want something serious won't take him serious because of that.

You have the men that have never really experienced anything real with anybody.

They spent their time manipulating women(playing) and now that they have an idea of what they want, they don't know how to attain it because every experience they've had was based on how they would benefit from it. Essentially, they are entering into their prime with very little experience on how to actually treat women right.

You have the flashy guy.

 He's spent his 20's living like he's had it when he hasn't. His credit is shot, he can't progress in life because every time he tries to move forward, something from his past comes up and now being with him, you can't build a solid foundation.

Lastly, you have men that also didn't value intimacy and now have several children and sometimes with several different women.

 If he's a good father, to a woman that wants to build with him, it could be looked at as more financial responsibility than she is willing to deal with.

We now see men who have to now spend their prime years preparing instead of being prepared.

In many of these instances women and men now have a long list of what they want out of the other and feel rushed a bit to find it and all of the people that are their age who have it all just simply aren't interested past the sex.

The fix in all of this is in my opinion is compromise, not settling, but compromising. You, who doesn't have have everything together must work with the less (but not completely un)desirable men or women the same way you once expected them to do for you.

Once again, this is only a theory. Not meant to offend anybody but to perhaps open your eyes up to a different view. I'm open to gaining a new understanding from each of you on this topic.