Instead of insisting that it's those pesky guys who make the woman's experience convince her not to give out her number or email, I would think it's the media's fault. I mean, there are enough laws and common human decency to make the pesky guys not do horrible things to women. If a woman does not give out her number or email, she is doing so because a small number of women (which is too large a number, but still, it's a small percentage) get a bad experience.

Not only that, but the bad experiences get done in domestic situations, at home, between people who have known each other for long.

And the women, god may help them, and I feel for them, who have a "bad" experience with a man whom they see for the first time, a man who will do Lord knows what to her, is maybe one in fifty million each year.

So I don't condone that behaviour, but if a woman stops herself from meeting men on the concern of danger, needs to get her head examined for paranoia.

In other words, Heart and Soul, I agree with you, but I don't.

I like to think that going slowly in a relationship, at the same speed as trust is gained and granted, is a good idea.

For instance, it takes five years of forum membership for a guy to convince some woman that he is not an axe murderer.

Another ten years of texting will somehow make her think he hasn't got AIDS. "He would have died by now," figures the woman.

Give it another thirty yearts, and she will be sure he is not after her money.

Forty years after that, they go on their first coffee date, she makes love to him, he gives her Hepatitis B in exchange for all her jewellery and bank accounts, she signs her house deed over to him, which he gets out of her by saying that if she wants him to go at the love again, he needs some "perks", and the last thing that goes through her mind is the blade of the axe she keeps in her bedroom just in case a date gets "fresh" with her.

heart and soul, I am your exact replica in looks. I was born also in 1954. What a bizarre set of commonalities.

I used to explain my lack of success with trying to arrange for meetings with good looking women on these sites with my not-so-becoming looks. But you are right, maybe it's not that I am ugly at all, but that some guys have harrassed the women they dated and whom I want to date, too much in the past.

yeah, that is much more believeable than that I am ugly and putrid.

Hm. Makes one think.

goes both ways... I would never give my phone number to a woman on this site after what I had gone through with a few very stalkative women.

And to tell them where I lived would be totally nutty to do, nearest damn thing next to suicide. Once, for instance, when a woman could not gain access to my humble abode after i asked her not to call or bother me any more, she had called the cops and the sherriff on me.

She was the building manager and I owed a lot of back rent. But still.

Is all life valuable? I think it is. Everyone's life is valuable, but the values and the corresponding price can be different from person to person.

Very luckily for us, forum users, the American society has not generalized this thought enough yet to affect our justice system. Murder is still murder, thank heavens.

Although OJS was guilty, and he can't deny it. <<- written for comic effect, not as a charge of fact; an opinion of comic nature.

Or, more precisely quoted, "Killing ten men is murder. Killing thirty million is a statistic." - J.S.

The biggest insights I got from these forums, not just on this site, but on others as well, is that my opinion of people is very often wrong, and I can put in my place and humbled if I am really asking for it.

That always surprises me. I am even starting to accept that to have faith, one can believe in a higher being which has qualities that are darn right impossible in and by themselves.

So I am learning that my strong beliefs have an equal and opposite existence in the spectrum of beleived knowledge by the self. This also means that in one way it is possible that all that I know, beleive in, stand for, and am willing to fight for, are wrong and completely out of whack. To have learned that, is refreshingly frightening.

Another thing I learned to accept is that a sense of humour is independent of IQ. That was kind of surprising too, but it's true.

And lastly, which I am still having troubles with, is learning that looks have nothing to do with a person's character, dependability, likability, brains, sense of humour, loyalty, goodness. This is really, but really hard to take, as I see that good looking women get more replies and responses to their posts than less good looking women. Heck, even the guy here who poses fantasy girls with angel wings gets more responses than a lesserly good looking woman. Or a woman who puts in a cute stick-figure, or a beautiful painting for a personal pic, gets a hundred times more responses than a woman who puts in no picture or the picture of an animal, say a cat or an orangutang.

This phenomenon makes men look frighteningly predictable. They don't need reality to get turned on to a woman, any sort of reality, they just need some good visuals. Even if the visual is obviously not reality, a fantasy good visual is a million times better than no visual or a bad visual.

I am no exception. I make no bones about it, like even this post is made in response to what I believe is the best looking woman on these forums.

So, what I learned is that men depend too much on looks to start up trust and liking, and women tend to follow up on this, but I think they are just imitating men, they are not into that that much. *IMPORTANT* those who think it's a sexist statement that makes men more valuable than women, please don't. Women imitate men in this, but men imitate women, too. We both imitate features of the other gender. Stating that alone does not mean at all that I would subscribe to the superiority of one gender over the other.

What I also learned is that I can get humbled, despite my apparent and true personality of narcissism and high competitiveness. (These two traits are not the sum total of my personality. There are other features to it. For instance, I can scratch my itch, and I can eat a slice of Italian chocolate ice cream cake.)

What I also learned is that anyone can be funny, regardless of IQ, looks, gender, place of origin, marital status, etc.

What I also learned is that my strong beliefs in my values and weltanschauung can be pushed over just the same way as I see myself push over others' worlds. I just haven't matched the person to do it for me yet, that's all.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Now, put them back this instant where you found them, and go wash your hands!!

H? I did not know that.

I just get so incredibly and painfully bored in any correspondence, that it is impossible to continue. Nothing personal, but people keep saying the same thing after the second email, over and over.

Eww!! :/)

Sandy and I used to date back in the old days. I taught her how to throw knifes. When their edge goes dull, it's cheaper to buy a new knife in a dollar store, than to get the old one sharpened, so I taught her how to toss them out.

In my town the tradition has devolved on the night before Hallowe'en into old creepy men giving it to every hapless soul and body from behind.

What I said is not true. I was just soooooo desparate to one-up the old flaming bag of dog poo on the doorstep. But that is a class act, refined by many small changes over the years of its folkloric existence, I can't top that. No way. Not with only five minutes to spare in preparing the idea.

My neighbourhood is terrorized by this eight-foot woman who speaks with an Aussie accent and she keeps falling up, we have to fish her down more than enough form tree-tops and from chimneys, where she is hanging onto for dear life lest she fall up for good.

Well, at least your house mouse is doing well in these troubled economic times.

I am going with downtoearthdebby's advice... you can't go wrong if you make a beeline for a lot of beautiful, shapely legs as your bacon. I mean, beacon. Beacon of light it is.

Paul... please forgive me, I am not bigoted, and God is my witness for that... but if I went to Africa, no matter where I turned and from what situation I would peer out of, I would see dark.

Oh, craps. And can you imagine how the poor condemned souls in New Jersey feel, when they realize that the flashing lights in the tunnel is NYC Police blocking the entrance to the tunnel which is closed due to an ongoing investigation.

Just your luck!! Your tunnel is the inside of the CERT Hadron Collider.

The oncoming light with the whistle you see and hear, is a proton coming at you at break-neck speed.

Your only chance is to run faster and faster, and burst into another universe in the form of a high-energy bouquet of Higg's Bosom, when you reach yourself from behind in the accelerator's circle tunel, and overtake yourself.

We are all the way behind you in this, Azriel!! -- What? Erm, no, I was just helping you to speed along with my hands. Sorry, I did not know I am so much shorter than you.

My habit is to carry extra macaroni and cheese sandwiches around in my pockets, enough for everybody.

Going back in time, huh. You guys are going to be in the seventies.

High sixties? Darn right. I been dere, not remember a damned thing.