Kelly and Brian
Dear 100hookup,
A little over six years ago, I joined 100hookup in hopes of meeting someone special. I was contacted by a guy named Brian who seemed nice and lived nearby; however, he was in a band and the group was planning a move to Florida. I spoke with him on the phone but decided it wasn’t worth meeting since he was leaving town in the near future.
After giving dating a shot on my own with little success, I rejoined 100hookup a couple of years ago and received a message from Brian. A long time had passed and I didn’t even remember him! Talk about persistence…Again, I thought he was attractive and he seemed like a nice guy, so I responded. Since I prefer talking over typing, I told him to give me a call. His “rockstar” lifestyle was behind him and he was more settled – living here in Chicago with no plans to move, with a job and a place of his own. The conversation was great and we met the next day for brunch. That’s when Brian told me he had contacted me in the past, but I had turned him down.
We spent some time laughing about it and the rest of the day getting to know each other. Little did we know that day would be our last “first” date. Six months after meeting, Brian proposed. We were married on January 31st.
What makes this story even more amazing is the arrival of our daughter, Hannah Isabel, who was born this year on June 26, 2009.
Sincerely,
Kelly & Brian
Chicago, Illinois
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I’m very happy for them. I love success stories. Gives me hope for myself.
Jess,
I totally agree with you. In theory this works but in practice it is a lot harder. I’ve found with 100hookup that for the first time I can express all my needs, desires, etc in written form which is great because if people don’t like my personality and checklist etc then they know what they can do with it. There is no pretense: you can’t change to make someone else happy.
Although you might like the look of someone and feel really attracted to them you cannot force them to like you. You cannot live your life just agreeing with them all the time in the hope that they will like you back.
When we like someone we have a tendency to want to agree with them, even if in another situation we would walk away, or state our opinion etc. But we don’t for fear of ‘upsetting’ the other person. I believe it is this that causes the conflict within ourselves.
Hi Sarah
I know exactly where you are coming from. Knowing you need to leave but not having the courage to do so. And the terrible thing is everyone else sees it exactly for what it is…which is why people on the outside are judgmental.
In my case, there is only so much I can take. I just do not feel it is fair or respectful or dignified to be treated in such a manner. After a while I get angry and blow up and then am referred to as “crazy” by these guys. B/c when women get angry we are “crazy”. But when men get angry they are “alpha males”.
So it always ends, but it could have ended better and sooner had I the courage to dump them earlier (and with no fanfare).
Incidentally, both yours and my experiences are exactly why I have converged on the concept of “the best relationships being between equals”. I believe this poor treatment comes about from inequality. Or rather, the perception of inequality.
All it takes is for one person in the relationship to feel they are better (or worse) than the other and, eventually, they will treat the other with contempt and disrespect. What’s interesting is that regardless of whether this person feels the other is higher or lower than them…it doesn’t matter…the end result is the other person will be treated with contempt and disrespect.
Anyway, so that’s why I’m a huge proponent of equality. However, I do believe there can be equality in difference. As paradoxical as it sounds, I have seen it in action.
Hi Peggy,
Be very careful of this bloke. He obviously has an axe to grind and is using you to do that.
My advice get as far away as possible and don’t look back. He will never change until maybe someone treats him in the same way.
If it’s any consolation my current boyfriend is very similar and it is really twisting my mind. It is easy for outsiders or people that have not been in the situation to be judgmental about it, but when you are in it it is not black and white.
I’m finding my boyfriend very manipulative and with many double standards but it is so hard for me to stand up to him as he is very good at arguing and continually manipulates my emotions to think that I am wrong.
If I tell him he’s upset me he will somehow turn it around that I am wrong etc.. He sits in silence for hours and when I ask him a question he gives a really sharpe answer.
I think he thinks he is really funny.
He is always putting me down in public and pointing out things that I have got wrong. There are many times I have wanted to throw him out but don’t seem to have the courage to do this.
I think it is best for me just to give him a wide berth and not give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s upset me.
Just wanted to throw in some thoughts, re: the whole “women are like this” and “men are like that” theme:
Our society is built on a constant media bombardment of messages on men and women telling them how to be “superior”, “attractive”, “wealthy”,”happy”. The only difference for women and men (other than the obvious biological ones) is that the messages are designed to appeal differently to men and woman as “myths” of manhood and womanhood. Basically, this means we are all geared to constantly measure ourselves against some external scale of success at being a “man” or a “woman”. Moreover, these messages change over time as our society changes (ex. more women are in the workforce now, and the strength myth of women thrives on the concept of being “independent”, just as men are now being seen as better “caregivers” then previously thought). But hold on a second: these are just stories. They are ways of simplifying reality and culture so that we can cope with them by packaging them into neat little containers. The fact is, people don’t really fit into containers, rather, they tend to break out of them. Sure, maybe women are generally better off financially and more “independent” than they were 50, even 20 years ago, and maybe more men are gravitating more toward “caregiver” roles. However, for every rule you make, and pardon the modified cliche, there are always many, many people out there who will break it. In addition, no matter what we use as our measure of “attractive mate”, there are still a lot of not so nice people out there who will fulfill all these criteria, and still treat you like crap (guys and girls). Know why? Because we focus waaaaaayy to much on the external, on our “checklists” and don’t give certain people a chance because they don’t appear right on the immediate surface. Personally, I think we need to spend a lot more time as a culture on being patient, and focusing on the spiritual/moral/creative/ sides of people as a measure of compatibility. That is, you may be a woman making tons more money than a man you are dating, but he still might be able to comfort/support/share feelings+interests with you in a more unique way than someone with deep pockets. Conversely, men may be more attracted to a woman who may be far from super model material, if she is interested in the things he likes to do/talk about, and shows that she trusts and respects him. The fact is we are all people, not labels, and we are all looking for the same thing: to truly love and be loved. Slamming people into categories may be ruining everyone’s chances at something better. You have to look past the external and dig deep…and by the way, like everything else in life, it is hard and takes WORK. You may have to date 200 people before you get it right. But as the saying goes “you have to give a little to get a little”, and the best relationships are based on a balance of need and support. Also, differences between two people can keep things interesting and provide a source of variable strengths to draw upon at different times. It’s not about better/worse, above/beneath, stronger/weaker, its about celebrating difference. This is especially important during rough times. Personally, I like to date all kinds of women, who I am sure, in reality, have dated all kinds of men. Each was special and unique, and I learned something from them all…even with massive heaps of BS. So open your hearts and your minds. You might just surprise yourselves, and the victory will be that much sweeter. Be well, and stay positive!
Good vibes to all.
Hi Angel
I am so on-board with you on that! I have lowered my standards for most of my dating life due to (sadly) an incredibly low self-esteem that *everyone* picked up on. [I know b/c some friends and ex's finally told me about it later on. How my need to be "liked" was obvious. And how I was "too nice" (i.e. doormat)]
So I know ALL about getting treated like GOLD at first and then like dirt. The thinking is….first: “wow she’s out of my league – I can’t get her.” Second: “Can’t believe I got her – wow I’m in LOVE.” Third: “You know, if I can get her I can probably get better. I mean how good can she be if she’s with me?” It’s the Groucho Marx mentality ubiquitous to insecure men.
You know, I was even told by some idiot the following: “I can get any woman I want but I chose you. You’re lucky I chose you”. As if.
I found out that this same idiot was talking behind my back to his friends…making fun of me. I was so hurt. Because as dumb as he was, I really tried to treat him with respect. But it was hard. Because he is so so dumb.
I tried breaking it off with him but he “refused” countless times. Kept calling me on the phone begging to meet him. (And yet kept telling his friends that *I* was the one calling him and begging him….unbelievable!!)
It only got worse. He escalated to humiliating me in front of his friends to feel better about himself. It was horrible.
Once, he asked me to read a page out of his “future book”. It was so bad…I couldn’t get through it. But he kept hounding me to finish reading it so…fed up…I finally asked “What is this word here?” “This word ‘ordurbes’? What the heck does it mean?” (I pronounced it ordurbees knowing full well he had butchered ‘hors d’œuvres’)
He exploded in laughter. Laughing raucously he pointed at me and chortled “I can’t believe you don’t know what this word means!! You’re doing a PhD and you don’t know what this word means???!!! Ha ha ha ha. And here I thought you were smart. I know more than you. I know more than someone getting her PhD!!!”
I had to pull up dictionary.com to show him there was no entry for ‘ordurbes’. I had to pull up wikipedia.com and google countless other sites to show him the word he meant was ‘hors d’œuvres’. It took 10 minutes until he was finally convinced. He turned white. Then red. Then begged me “not to tell anyone”.
That’s when I realized I just couldn’t go on. As pathetic as he was…I was more pathetic for being with him. Do you know that when he would hit on other women in front of me it actually made me happy? But only when they responded positively to him. B/c then I thought “well at least I’m not the only loser that would go out with him”
Sad but true. I finally got up the courage to dump him. But, true to form he called…crying…begging me to just meet him and at least be his friend. He promised that he would accept friendship and not try to get back together. I shouldn’t have met him (but I did) and it ended REALLY badly after that.
Anyway, moral of the story – NEVER EVER date beneath you. It will just end up biting you in the butt!
Peggy,
Reading your posts make me wanna kinda vomit. What the hell are you talking about? Equality? Women who are treated with equality want a man who’ll take charge (read, be more controlling). Women who are NOT want equality. Period. Keane is a hundred percent right. Most women (not all) do not know what the hell they are doing now a days and don’t know what having children or being married is all about for that matter.
hey Peggy! Hope all is well with you! It’s been awhile – I took a break from 100hookup and just had to check to see if this thread was still floating along… hahaha as it is huh? well I have to say I agree with a most of what you were saying. I personally have learned that if I “lower my standards” as I have often been advised, those men treat me like dirt – why? because they think that having gotten me to go out with them they hit paydirt and so by treating me poorly they are bigger men – for that reason i will only go out with guys who I feel are as good looking(or better looking) than me, who are at least as intelligent as me and who have self esteem! These men treat me well… I don’t need to go out with someone looking to make himself feel like a bigger man by who’s on his arm… i prefer men who know who they are just as i know who i am… maybe that is why I am still single…
Thanks Bruce!
Hey Peggy,
You get it!
Thanks for your insightful posts.
Oh, just to add.
Although I do think men are looking for someone “better than them”, I don’t think most men can handle a woman who is superior to them in anything but looks. So although a man may initially believe he hit the jackpot with a babe who also makes bank, if she makes more than him…that will usually cause the relationship to fail due to his insecurity. Similarly if she is more educated than her, he will try to tear her down and show her how stupid she is (especially in public). It’s because men feel threatened. Also, if a woman is TOO attractive, the man will also feel threatened that another dude will take her away from him.
And that’s exactly why everyone should be with their equal. Relationships are like the home…it should be your sanctuary. Where you go to feel loved and wanted and safe. It’s not a squash game.
Sarah,
I think both men and women want to go for people they think are “better” than they can get. It’s like a squash ladder. It’s no fun to play with someone worse than you since you always want to improve. The only way to climb up the squash ladder is to play someone better. It’s human nature. It’s how we progress as a society
The sad thing is that people look for the same thing in relationships which is WRONG. But most people do it.
How many men do you know that secretly (or not so secretly) dream of dating/marrying a woman who is “out of their league”? They will normally brag to their friends “I can’t believe and average dude like I attracted such a drop-dead gorgeous woman” For men, womens’ superiority resides in their looks. It used to be STRICTLY their looks, but now it’s expanded to include money, education, career, status. As in “Tom, can you believe the babe I landed? And she makes bank! And she has a PhD!” So much pressure on women…sigh
For most women, it’s still all about the $$$. No matter what women say publicly, ain’t no woman dating no scrub. For women, male superiority is usually money/career followed by education/intelligence. Recently with the expansion of womens’ success in the workforce, they are also getting pickier in the looks department (as well they should)! But women still prefer to be the “prettier one” in the relationship for security reasons.
I’ll tell you something, Sarah. The more you start loving yourself and realizing how good you really are, that’s when you will realize that the person you want is one who is similar to you. Who understands you, precisely BECAUSE he is similar to you. Basically, who is “in your league” because your league is good (just like your music is good) and you need to find someone who APPRECIATES it and you.
Peace.
I agree with this last comment.
I am a woman who always goes for a man who is ‘stronger’ than myself. They are usually intellectually more superior to me, financially stronger than me and have a better job and just generally a better confidence about life than me.
Eventually these men will start to look down their noses at me more and more, criticize me and make me feel small. Until eventually I have no confidence at all.
I am going out with a guy at the moment and the other night I was talking about the kind of music I liked and decided to play him some. He listened for about 20 seconds and then ripped the headphones from his hear like he was disgusted that I had made him listen to it. He literally just got up and walked away from me. He looked at me as if to say – your feelings aren’t important.
When I tried to discuss it with him I got the feeling he was going to make fun of me so I just ignored the matter and told him I was alright.
But the question is this – Why do I go for these men in the first place? I know they will hurt me and it will end in tears..
Keane,
I’ll tell you what’s on my mind right here
I’m not going to say you are bitter or what have you, b/c I don’t know you. Besides, you do bring up some valid points.
However, people are all different and want different things at different times in their lives. (That right there is the reason for a lot of divorce btw)
I’ve met a lot of men that are desperate to have a relationship. They will basically marry any woman who they find remotely attractive or at least are not “disgusted by”. For them, the importance is the right time to get married rather than the right woman. So yeah, they are not really in love and maybe never will be.
The fact remains is that, once married, men are happier than women to be in a marraige and research bears this out. Google it if you don’t believe me. The happiness scale in terms of most happy to least happy is: Married men, single women, single men, married women. (I believe that’s accurate). This bears out your valid point that women are delusional b/c although they really want to get married, they are the least happy. LOL.
I personally know of several men who, once their wife passed away, remarried immediately. The widows, on the other hand, never remarried. But that’s just anecdotal. It would be interesting to know the research on that.
My dear Keane, you confuse men’s infidelity with unhappiness. Many men are both happily married and happy to cheat (Jesse James comes to mind). The men that can’t cheat (whether b/c of fear of being caught or what have you), resign themselves to online porn, “harmless” flirting with colleagues, clients, and patients (hookup doctors are the worst), and ogling the hired help.
Yet other men may be unhappily married but still PREFER being married (even to the woman they are with) rather than being single. You see, the gender that suffers the most from being single is the man. Again, research bears this out. But you need only look at yourself Keane. I believe you truly want a relationship and truly want to be proven wrong which is why you included your email in this message.
One last point. True love, which you think is elusive, IS possible. TRUE LOVE IS BETWEEN EQUALS. But, unfortunately, many men either do not consider women as equals or do not marry a woman who they consider is their equal. (For whatever reason – insecurity, fear, inability to attract, etc.) And, of course, many women marry men who they consider are above them (either financially, intellectually, “stronger”, what have you.) These people will never be in love
Sure, they will have a relationship…but it’s not the BEST relationship. B/c the BEST relationships are between equals. 
Peace.
Men want to have babies as equally as women. Both parties get bored. We have too many expectations for life now. We want instant gratification all the time and therefore we will NOT put up hardships of having no money or not being able to go out as and when we like. We are too selfish now, all human beings are the same, men and women.
So this is interesting. Kelly and Brian. I love it. They have such Irish names, like me. So everyone, lets check back in 10 years to see if they are still together. I am at the point, where I think that most people have NO idea what they are doing when it comes to a marriage and the man, being the idiot that most of them are, go along with the delusional woman who demands a commitment and marriage and the baby, then two. Idiot man goes along with it, not having a clue as to how incredibly forever this situation is, and of course, it does not last. I am a guy, and I think that the men should not be getting married, rather staying single as long as possible. If my message is upsetting anyone, think about this. For women, if you could spy on men, be a fly on the wall, you would never get married 50% of the time!!!! Most men are not going to be faithful to you. That is there problem, and not yours. But you cannot expect them to be baby making machines and stay in a marriage. Having kids is hell most of the time and I am so sick of looking at the 20 and 30 and 40 year old women still trying to get married and have babies with no idea what a nightmare it truly is!!! So they have to experience it and go through a divorce or bad marriage and it is hell.
STAY SINGLE PEOPLE!!!
Unless BOTH of you are really ready to be together forever, and that might be over 60 years….
DONT DO IT!!!
If you are really in love, both of you, really in love…
Get married and stay together or you will upset all of us reading this at this moment. HA!!!
For you women who just have to tell me what is on your mind.
Hey Kelly, Bri, congratulations!!
For the rest of you who might be reading this, Kelly is my cousin and I had no idea until very recently that she and Bri met online.
I didn’t have time to read through all of the comments but I got the feel for what was going on. I can only speak for myself that I am respectful and polite, even to women who back off or say no thanks. Kelly’s experience is exactly the reason. Whatever may be happening at the moment, the future may be different. Burning the bridge won’t help you get to the other side if the opportunity re-presents.
Hope the little one is giving you lots of joy Kell. Talk another time.
sima- Sorry but that is BS. I just spent a DECADE of my life with a Persian man who was horrified about marriage and he will never get married.
Peggy: I hear you on that – and yeah those are the polite ones… and honestly I feel that eventually what goes around comes around! If the guys I chat with here aren’t willing to take time and get to know me via chat and email then I say no to even meeting for coffee now! That way if they aren’t at least nice enough to be patient then I know they aren’t for me anyway…
As tough as it is to get out and meet people face to face these days I still prefer it because then at least it’s possible to watch and see how they behave – a player is easy to spot in person! I guess it is just a matter of sifting the wheat from the chaff – to bad there is so little wheat around! I am not sure how to do that online where anything can be said and we won’t know the truth til we hang out with someone – that is the tough part!
Kevin: What a sweet post! I hope you find what you are looking for…and don’t change!
And you’re right. There’s a post here about some guy who claims to be a “lifestyle coach” or something counseling another guy telling him he needs to act superior to women and make them feel “lucky” that he chooses them. And then left his email for the guy to email him so he could “help him out for a small fee”. Honestly, it almost made me hurl.
But then a sweet post like Kevin’s comes along and it’s all good
Angel: I hope you are right! I’m tired of meeting creeps. And I meet so many of them
I am the queen of guys telling me “Oh, you won’t sleep with me? Well then, I have too many friends…see ya!” And those are the polite ones. Sigh.
Yes Kevin you are right ‘most’ guys are like that but not all..
Lucky us!!!!!
I agree about the friend part – but I am not the one who wrote off the guys I didn’t want to date they wrote me off – since i am not into sleeping with them they don’t want to be friends. I think that you are preaching to the choir here as most women would love to have many of the men they meet as friends even if we don’t want to date them or vice-a-versa.
And yes you are right yet again that it is the wording of how so many of these comments are put out here that anger us! So on behalf of myself and i am sure others – thank you for reading what is being said and for giving the point of view of “the hot/good looking guy”(yes this is an assumption but if you’ve been treated as an object someone thinks you fit the catagory
) since that is where all this started back at the beginning with the men all saying that after all the reason brian got kelly is because he was “so good looking”
I appreciate what you had to say… gives me hope, you take care and best of luck…
See Peggy, there are guys who get it out there
ours are coming soon!
Why is everybody so volatile and violent? Sheesh…
Honestly, I feel I’m a very mature guy for my age (23). Yes, there are plenty of people I’ve written off in my life, but in the last year I’ve come to regret many of those. I’m starting to go back and make amends with the people I’ve done that to as I have realized that nobody can ever have too many friends.
No, Angel, most guys will never know what it feels like to be held down and raped by somebody bigger than us. Most of us will never be taken advantage of in that way, BUT we still do have genuine feelings about girls we’ve met, or people in general and we can still be hurt. A LOT…As I was by an ex-girlfriend of mine. As well, I have been treated as an object…Quite a few times, which is the reason I’m writing this anyway…
I’m not saying anybody is perfect. Nobody is, and hell I know I’m not. But there are genuine guys out there, I promise you that much. At least where I live there are, me included. Yes, most guys are a**holes and will treat every girl like crap just to get them in bed…but I did say MOST guys…not all…
If you guys and gals would like to keep arguing that’s quite alright with me. I just wanted to offer my two cents and let the girls know that there are genuine guys out there, and let the guys know that some of the comments and the way they were spoken is the reason for all of this arguing and bickering.
As I said before, I’ve written people off and feel horrible for it…That’s the reason I don’t anymore. It’s pointless to because even if you don’t want to date the person, you never know how valuable of a friend they might turn out to be…Just a penny for your thoughts…
SOOO altogether that makes 3 cents, and that’s all I’ve got…So I’m done
Peace and love…