Back in April commenter PB was kind enough to bring the following Daily Mail article to my attention: I dated 50 men in six months (and STILL didn’t find love). In it choice addiction poster child Pippa Wright describes how she is consuming mass quantities of low level investment from men in a futile effort to compensate for the lack of true investment which only accompanies true commitment:
Please don’t judge me: I’m not a woman with loose morals. Like so many modern single women, I’m a multi-dater. I’m one of a new breed adopting a scattergun approach — packing as many men as possible into our diaries in an effort to find love.
In the past six months I have seen 50 men…
In many ways her story isn’t new. I previously shared the story of the post marital spinster blogger who went on over 100 first dates in just one year. That blogger hasn’t updated her site since August of last year, but since her site is still up I’m guessing she still hasn’t found the replacement for the husband she discarded in her early 20s. In another post I described yet another divorcée who went on 87 first dates in two years.
Miss Wright’s story is also very similar to Kate Bolick’s tale. Like Miss Bolick, Miss Wright never married and claims to be pushing forty. I say claims because her stated age of 38 doesn’t jive with the pictures in the article. Miss Wright can date as many men as she likes, but she still unfortunately looks like 20 miles of bad road. The carousel has been extremely unkind to her. Additionally her stated age of 38 also doesn’t fit with her description of her dating history. The only “boyfriend” she mentions having is an American man she hooked up with while drunk and dumped after 6 months twenty years ago. While it isn’t impossible that she would still be pining for the man she dumped at 18, it seems more likely that it was the man she dumped at 28.
At any rate, let Miss Wright serve as a cautionary tale for would be carousel riders. The time passes far faster than you know, and you can’t fill the void left by not having real commitment from a quality man by substituting volume of fleeting attention from men who will never be invested in you.
Her tale and the tales of other women should also be a caution to young men. Beware the looky-loos who will use your willingness to foot the cost of courtship against you. While women like this may not be the average, the sheer number of dates they go on means they will be very much over represented in the average dating man’s experience.
