"...you'll find he's wearing businessman pants, not electric-blue shimmery tights with fishnet side panels."

That's because it's hard to find matching neckties.

LW might also consider trying a hobby or joining a group that has nothing to do with ice skating.

The physique of a figure skater is not a bad thing to bring to the dating scene.

Try hanging out at the pool, my husband is a competitive swimmer and they have very nice builds ;)

a. she's not meeting any other men
b. she's too picky

A 26-year old attractive figure skater has trouble meeting men? Hmm, something sounds odd about that, sounds almost to me like she's subconsciously 'planning to fail' to find someone and preparing excuses for eventual failure ('nobody was suitable! i was imprisoned at an ice rink and so couldn't meet anyone!'). Afraid of success maybe? Or maybe she is very shy or something.

The usual suggestion: do something. Find a hobby or activity where there are more people of the opposite sex - i.e., not skating, not flower arranging, not cooking. How about martial arts? I Aikido or Judo will both profit from her figure skating, and both tend to have more men than women.

I like the pool idea. She even has a good pretext to be there... toning up her physique.

Women deepsix themselves in dating with all these absurd restrictions. "I don't go to bars"..."Online dating isn't for me"...and so forth. Men aren't just going to fall out of the sky onto your doorstep, so get over the "meet cute" scenario you believe you must have and go where there is actually some men.

Or maybe we could fix her up with the other LW's boyfriend? Sounds like this LW would be more appreciative of a guy who makes dinner, and isn't wearing sequins.

It could depend on how much of a figure skater she is. Serious athletes often don't have time or energy for much else. While not an explanation of why my girls did gymnastics through High School, it certainly helped keep my sanity.

Three hours of practice on week nights and half days on Saturdays, plus meets kept them busy.

She could consider volunteering. I'd hazzard a guess that Literacy Volunteers, for example, might attract a few nice, intelligent, non-jerks. Habitat for Humanity is more likely to attract good guys than selfish jerks.

I'm around the LW's age, and it's hard to meet guys. In college/grad school, there are guys with similar interests in your age group everywhere. Post-grad, it's tough.

Volunteer work is fine and all, but it depends on the work you do. The causes I'm passionate about tend to attract women rather than men. I've volunteered my weekends for the past 5 years, and I have yet to come across a single 20- or 30-something guy in the organizations I volunteer for.

...Now social dance classes, I've found, are quite effective. Men take those because they want to impress women.

I totally sympathize with LW. I'm 26, educated, and attractive, as are most of my girl friends, and none of us can find a nice guy either. I've tried local "sport and social" clubs and Meetup groups, with no luck. Apparently, guys in San Diego don't volunteer, because that's never worked either. And I've had many male friends tell me clearly to stay away from Match.com, because apparently the 20- and 30-something guys around here are using it exclusively to see how many women they can seduce into one night stands. To my mother's extreme dismay, I've pretty much given up and settled for yoga and platonic friends, instead.

How about volunterring at an animal shelter? And ya know where one of my friends found a husband? The grocery store! There's a grocery store a couple towns over from us that used to have a 'Singles Night' and they had specials for those people shopping at night that were single. They've been together almost 8 years now.

I'm reminded by a quote from Terry Pratchett. To paraphrase and change gender: A girl says she's looking for a guy who's funny and nice and isn't gay, but when you start to prod, suddenly large wallets, great social skills, cleft chins, shoulders and rather rigorous height requirements become mandatory...

Sports Bars. Guys everywhere.

The gym... first thing in the morning or some time after 5. Or, happy hours in bars located near whatever the city's larger business districts are. Starbucks, between 7:30 and 9:30am. Pretty much anywhere other than your apartment or the skating rink...unless you stay for hockey practice.

jake -- "she's too picky?" She doesn't want to date underage gay guys in sparkly spandex and she's too picky? WTF?

Actually, I totally get how it can be difficult to meet dudes even if you're 26 and cute. When I was 23, taking a bit of time between college and law school, I moved to a city where I didn't know anyone and worked in an office where everyone was much older than I was. I'm not all that into bars, either. It took me a bit of time to make new friends, and for a while the male attention I got was in the form of catcalls, leering looks, and subway pinches rather than date requests. Maybe she's in a similar boat.

The martial arts suggestion is a very good one, or a running or cycling club is another excellent option. I've met a ton of nice guys that way. To me it feels a lot more natural than bellying up to a bar. A conversation during a workout and grabbing a coffee afterward is an easy, low-pressure way to figure out if you like someone.

It's all good to tell a girl to do what she likes to do, or to choose hobbies that sound good to you, but what if she's not a swimmer, or she likes to crochet or quilt... Amy is right on, it's about putting yourself out there, marketing yourself... and if you want to do that by taking up a hobby, make sure it's something you enjoy, otherwise you're being kind of phony, aren't you? Stretch and find something you didn't know you like, maybe, but don't chose something just because you think guys like it and you might find a guy by doing it. A friend of mine bought a motorcycle and joined a biking club because she wanted to learn how to ride the motorcycle better, and she was flooded with date requests.

The figure skating thing is going to be handicap when it comes to finding guys. She needs to develop some other interests that would appeal to the average straight male—and if this means taking away from her rink time, then so be it.

I met my last boyfriend at a swing dance class. Dancing together led to a wonderful 4-year relationship that ended due to just basic life stuff, but we're still great friends. I decided I needed to take some time off from dating, chill out, have fun . . . so I went back to taking dance classes. And met, you got it, a great guy. He's definitely not my new boyfriend or anything, but hey, you never know, it might turn into something, so I count that as two times lucky. More straight men than you'd think do swing dance, because it's a great way to meet and impress women, and it's a fairly manly form of partner dance (all those dips and lifts and swinging girls over your head). I think part of the reason I met both of these guys is that I *wasn't* looking. Didn't have that desperate "love me" vibe, I just wanted to go out and dance and have fun. So I didn't chase them, I let them chase me, and it seems to be a good strategy.

Gail my point was that either she's not meeting ANYONE - OR she actually is, but is being too picky (i.e. a. OR b. ).

What helped my sister a lot was to broaden the age range that she would consider dating. When she'd gotten out of school, she complained about the same thing. But a lot of the problem was that she was trying to date like she had when she was in school, with guys exactly her age or maybe a year older. I think that she was intimidated by 'older' guys, and by older I mean late twenties to mid thirties. You see the same thing on match.com. Like women who are 28 but won't date over 30.

Other than swing dancing, it doesn't seem to matter where I go: it's all women, and the odd husband dragged along.

and I can spell.

i.e. she's meeting idiots.

This seems to be a common problem for young women. You'll frequently see similar comments on dating sites - e.g. requests that men who respond attend to their spelling and grammar. I have the impression that a lot of young men are quasi illiterate. Though it may also be the influence of thug culture, where it's cool to be stupid.

Enrol in college or university night school classes. Educated people from all walks of life hang out in classrooms. See what turns up there. In the meantime, you're getting an education. Double bonus!!

@nel

So, with that condescending remark (hers, not yours) she is essentially stating that anyone who does not at least meet her level of literacy and grammer is ineligable. Because the best guys, the ONLY good guys, are ones who can spell ambidextrous* without using a Spell check.

Unfortunately, a lot of guys DON'T find writing desperate poetry late at night or making little romantic tales of their wannabe boyfriends (all with correct spelling and grammer except for the little heart symbols where the dots on the 'i' should be) and so make snafus. If you can understand it, then it works.

But actually that's good. She's refined her search to only college educated types or guys with above average writing skills. So maybe she needs to join a writers workshop. But I doubt that she's going to have a lot of respect for the writing bunch since she can probably kick their asses if what she's saying about figure skating is at all true.

*No I didn't either. And she could probably kick my ass.

flydye that's not it. It's that many younger guys don't write in standard english. It's sort of a mash of ghetto and sms.

wuz u doin babi girlzzz

like that.

"Other than swing dancing, it doesn't seem to matter where I go: it's all women, and the odd husband dragged along."

Not around here. Dance studios here range from even-up to having an excess of men.

Nel,

Anyone who would write anything like, "wuz u doin babi girlzzz" is a complete idiot. No matter their age and no matter their sex. It's not just young people that are doing this. I've run into women my age (I'm forty) that are unbelievably illiterate. Texts are one thing, but when there is a full keyboard at your disposal, it's a total no-go in my book. I don't care how good looking she is. It drives me up a wall and is a total deal breaker.

The idea that, "Well, you knew what I meant didn't you?" is a very poor excuse.

The occasional misspelling and grammar slip up is understandable. We all do that. But, if a woman emails me and is using "u" instead of you, "2" instead of two, and uses no punctuation whatever, she is not trying to impress me. She is either an uneducated moron or she doesn't feel that I'm worth the small effort to present herself well. Either way, goodbye.

Dating is a two way street. I certainly try to make a good impression when I communicate with women. They should as well. After all, I'm looking for someone impressive and there are plenty of impressive women out there.

Anyone who would write anything like, "wuz u doin babi girlzzz" is a complete idiot.

That's my point.

Also if you're getting messages like that from a forty year old woman, it's probably her kids who are sending them. I wouldn't blame you for running in either case ;)

My pet peeve is using "there" for "they're" and "your" for "you're", both of which seem to be becoming interchangeable for many people. Maybe it's because of texting, but it seems like they often know the difference but figure you can read the meaning, based on context, so what's the point of the apostrophe?

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Reading incorrect homonyms drives me CRAZY...and yes, I'm a guy.

Now, my wife is a foreign national and reading her prose on an email is cringeworthy...but she has any number of redeeming characteristics to make me overlook that (and a hell of an excuse). But even barring the excuse, I value her other facets above her prose.

I recall a girl I knew in school. She kept telling a guy making off colored comments that he was 'deprived'. She didn't realize it was the incorrect word until I told her I liked her joke.. I would certainly select a person like that more then a college educated English major who couldn't be troubled to do more the 'text' me incorrect messages. But that's me. One is ignorance. The other is insulting.

Which is to my point. If a gentleman can write in full sentences with the occasional mistaken word or misspelling, that does not make him ineligable for being a righteous guy!

However, if that is one of her selection criteria, then so be it. She's winnowing out a lot of wheat, IMO, but you want what you want.

Yeah, a lot of successful people can't spell worth a darn. Doctors, for instance. They're intelligent and articulate, but that is just a shortcoming. LW will drastically reduce her prospects if she's inflexible about her criteria.

Young women tend to focus on things like that, and on status, way too much. That's why divorce stats are what they are. Older women like me understand that the important criteria isn't found in spelling, or what type of degree a guy has, or kind of car he drives, or even what he does for a living.

And I think every age group has the lament about not finding a mate. My handsome nephew, age 32, was complaining the other day that "ALL the women his age are dating men in their 40s". My middle age gfs complain that "ALL the men their age are dating women in the 20s." The 20 yr olds probably have some similar complaint.

But I met my husband at age 43 (and he was 45), so you can't buy into all these defeatist philosophies, which are basically spouted by people who are too afraid/discouraged to look for a mate.

LS,

Maybe your nephew could introduce me to some of his thirty-ish friends :)

Sure, whistledick. lol According to him, all the hot girls in their late 20s and early 30s are looking for the stability of men in their 40s. He said they're mostly marrying fireman, police officers, etc. Of course, he may just be bitter, as his ex dumped him to marry a fireman, who I suppose must be 40ish. :)

He also flits from job to job, and one get-rich scheme to the next, so naturally, he isn't attracting women who want to settle down. Often, people don't realize that it's their own flaws and limitations that are the problem.

Young women tend to focus on things like that, and on status, way too much. That's why divorce stats are what they are. Older women like me understand that the important criteria isn't found in spelling, or what type of degree a guy has, or kind of car he drives, or even what he does for a living.

I think that's just you LS ;)

In my experience, it's younger women who are more likely to take the risk with a less affluent guy. The women that I meet in their 30's are like junior actuaries. It's all about the money for them. Not everyone, but enough that it's what you come to expect.

I don't know, jj. I haven't really run into that. Don't get me wrong, I've got money -- but you wouldn't know it in a million years by my lifestyle. I'm just not into opulent things and I drive a piece of shit car because it just doesn't make sense to me to do otherwise.

However, I've never run into that as an obstacle with the women to whom I'm attracted. I have plenty of other obstacles :)

I don't really buy that "women must have a rich guy" thing. Stability, yeah, but not necessarily monetary. Lovelysoul's nephew doesn't sound like he stands a chance, but it's not because he's not driving around in a Ferrari.

Amy: "...you'll find he's wearing businessman pants, not electric-blue shimmery tights with fishnet side panels."

Old RPM Daddy: "That's because it's hard to find matching neckties."

Amy and RPM Daddy, you're hilarious!

For further comic relief, check out why some figure skaters need an insurance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPd-fbMTnoU

I know some smart, decent funny guys who can't spell. In most cases sure, it's probably a sign of stupidity or sloppiness, but you might just pass up a catch because he couldn't spell.

And let's not ignore the flip side: Just because a man can wax eloquent with his pen (sometimes a pen is just a pen, ladies) does not make him relationship material.

flydye:
"I recall a girl I knew in school. She kept telling a guy making off colored comments that he was 'deprived'. "
not on point as far as the letter in question, but i am reminded of the time a very good friend was describing his sex life with his new girl: "she doesn't mind that i'm not so big - she likes the garth of my dick"
to this day i imagine his penis wearing a little cowboy hat and singing country western...

I want my guys to be able to spell, too. One of the first dating websites garnered me a short-but-hot romance with a super guy - who can't spell. When I called him on it he said he used spell-check before sending messages to me because I probably said something about wanting an intelligent guy. Gotta give him credit for that!