maybe this time I'll win

[Portia]

So, I'm packing my life for a move halfway across the country. I found a few versions of what I call the Life Plan: I inherited from my mother a compulsion to plan out every month for the next 3, 5, even 10 years. I sort of laughed about it, but my boyfriend, who shares many personality traits with my little sister, the most annoying of which is an unbearable nosiness, was like "lemme see! lemme see!" Despite begging off, he kept pushing it, so I relented and showed him the d*** thing. Naturally, my Plan had included getting married, and definitely at a point which ain't happening now. The last thing I wanted dredged up was the four- to five-month period where I was wildly, madly in love. Since it's irrelevant now, why go over that? I feel like he purposely decided to fall in love with me once it was a fait accompli that he was leaving. People who are all sunshine and flowers and love love would be like "he wants to follow you, Portia! Hooray!" to which I'd first reply "bollocks" then "yeah, we'll see" then "been there, done that, peeps."

I pretty much wanted to be engaged to force my hand. I hate relationships (and yet I'm always in them), at least the minutiae of them, and adding long-distance to it just makes it more of a [censored] stew.

I'm just so over playing the field. I vote I ditch the Utah boys and make a ton of money and go to Europe. I feel like I'll just end up popping out babies to fulfill a guy's need to be a father anyway.

[S.A.M.]

Ditch the Utah boys and make a ton of money and go to Europe.

Hahaha, no seriously consider it. I have a friend, gorgeous girl, graduated BYU without getting married (gasp). She got a job in London, met a U.S. Air Force pilot in the singles ward over there and is now happily married. There are good, dateable men everywhere.

[vorpal blade]

I feel like I'll just end up popping out babies to fulfill a guy's need to be a father anyway.

Do guys ever feel a need to be a father?

Anyway, best of luck and keep in touch.

[Portia]

Ditch the Utah boys and make a ton of money and go to Europe.

Hahaha, no seriously consider it. I have a friend, gorgeous girl, graduated BYU without getting married (gasp). She got a job in London, met a U.S. Air Force pilot in the singles ward over there and is now happily married. There are good, dateable men everywhere.

you miss the point! I don't want to get married if I'm a European boho!

[S.A.M.]

Ha! Gets even better. That's when you will meet someone. My wife was so mad when she met me because after a couple of dates she was pretty sure we would get married and it wasn't in her plan at the time, she really wasn't interested in getting married at all. She sometimes jokes (really, she's just kidding, I think) that I messed up everything.

[Portia]

Ha! Gets even better. That's when you will meet someone. My wife was so mad when she met me because after a couple of dates she was pretty sure we would get married and it wasn't in her plan at the time, she really wasn't interested in getting married at all. She sometimes jokes (really, she's just kidding, I think) that I messed up everything.

I have someone. Meeting guys is not the issue...

[NerdGirl]

I definitely know some guys who feel the need to be a father.

[Portia]

I definitely know some guys who feel the need to be a father.

All the guys! Where are the mythical guys who don't care for children?

[vorpal blade]

I definitely know some guys who feel the need to be a father.

All the guys! Where are the mythical guys who don't care for children?

Really? I don't know any guys who wanted to get married so they could have children. My attitude was that I thought I should get married and if I thought about children at all I thought well, I guess we will have some if she wants them. Children were never in my plans. I never spent any time thinking about names for children, except what would be funny names. If we were not able to have children that would have been fine with me, although I would have wondered what it was like to have children. I never envisioned my future with children. Just blissful fun with wife and exciting, fulfilling career as a scientist. Travel. Games. Sports. Entertainment. Church callings. Where were children supposed to fit in? Honestly, I think I was just like all the other guys at BYU, and the guys I work with today feel the same way. I cannot understand guys wanting to be a father.

On the other hand, once I started having children I loved them and cared for them and felt I was lucky to have them. Most of the time. Looking back I feel that the only thing worthwhile I ever did in my life was to have children and raise them. Now I have a great sense of peace and satisfaction in my great children. But before I had them, are you kidding? Who wanted to bother with children?

I'm thinking the guys who say they want to be fathers are just saying what they think the women they tell that to want to hear.

[mic0]

My husband sounds kind of like young-you (sans dreaming about church callings ), in that he isn't sure about kids and vacillates between not wanting them and being okay with the idea. There was a guy I dated in high school, though, who was very devout and he came from a family with 7 children, him being the oldest, and he definitely wanted kids. Like, he just knew he wanted to be a father. I imagine it had to do with how close his own family was. And now, he has been married almost two years and has a baby! There you have it, my one data point of men who want babies.

Portia, as for your situation, good luck. :/ I just don't even know, but traveling Europe sounds way more fun than worrying about guys.

[vorpal blade]

Thinking about it a little more, one of my roommates did always want to have children, as I recall. I saw him a few days ago. He has a daughter who has the mind of a little child, and always will. She is in her twenties now. He loves her and is very glad he has her. My old roommate has cancer and it sounds pretty advanced. He goes into surgery in August.

[Portia]

Portia, as for your situation, good luck. :/ I just don't even know, but traveling Europe sounds way more fun than worrying about guys.

Darn straight it does. If it works then it works, but I just feel like he has a good GPA and presumably could get the one job. I just don't see getting married as when my "life will begin." In fact, I pretty much dread it ending my life.

[Indefinite Integral]

Just to add to the chorus of replies, my most recent ex definitely felt the need to be a father. I'm all for having kids eventually, but he definitely thought about it way more often than me, and was even keen on having a honeymoon baby (definitely something I didn't want). He even kept asking me why I didnt want one, and could never really understand my rationale of wanting a bit of time to adjust to being married without having to deal with pregnancy as well. Maybe someday he'll find a girl as baby hungry as he is.

[Tally M.]

A guy that I met really wanted a lot of kids and he didn't really care what he did for a job as long as it allowed him to support his family.

[NerdGirl]

Vorpal, that's probably because you married young. Most of my single 30 something guy friends have biological clocks that are ticking even loude than mine.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Also I think it's a bit socially unacceptable, generally, for guys to be looking forward to fathering. It's not that macho.

[Portia]

A guy that I met really wanted a lot of kids and he didn't really care what he did for a job as long as it allowed him to support his family.

Was his name Professor Kirke? Haha.

[Tally M.]

A guy that I met really wanted a lot of kids and he didn't really care what he did for a job as long as it allowed him to support his family.

Was his name Professor Kirke? Haha.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Cause I'm pretty sure Kirke wasn't a freshman when I was.

[vorpal blade]

Vorpal, that's probably because you married young. Most of my single 30 something guy friends have biological clocks that are ticking even loude than mine.

Well, it looks like I was wrong. There apparently are guys who yearn to be fathers.

I didn't think I was particularly young when I married at age 26. It just seems to me that a lot of people are marrying late now. I'm not sure what you mean by a guy's biological clock ticking loud. I think most women sense that they aren't going to have children after their early forties, but guys can father children when they are in their seventies or eighties. Not that it is a good idea; you don't want to be running after toddlers when you're ninety, and you don't want to die before the kids grow up. But this idea of a male biological clock is puzzling to me. Do some guys start to think they are too old to be new fathers before they are sixty or seventy?

[NerdGirl]

I'm just using "biological clock" as a figure of speech. But since most guys tend to be interested in women who are close to their age, I think that for many of them, when they start to reach the age at which women's fertility starts to decline, they start to see their own chances to have kids slipping away. If a guy is single and getting close to 50, for example, he's still very fertile, but the women he's dating or interested in may not be.