A few years ago I went into a very South African (possibly Afrikaners) bar in Houts Bay, a suburb of Cape Town, in South Africa.
It was a rather hard faced bar, where there were some rather desperate looking middle aged women dancing with each other in that bar, surrounded by some beer soaked and apparently largely indifferent men.
I should hasten to add that these weren't professional ladies, dancing for money, but rather patrons of the bar, who were dancing as an alternative to just sitting and drinking. None of the bars occupants seemed to be talking to each other, and in fact they seemed to be almost enacting such a well worn scene that no one, not least the participants, were doing anything else but performing their allotted roles. Needless to say, I was approached almost immediately by one of the ladies .... most probably because I was a new face in a very small pond of options.
It struck me at the time as being rather unusual, but after indicating that I was just a tourist, a little off the beaten track, but nonetheless just passing through, the lady concerned rejoined her comrades and continued to dance away.
However I have been in a bar very recently that had that same feel .... I had better not name it, but I watched with the same mixture of fascination and some sadness, as a number of middle aged ladies, attempted to find love from a very disparate bunch of older males.
Now as a singleton of a certain age myself, you might expect that maybe I would be participating in the same dance, but actually no. I accepted that love had passed me by sometime ago ... but even if I hadn't, I certainly wouldn't have been interested in this form of the search for love.
However it all reminded me that some people just can't cope with being on their own. So whilst I might have been both fascinated and repulsed by the mating antics of these sad souls, I certainly can't condemn them, despite how this post may sound.
After all they are doing nothing different than those who use dating websites aren't doing. In fact I am aware of one very attractive woman in her early 40's who 'dates' regularly via websites .... but although this is certainly a more sophisticated form of the search, and very possibly far more likely to find a larger and more hand-picked pool of potential mates, it's possibly no less likely to end in heartbreak or disappointment. After all these are very often just desperate (or worse cheating), men on these websites ....
But it ain't just older, working class men and women in the West who may face this sort of dating pressure. Certain social traits mean that there can be considerable sex imbalances in some areas of our and others societies that can cause the mating game to be imbalanced. In the West, some countries have retirement communities, where women nearly always out number females, and this makes elderly dating problematic for women.
While elsewhere, 'bride kidnapping', occurs in many parts to the world, for a number of different reasons, including male female birth sex ratios being skewed via the practice of selective sex abortion (aka female infanticide). In 2010 the Chinese sex birth ratio was reported as being 119 boys born per 100 girls, a figure which rose to 130 boys per 100 girls in some rural areas.The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that more than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses by 2020. But selective sex abortion practice is largely a non western phenomena, or practised by non mainstream groups illegally in the West.
However I am also referring to certain Western social conditions that can create odd conditions for dating. Facts such as that higher education take up ratios increasingly favouring females .... but that's for another post, and involves a very different set of people. Meanwhile, the phenomena of the older, 'singles' dominated bars, and the behaviours that can be observed there, are I guess, just another aspect of our strangely fractured and rootless society.
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| Desperate Lives Call For Desperate Measures ..... |
It was a rather hard faced bar, where there were some rather desperate looking middle aged women dancing with each other in that bar, surrounded by some beer soaked and apparently largely indifferent men.
I should hasten to add that these weren't professional ladies, dancing for money, but rather patrons of the bar, who were dancing as an alternative to just sitting and drinking. None of the bars occupants seemed to be talking to each other, and in fact they seemed to be almost enacting such a well worn scene that no one, not least the participants, were doing anything else but performing their allotted roles. Needless to say, I was approached almost immediately by one of the ladies .... most probably because I was a new face in a very small pond of options.
It struck me at the time as being rather unusual, but after indicating that I was just a tourist, a little off the beaten track, but nonetheless just passing through, the lady concerned rejoined her comrades and continued to dance away.
However I have been in a bar very recently that had that same feel .... I had better not name it, but I watched with the same mixture of fascination and some sadness, as a number of middle aged ladies, attempted to find love from a very disparate bunch of older males.
Now as a singleton of a certain age myself, you might expect that maybe I would be participating in the same dance, but actually no. I accepted that love had passed me by sometime ago ... but even if I hadn't, I certainly wouldn't have been interested in this form of the search for love.
However it all reminded me that some people just can't cope with being on their own. So whilst I might have been both fascinated and repulsed by the mating antics of these sad souls, I certainly can't condemn them, despite how this post may sound.
After all they are doing nothing different than those who use dating websites aren't doing. In fact I am aware of one very attractive woman in her early 40's who 'dates' regularly via websites .... but although this is certainly a more sophisticated form of the search, and very possibly far more likely to find a larger and more hand-picked pool of potential mates, it's possibly no less likely to end in heartbreak or disappointment. After all these are very often just desperate (or worse cheating), men on these websites ....
But it ain't just older, working class men and women in the West who may face this sort of dating pressure. Certain social traits mean that there can be considerable sex imbalances in some areas of our and others societies that can cause the mating game to be imbalanced. In the West, some countries have retirement communities, where women nearly always out number females, and this makes elderly dating problematic for women.
While elsewhere, 'bride kidnapping', occurs in many parts to the world, for a number of different reasons, including male female birth sex ratios being skewed via the practice of selective sex abortion (aka female infanticide). In 2010 the Chinese sex birth ratio was reported as being 119 boys born per 100 girls, a figure which rose to 130 boys per 100 girls in some rural areas.The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that more than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses by 2020. But selective sex abortion practice is largely a non western phenomena, or practised by non mainstream groups illegally in the West.
However I am also referring to certain Western social conditions that can create odd conditions for dating. Facts such as that higher education take up ratios increasingly favouring females .... but that's for another post, and involves a very different set of people. Meanwhile, the phenomena of the older, 'singles' dominated bars, and the behaviours that can be observed there, are I guess, just another aspect of our strangely fractured and rootless society.
Those types of bars can be found almost anywhere in the western world. They are a result of easier divorce and non marital sexual relationships breaking down.
ReplyDeleteThey are the price we pay for greater free choice. Whether it's too high a price, only time will prove.
Yes, you are very right. I just felt like commenting on the phenomena. Thanks for the comment.
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