Then again, I'm still young and am working to get more involved to the extent I can.

In my single living arrangement I can see that I've most definitely picked up some quirks. Though the year in college and recent months with friends were good experiences I prefer to live alone and can't imagine sharing a living space and all that goes with it. Where I am now I was quite fearful that I'd have to have a roommate but was surprised with a great apartment (too small for more than one person) and no apparent way to have a roomie.

I believe that getting set into my ways isn't an affect of being single or living alone, I think it is due to getting older. Living in another culture does cause one to be flexible and adapt, but I am more set in my ways now at 32 than I was at 22 when I graduated college, and even more so than when I completed my grad. work at age 27. And it happens to both genders equally.

My mom just recently started renting a room in her house to a woman from her church. My mom has complained to me about many things her new tenant does, such as leave the windows open when she leaves the house.

The only reason you notice it more with single people is that they are not married yet. Married people have the luxury of getting set in their ways together, and they never have to open their house to other people ever again, so you - as an outsider - would never notice.

Besides, I've seen plenty of married people who are stubborn and set in their ways, and I've seen older singles who are much more flexible and accommodating....Perhaps it's a question of character,personality,and experiences, not marital status...

And then there's the part about how Tea in the U.S. is something you drink, but in Australia and the UK, it involves food...

My main issues with roommates stem from having separate lives under one roof. I get most annoyed at having meal preparation interrupted and having to fight for solitary bathroom time or use of laundry facilities. I don't anticipate my husband demanding to fix his own dinner while I'm in the middle of preparing food...or fighting me for use of the washing machine!

Also, I was taught to keep a clean house (although not necessarily "neat") and I tend to end up with roommates who won't wipe crumbs from the countertops (which draw roaches and ants) BUT who positively freak out at the thought of a newspaper being left anywhere other than the recycle bin (which does not draw roaches or ants). Sigh.

Bring on the husband! LOL.

I miss Calvin and Hobbes, too. I worked for the University Chaplain, who suggested that the cartoon was loosely based on the theories of John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes.

I especially liked the one where the dad said he was dictator-for-life, and Calvin responded by saying, "So, the only hope for change is violent revolution and exile?"

I also like the one where they said "SMOCK."

I will give mad props, though, to Farmer Tom for mentioning manicotti in Comment #2, a meal that could be potentially vegetarian. For once he's being "inclusive" of a group he constantly lambastes.

Both Farmer Tom and vegetarians won't touch raw fish with a 10-foot chopstick. As some might say, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Therefore, since vegheads and the King of Pork have a common enemy--raw fish--there's hope that they can become friends! (:

(REAL friends, IMHO, know the goodness of Indian food! So maybe we need to discuss being NYSaB--Not Your Samosa Buddy. But I digress.)

Take my comments with an entire saltshaker full of salt; I hope you had a good laugh, in the event you "get" my humor.

And greetings from the 210/15 Interchange...

1) When I was in my early 20's, many times if a guy asked me out, I was hit with paralysing fear. That resulted in an instant "No".

Other times, it was more of a gut-feeling that it was wrong, just a sense of unease with the whole thing. That also resulted in an instant "No".

I know that's not fair to the guys who asked, but when I had such a negative reaction, I wasn't going to ignore that.

2) Now I'm older (and wiser?) I don't have such a fear of "oh no he's going to expect a kiss and I don't even know if I like him" etc. I'm much more confident of myself and my ability to say no.

As a result, I say "Yes" more often (to the date, that is!)

----

So guys, younger girls are more likely to turn you down. Not only out of fear, but they still feel like they have a lot of choice and can keep holding out for the guy they've got their eye on.

----

I have 2 Christian single male friends. I often encourage them, saying, "Of course I'd date you; you're a great Christian man." And they are. (So why don't we date? Guy 1- We don't seem able to converse easily 1-on-1; it's filled with awkward silences. Guy 2- He's several years younger and is not in a place where he'd consider an older woman.)

Seriously though as **cough** the oldest one here, prayer works for all things. God is fully capable of flipping someone's life upside down to break them out of their ruts. I guess that would be shaking them out of their ruts.

For example, I have a house guest for a week. A relative who's working with a drag-racing team decided to come to the local raceway. And I have a guest room. I thought it was for 3 days, turned out to be a week. The good news is that we're both pretty laid back. But...I had about two days' notice and that's a quick adjustment!

Of course, I also had some friends in college who...shall we say...didn't plan very far ahead. I realized for my own sanity that the best thing to do when spending time with them was a) Make sure I had at least $40 in cash, b) A full gas tank and c) block out six hours.

I never had any idea what would end up happening. But by creating large margins I kept my expectations in a place where it didn't matter what they randomly decided to do. I was prepared to roll with it.

Women of a certain age become just as set in their ways...

Remember that coworker who passed on dating the fortysomething guy? Well, that same man later met a single mom with two kids and is now very happily married.

I have a fresh package of T-bone steak, which we just got from the locker last week, which I put up as my side of the following bet.

I bet that the single female who rejected the fortysomething guy...................
is still unmarried.

My experience has been that women who complain about men who are unable to change are usually the ones who want control in a relationship and in fact are looking for excuses not to ever commit to a marriage relationship in which they would have to submit to the leadership of the man.

I once pursued a very attractive young lady who was everything I was looking for in a potential mate. She had every excuse in the book why she would not date me. And she certainly has that right, God gave her a free will. But, 20 years later she is now 43 and unmarried. I on the other hand moved on, found a lovely wife and now have four beautiful children. Funny how she believed that she could do better than me, and wound up with nothing. Of course maybe nothing is better than me, but.............

For instance, a man and woman whom I know well - both in their early 30s - recently married. I considered both fairly set in their ways, each stubborn regarding certain things. I observed a lot of sparks fly as they struggled to adjust to each other both during their courtship and also throughout their first year of marriage.

However, the incredible love and respect each had for the other allowed them to make the necessary adjustments and compromises. Today I believe they are both quite different people in many ways than they were several years ago. I feel like today they are quite unified as a couple.

As for my own case... I'm 26, single, and live by myself so can't comment on long term bachelorhood tendencies.

"dinner" is actually the early evening meal and NOT the noon meal.

I'm sorry to inform you, but you are in fact incorrect.

from Dic.com

supper

noun
1. the evening meal, often the principal meal of the day.

As in, the Last Supper which the Lord and His disciples ate in the evening before they went out to the garden to pray.

from word history
dinner
Middle English diner not only meant "breakfast" but, echoing usage of the Old French word diner, more commonly meant "the first big meal of the day, usually eaten between 9 A.M. and noon.

from word origin

dinner
1297, from O.Fr. disner, originally "breakfast," later "lunch," noun use of infinitive disner (see dine). Always used in Eng. for the main meal of the day; shift from midday to evening began with the fashionable classes.

Breakfast is the meal in the morning which the farmer eats before or after he goes out to do the chores around the farm yard. Usually eaten before the sun comes up.

Morning lunch is fresh baked cookies and coffee(yick) or maybe some lemonade.

Dinner is the noon meal when the entire farm crew and family gathers around the large dining room table and eats fried chicken with mashed potatoes and chicken gravy, green beans, fresh baked bread, followed up by apple pie with ice cream.

Afternoon lunch is the remainder of the apple pie, with another cup of coffee(yick), or if you are an addict like me, Mt. Dew.

Supper is eaten in the evening after the farmer comes in from his days work.
Usually is consists of leftovers or soups and sandwiches.

All you hoy toy citified elitists, who never actually worked with your hands, seem to think that after a hard day of sitting on your posterior at a desk, you can hijack the language and call the evening meal, dinner. This is only because you worthless lazy bums haven't worked hard enough all day to have a large meal until the entire day is over. The working men of the world on the other hand got more accomplished before noon than you did all day. Therefore they eat a large noon meal and call it dinner so that they can have enough energy to do another of your days work in the afternoon.

Since Biblical times the evening meal has been supper. Therefore it can not be dinner. You are incorrect.

I'm also at LLU in the Psychology department.

A common one is the deliberate choice of emotive terms with a negative connotation that is not justified by the subject. In that it makes a moral judgement on the subject's motivation, such language is actually a personal attack.

One such is "cruel", applied to anything which causes discomfort or pain. If this were true, then doctors, dentists and physiotherapists are "cruel". But they are not, because cruelty includes not just the infliction of pain but the *intent* to cause pain and the *enjoyment* of causing pain. It is not cruel when the pain is merely incidental, whether the issue is dentistry, childbirth, hunting or some normal farming practices.

Another is labelling any person holding the belief that homosexual behaviour is immoral, a Homophobe. . (Note, a "phobia" is an irrational fear.)

The misuse of emotive terms has become so common that it has resulted an a number of sarcastic "definitions", of which the following are examples.
Chauvinist: Any man winning an argument with a women.
Sexist: see "chauvinist".
Racist: any person of anglo/european descent winning an argument with a person of another race.
Insensitive: Any person speaking truth that I don't want to hear.

In the US, it is understood as the main meal.

In the rest of the world (and the original French) it means appetizer.

(Yes, I have been involved in arguments over this!)

Yes, it can be draining when reaching out to people who have no social circle. Whether it's defined as loneliness or something else, it can be overwhelming.

In lifesaving for swimming, one of the things they teach you is that a drowning person is paniking. That's why you approach them from behind and put your arm over their chest, pulling them to safety while keeping their head above water. If you come up to them forwards, they might try to climb on you to get out of the water.

The response to this is to dive. By sinking down the person, in their panic, lets go because they don't want to go into the water. Then you approach from behind again, and try and get them to calm down and trust you to get them back.

Sometimes people who have no one to talk to compress all their stored-up emotions into a very small space. Whenever they say anything, the emotional intensity is overwhelming. This intimidates people and drives them away. And that reinforces the circle of them feeling alone.

In ministry, we build structure into our small groups and volunteer activities to try and mitigate this. After all, we see our church as a place to heal wounded and broken people. But that means we put lots and lots of training in place for people for almost all ministries. It's especially required for thinks like children's ministry, small-group leaders and divorce care ministries. This helps provide some structured interaction for people without them jumping on their small-group leader and sinking them.

It also gives people like small-group leaders some training in how to impose the structure. If a couple is overwhelming the group with details of their struggles, they can be referred for more specific counseling. And that doesn't mean kicking them out of the group, but it might mean telling them that when they have a prayer request, they only say, "We're asking for prayer." And leave out the details.

I was in a small group that blew up once. Another couple and I knew each other. A person who had some very intense, clinical-level challenges kind of hijacked it, and the leader didn't impose any structure. Slowing the other participants left. We made a commitment to stick around as long as the other did: "I'll stay as long as you stay."

Until one night, the only people who showed up were me, the wife of that couple, and the leader. That was the last night, and we expressed to the leader that it really needed to be handled differently. I think he's learned a lot since then.

However, God seems to conspire to ensure that these periods of living alone are only ever short term! He always brings about a major life change to ensure it lasts no longer than about 8 months.

Right now, I'm in the scenario where I FINALLY moved in properly to my own home and got a job in this city. Of course, my sister's family suddenly needed a place to live and all 5 of them have now moved in with me.

It's amazing how 'set in my ways' I become after 6 months of living alone. I freak out at every mark on the wall, I get SO annoyed every time something in the fridge is moved (and I can't find it), and the noise drives me INSANE. Not to mention the lack of a 'quiet space' to sit down and recharge, as all introverts need.

How do you deal with it? Having people move/rearrange/hide your stuff? Wasting half an hour looking for a pair of scissors that aren't in the drawer where they should be? Finding out that someone else ate that piece of pie you saved?

...I suspect the above paragraph describes most normal marriages. Help! ;)

BJ -- you're a criminal too, but we don't call you that to your face.

The arrangements so described lack some of the essential ingedients of marraig, and so are not "in fact" marraiges.

I'm a bit curious, tho. Why is it only men who are presumed to get set in their habits?

2. "Deceptively". Because nobody knows what it means. E.g., "He was deceptively tall". He was taller than expected? Shorter?

I know it doesn't work that way but sometimes I wish it did.

In my mind, the question is not whether women should be discerning (we should) it is about WHEN we should be discerning. If you overthink things too early and reject him (i.e., before he asks you out, or even when he asks you out) then you may have missed a good opportunity.

I think the time to be discerning is while you are getting to know him one-on-one, in a dating setting. For myself, I have a policy to give a guy at least 1-3 dates before making any judgments. While I am on those dates with him, I will be discerning who he is. And I will continue that "research" as you say, as I get to know him, his friends, etc.

Would it annoy you that for nuclear I say "new-clee-er"? I don't think I know anyone who says it noo!

That's not so much true, as false. When Europe is removed from the picture, and Africa, Asia, and South America are counted the vast, beyond vast, beyond, beyond vast majority of people have strong views about cheating and the sanctity of the pair bond. In fact there is no real culture that doesn't (any claim to such a culture, say in Polynesia, has been so thoroughly debunked by anthropology as to require no substantive comment).

Aeryn @ 8:
"guess I should have said "Some Christians" instead of "Christianity" holds all sex to be dirty....."

Totally agree with you. Sadly, some Christians do hold sex to be dirty even in marriage in complete contravention of the Bible...

Mike Toreno @ 27:
"Pro-life".

"Pro-Choice".

And finally (cause I wanna play too) irregardless. Yuck.

Several years ago, I got into a relationship with a woman and was shocked at how much of that tolerance I had lost over the many years of singleness. In the back of my mind, I found myself being subtle annoyed when she did things differently – the way she loaded the dishwasher to the stuff she liked on TV. At first, dating was a treat. However, by the end, even carving time out of my schedule to drive to pick her up, or spending money out of my budget to pay for dates, or staying up "past my bedtime" (LOL), became a point of contention. In retrospect, I wish I had recognized how set in my ways I had become and worked to change that. 32 is too young to be prematurely old! :)