Do You Love Your Mother?

I had dinner with Doug last night. I'm having dinner with Frank on Thursday night. I expect to see Bob on Saturday night. What do these men have in common? They're all severely gun-shy on relationships. What else do they have in common? Less-than-terrific relationships with their mothers.

Bob's mother was an alcoholic. He became her caretaker upon his parents' divorce when he was ten. Doug's mother was strict-strict-strict. When he was in college and didn't come home at the time she said he should come home, she threw him out of the house. Frank — well, that whole story isn't clear, but the entire family appears dysfunctional, from what I know. His mother died about a month ago and he heard about it two days later via e-mail.

Will any of these men ever be able to have a lasting, loving, nurturing, supportive relationship? I think all bets are on "No".

Then I look at the number of men I see on Match.com who have been there for years — yes, years. I wonder what results we'd see if we handed out surveys about their relationships with their mothers.

Wouldn't you think that someone who really wanted to find one wonderful woman (as most of them say in their profiles) could find her in two or three years?!

And that said, is it safe to say that anyone who has been on an online dating service for longer than six months is destined to stay there?