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Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! We're trying to re-launch this discussion thread in a way that can relieve the pressure some of its hosts find themselves in, without disrupting the consistency of the thread discussions. The best compromise at this point seems to be a monthly thread, with pings each weekend to the same thread, to discuss anything and everything you want. We'll try to provide some questions to provoke conversation as often as we can. (If no one feels like participating, the thread will most likely dry up pretty quickly.) Old TV Shows: There may be some appealing...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! Tonight's topic is phobias and manias - the things you fear, and the things that bring out your devilish side. For example: Apimania - Excessive interest in bees Monophobia - Fear of being alone Bibliomania - Excessive interest in books Neophobia - Fear of anything new Caligynephobia - Fear of beautiful women Pyromania - Excessive interest in fire And of course, there's Luposlipaphobia, the fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly-waxed floor. (Ala Gary Larson and The Far Side.) For more, visit the Indexed...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! TONIGHT'S SUBJECT IS PET PEEVES. WHETHER IT'S TOILET PAPER HANGING THE WRONG WAY ON THE ROLL - IF THERE'S ANY THERE AT ALL - SOMEONE WHISTLING OFF-KEY IN THE NEXT CUBICLE, OR ANNOYING CUTESY E-MAIL FORWARDS, EVERYONE HAS LITTLE SITUATIONS IN LIFE THAT IRRITATE THEM. I, for one, don't like ALLCAPS guy! I get annoyed by drivers who blow past me at fifteen and twenty miles per hour over the speed limit just to get ahead of me when a two-lane road is becoming one-lane, as happened today. I also get miffed when cars...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! How prepared would you say you are to face a sudden emergency in life? The Following are famous last words uttered by hospital patients and cemetery residents the world over, who weren't prepared: "I'll get a world record for this." "It's fireproof." "He's probably just hibernating." "What does this button do?" "I'm making a citizen's arrest." "So, you're a cannibal..." "It's probably just a rash." "Are you sure the power is off?" "Yeah, I made the deciding vote on the jury, so what of it?" "The odds of that happening have to be a...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! Roughly six months ago, people all around the world were making semi-sober vows to lose a certain amount of weight in this, the "new year", 2008. Those fantasies soon dried up for a lot of people on the next trip to the market, or especially by the time the Super Brawl rolled around. (I can't say "Super Bowl" because the name is copyrighted. Oops.) So as "swim suit season" rolls around, the issue of health comes 'round again. I had this topic in mind several weeks ago, and put back some interesting articles to...

Our old pal DaveLoneRanger asked me to take on the awesome responsibility of actually doing this thread tonight, but I think this will be an amalgamation of a whole bunch of mini-topics that are on my mind. (I would have entitled it “pet peeves” as Dave suggested, but I didn’t want anybody to think I’m stealing their ideas or anything.) In my day to day life, I know a lot of Democrats. Yeah, it happens. Many of them enjoy hearing themselves pontificate, especially about Barack Hussein Obama. Maybe it’s me, but I’m sick of the guy already. And it’s has...

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage. Weisman, 49, conducted a survey of 1,533 heterosexual men to research a book aiming to give women an insight into why some smart, successful men opted to stay single -- and help lifelong bachelors understand why they are still the solo man at parties. He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage -- but they...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread!! This weekend's topic is crushes, and once again, this one wasn't my idea. The idea may still be interesting, and we'll see what people have to say. Just in case, I'm going to try to give some extra bonus questions. A couple of things are true about crushes. First, everyone has had them. Second, I'm not sure that anyone really likes admitting them. If I'm right, maybe this will be a difficult thread, but I'm not going to ask anyone to admit to anything. A third thing about crushes may be that we don't...

History and heritage - this mean many things to each person.  It can mean a dry and boring lesson at school that appeared to have no relevance to today's world or it can bring up warm rich memories of being taught the importance of the part and how it has shaped our future.  For me I could never get into social history and the various industrial and agriculture revolution but loved learning about the various Kings and Queens of England.   There was a Queen in fact named Eleanor and there is a famous stone cross in London which marks...

While DaveLoneRanger is on vacation going to a touristy spot in a random blue state, we here in the House of GOP_Raider have a somewhat momentous occasion. My brother (pictured here is going to graduate from college tomorrow. A grand event though this certainly is for the entire family and what not, I do hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little off my game this weekend, considering that I have the song of note from my high school graduation, Vitamin C's Graduation stuck in my head This is where Wikipedia's disambiguation comes in mighty handy. So anyway, we've all...

Does your home reflect your single status including your attitudes towards it or are they formed from childhood and how your parents home was like. Is your home functional, decorative, needs attention and somewhat tired or well maintained and modern? If you had a partner do you think it would be different? Daveloneranger gave a few single spins on the topic. Would a guy who can “DIY” be somehow more attractive to a lady? If he was not a pratical person either around the house or with cars/bikes or other machines would that make him somehow less attractive, appealing or...

Well, it's perhaps a tad early for the thread to be up, but it is Happy Hour on the East Coast, so by the time a few of you have a few pre-weekend beverages, you'll be more than ready for the thread! So in a few weeks, my nephew will be coming into town. Since his Mom and Dad (my sister and brother in law) thinks the boy will have no use for fancy book learnin', I am the one responsible to read to him. "But my Uncle did read to me the entire Declaration of Independence when I last...

Americans like the freedom to travel. That trait makes sense. This continent was settled by people who were willing to travel in order to make a better life. One could say that the association between freedom to travel and prosperity is in our genes. The old GM commercial said, "It's not just your car. It's your freedom." Movement has always been a defining part of our culture. Today, we have cars. In the past, we had horses. In either case, the means of travel was personal and represented a private possession. Our heritage and history are not oriented towards mass...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles Thread! Spring is finally springing all across the nation. In my case, the sneezing and itchy eyes are returning from their months-long absence! In some northern states, spring manifests its penchant for sweet-smelling flowers and blossoming greenery by thoughtfully dumping feet of snow on everyone! But one thing spring reminds us of (besides a newfound appreciation for generic claritin!) is that life changes. We've been experiencing plenty of change right here on the forum, if you haven't noticed before. Our programmer and part-time janitor John Robinson has been making some updates and upgrades to the...

This weekend I have on good authority that our resident fearless leader DaveLoneRanger is celebrating his birthday this evening. I think Dave turns 16 or 17, so try and stay off the roads tonight if you live in his neck of the woods. (Just kidding Dave.) "Go, go, go, go Ranger it's ya birthday..." Dave did want me to ask the thread at large his main question and topic of discussion idea for the weekend, "What is the best song you've heard in the past two weeks?" So I'll go ahead and start things off.... I have a subscription to...

Some years ago, I was awakened early one morning by a phone call from a friend. She had just broken up with a boyfriend she still loved and was desperate to justify her decision. “Can you believe it!” she shouted into the phone. “He hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!” We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast. At least since Dante’s Paolo and Francesca fell in...

Welcome to the Weekend Singles' Thread The last thread I hosted was called "The Bucket List" and was based loosely on a movie that I'd never seen. I'm repeating the idea of threads about movies I've never seen again this week. In my defense, this one wasn't my idea. Someone else suggested a discussion of platonic friendships between men and women and the idea from the "Harry met Sally" movie that those friendships can't exist. I'm going to add an idea from a news story this week in part because the story seemed amusing and in part because I wonder...

Maundy Thursday On the night before his death Jesus had a final meal with his friends. This meal was one of the festival meals for Passover. Before the meal Jesus did something which surprised his friends. He washed the feet of every person, a task which was normally done by a servant. By doing this he wanted to show his followers that they should love one another in humble ways. Later in the meal which is known to Christians as 'The Last Supper', Jesus passed round bread and wine. He said the bread was his body broken for them...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Faith 'n begorrah, Seints Presarve oos, and a bushel of other St. Pahtricks Dey cliches, yer sQuad of Singles Thread Hosters and Posters have been remiss (but no less winsome!) in their postin' duties by neglectin' to post a thread for the past weekend. Being the understaffed 'n underpaid lot that we ar, it's sartainly not unexpected. (We'll take volunteers!) The Catholic Church declared that St. Patrick's Day be moved back two days to Saturday the 15th so's not to clash with Holy Week, but moost evaryone what's celebratin' is still celebratin' it today....

So you're single. An active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Age twenty-something, a college graduate with a successful career. Sounds normal, right? After all, many singles don't even consider marriage until their late 20s, according to national studies about marriage and dating. But not in Utah, where the legend is if you're 27, LDS and not married, you're a menace to society. Members of the LDS Church believe marriage is "ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children," according to "The Family: A...

Allow me to be completely frank with all of you: I'm not in the greatest of moods. The problem with that is it gets contagious and then everybody else gets all mad and we have everyone biting each other's heads off--well not in the literal Ozzy Osbourne sense, but maybe the more figurative sense. The other day I'm cruising the blogosphere when I ran acrossed one Dr. Melissa Clouthier's entry entitled "How To Get A Woman". Dr. (?) Clouthier goes through six points on how the single (like myself) can make ourselves more, "available". 1. Dig women. Simple enough. But...

Politics and the street fight between Hillary and Barack Obama aren't the only games in town. A bachelor acquaintance of mine, a prosperous man in his 40s, was new in town and wanted to meet the love of his life, to marry, and become a father and citizen (and voter). So, I organized a small cocktail party and invited several attractive women in their late 30s who are still looking for Mr. Right (and might be willing to settle for Mr. Good Enough). They're women with professional careers but want marriage and family, too. They feel a mild panic that...

Love for the Unlovely       By Fern Horst "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7-8) Have you ever experienced a penetrating insight descending upon your soul via the utterance of one simple sentence from an unexpected source in an unexpected moment? I had one such moment last week when I was spending a few days with my sister and her children. My youngest...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! I don't know what your weather has been doing, but mine has been two ice storms in the past two weeks. I got up this morning for my only Friday morning class, and when I arrived, found it had been canceled. I made may way to a doctor's appointment today where they put me to sleep and stuck a tube down my gullet. (Anybody here ever had major surgery?) One of the new traditions in my house is to hold a "snow party." We put up these giant window decorations that make it look...

Few things are as in desperate need of repair as the singles scene, whose gatherings I address on a regular basis as I did last week on Valentine's Day. What you see is the typical scenario of the attractive women getting all the attention, the successful men drooling over them, and the "ordinary" people left to pick up the crumbs. Then there is the degrading spectacle of watching grown men and women walking around hoping to be noticed, or speaking to a member of the opposite sex while scanning distractedly to see if there is anyone "better" to connect with....

This weekend I thought we could consider what sort of image we have of ourselves and how does that impact our single status. Do we think if only I was younger, prettier, more handsome, could loose a few pounds, get a more positive attitude, be more relaxed, not be so particular about things etc etc I would have a partner. Or do you feel that it is not anything to do with you just that you have not met the right person yet? Sometimes a poor self image can affect ones ability to attract someone of the opposite sex and...

Most of the country is "in the bleak midwinter" right now, and National Singles Awareness Day (IE, Valentines Day) is just around the corner. Therefore, as Grand Exalted Souped-up Vizier of Free Republic Singles (I want that on my tombstone), I decree the first annual Free Republic Virtual Tropical Getaway, to be held hereafter as close to Valentines Day as possible. While the rest of the world is eating their crummy little hearts with quaint lovey-dovey expressions, we'll be breaking out the tiki torches, leis and sandles. There's no baggage hassle, no airline traffic, no passport debacles, no strip-searches,...

This Tuesday is Shrove Tuesday otherwise known as Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday and if you come from Britain Pancake Day. Though all of these names are completely different celebrations and events they also signal one thing the next day is the start of lent. Many years ago in countries considered as Christian countries this meant 40 days of fasting and praying so the day before was the time to eat up all the rich fatty foods before this time of obstaying. Pancakes are ideal foods to be consumed on Shrove Tuesday as they contain fat and eggs which were forbidden...

IMAM E-DATE FROM HELL By JANON FISHER January 27, 2008 -- A Wall Street stockbroker fears for her life after she rebuffed a Brooklyn imam she met on a Muslim dating Web site. In an explosive $50 million lawsuit that blows the lid off the wacky world of Muslim dating in New York, Cherine Allaithy alleges the religious leader promised he would make her one of four future wives and boasted of a cousin in al Qaeda. When she dumped him, he trashed her reputation in the Arab press. The imam, Tarek Youssoff Hassan Saleh, 42, says Allaithy is a...

No thanks to a tumultuous and goofy college football season, I am now back on the singles thread. DaveLoneRanger the grand poo-bah of singledom as kindly asked me to spin a yarn or two to get things going so I'll start things off... Tonight is our next comic, few in all the way from southwestern Idaho, it's GOP_Raider! (applause)... Thank you...just flew in from Hagerman and boy are my arms tired. (cymbal crash!) Hey, you're a lovely audience! So today back in 1905, somebody in South Africa found the worlds largest diamond. Soon to be worn at the Grammy Awards...

This weekend lets have a bit of culture and see what were import events that occurred on the 12th and 13th January in American history. The 12th January is the anniversary of the birth of John Hancock in 1737 For further information on John Hancock and links to other web sites click hereScroll down to John Hancock

As we start the New Year what plans do you have for the year and what is already sorted for the New Year. I am not talking about resolutions we covered that one last week I am talking more about things that you are planning not so much things you may wish to resolve to do but things you will or can do. In Britain many of my friends have already booked their summer holiday (vacation) some because they or their partners have set holiday at work or have to give their employers dates now. Others have booked their vacation...

Welcome to the Last Singles Thread of 2007! As we approach the witching hour of December 31st at 11:59 PM (in fact any time the subject of New Years comes up!) the question of "New Years Resolutions" takes center-stage. Naturally, in the spirit of creativity and ingenuity, your host for the evening has thought of no better topic to address for this weekend's thread. There are several obvious popular resolutions made, and various different surveys show people are putting them in different orders. Invariably, "lose weight", "exercising", "quit smoking," "quit drinking" are in the top ten. Getting out of...

There's a funny thing happening in the world of dating. Young men were once the hunters. Pimply faced youth were forced through the ordeal of putting themselves on the line and risking rejection. But now dating isn't just about the young. People of all ages are still out there, searching for a mate. And when they pass the carefree years of the 20s, the dating world is suddenly a very different place. When women hit their 30s, they encounter a "flip", which shifts the balance of power in the dating game irrevocably in the man's favour, blogger Sam Di Britto...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! It's hard to believe we've come this close to Christmas already. And there's fewer than three weeks left in 2007! Is it me, or does time go faster the older you get? There's barely been enough time to enjoy this season, and now Christmas Day is almost here. When I was little, December took forever to drag through! So this is just your basic run-of-the-mill Christmas extravaganza. We continue to exchange jokes, memories, stories, songs and whatever else we can. How will you be spending your Christmas this year? As a single, will you...

How prepared are you for Christmas? A lot of singles I know and who live on their own do not really do much for Christmas in the way of decorations or buying any special food etc for Christmas. A lot of them get an invite for the day to spend either with friends or family members and therefore their sole preparation is buying a few gifts for the people likely to be at this event and maybe contributing either monetarily to the host/hostess or taking a few food/drink items on the day. So as a single you think you are...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Last week it was movies, this week it's music. We had a thread about music some time ago, but only to discuss everyday music. At Christmas, it's different. At Christmas, the music is not only essential, but unless you have ear plugs or have extreme hermit tendancies, it's also unavoidable! I think music, like at any other time of the year, adds an extra element of Christmas magic to the mix. So, as we draw closer to Christmas Day itself (less than three weeks away now!), here's the thread for sharing your Christmas music...

Welcome to the Singles Thread!We're now officially in the Christmas season, which, as the song says, is "when the world falls in love." So we'll do our best to have fun, maybe pass around the egg nog, mulled cider or a nice cappuccino (digitally, of course) and share memories or expectations of past, present and future seasons. Tonight, tell us, what is your favorite Christmas movie or show? Recently, I sat down with my family and we watched the rapid-fire chaotic "Shrek the Halls" half-hour special on TV (which boiled down to about 23 minutes after commercial breaks, many...

Welcome to the Singles Thanksgiving Thread! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Whether you're spending your Thanksgiving holiday alone or with friends/family, this is your chill thread while waiting for the turkey to cook, or to escape pesky relatives and find some peace and quiet. (Socializing is fun, but sometimes you just want some quiet for a few minutes.) Come Friday, you can share all of your Black Friday deals, experiences, and opinions on whether or not you'd ever actually DO something as hazardous as "doorbusting." What will you be eating this Thanksgiving? Do you eat/prefer turkey, ham or both? What kinds of...

There was a thread recently on FR about Hillary suggesting we all know someone with a similar personality or character. How true do you think this is ? If you know someone like Hillary where and how did you meet them? Are they created or born like it? What do you believe their motives are money, fame or jus a personality flaw? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know that you know a "Hillary!". Don't deny it! 11-15-07 | Looking4Truth Posted on 11/16/2007 3:02:33 AM EST by Looking4Truth I was standing at the kitchen sink eating the tacos I had just prepared and had...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Good evening, everyone! It's hard to believe it, but Thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks away, and after that, we're only six weeks out from Christmas! 2008 is just around the bend, and 2007 will soon become obsolete. For many of us, the holidays are a time to visit family or friends...when the very air you breathe seems laden with Yuletide cheer. But with the love and joy we observe in others, for those of us who are single, there is no doubt that there is a slightly bitter edge of loneliness tainting that...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! A couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion thread about "Chivalry, Gallantry and Manhood" -- the proper and/or perceived roles of men, and what a woman wants to see in a man who is pursuing her. We promised we'd have a matching thread about the role of women, so here it is! This thread may have a slightly higher risk of political undertones, because the role of women has been and remains an issue of political significance, but it still certainly has relevance for singles. In crafting the title for this thread, I...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Several weeks ago, we mentioned the idea of interviewing individual members, in the interest of getting to know one another a little better. Freeper DCBryan1 gave me a holler and said he’d volunteer to be a guinea pig. Since he’ll be deploying before long (he can’t say where, else he’d have to kill you) but judging from his profile, he’s already very accomplished and has had some very interesting life experiences. (Either that, or a pathological liar with access to our country’s intercontinental ballistic missile system, in which case I’m moving to New Zealand.)...

Welcome to the Singles Thread! Good evening. This weekend's proposed topic of discussion is chivalry, or, using the title I didn't have room for, "the proper behavior of men, and how they should treat women."Random House (Unabridged) defines chivalry as "the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms." The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "The qualities idealized by knighthood, such as bravery, courtesy, honor, and gallantry toward women." The word comes from Old French chevalerie which meant "horsemanship," coming originally from the word caballus which we get words like...

This time of year as summer ends and before the shorter days, rain and cold weather settles in and thoughts go towards Christmas and the New Year and perhaps the favourite time of the year for many spring there is one last celebration of summer the Harvest and if you are religious the Harvest Festival. The worship of God in the form of giving thanks that yet another Harvest has been safely gathered in and that there is enough produce to last through the long winter. Of course today this is more symbolic than anything else with more imported and...

New Mexico's birth rate in 2005 exceeded the national average, despite a long-term decline in the state's birth rate for teen mothers, according to a new health department report. The New Mexico Department of Health's 2005 New Mexico Selected Health Statistics Annual Report says: # New Mexico residents gave birth to 28,822 babies in 2005. The state's 2005 birth rate of 14.6 percent slightly exceeded the U.S. rate of 14 in 2004, the latest year available. # Single mothers accounted for half the state's births in 2005. # The birth rate of New Mexicans ages 15 to 19 decreased 22.8...

Howdy fellow single FReepers--and even those that aren't. DaveLoneRanger decided it would be a great time to go on vacation, so I'm coming over from the College Football thread to get things started this weekend. snugs has a few questions in mind, but I can't seem to find them, so I'd like to commemorate the 15th Annual GOP_Raider Allergy Attack and Festival! Yes, I have allergies, and I've been getting them at the exact same time every year since I was about 11 years old. Allergic reactions are the biggest mystery to me because I have no idea what I'm...

Culture affects us all, our thoughts, tastes, what we do, how we do it. Also what means one thing in one area may mean something completely different elsewhere even within the same country. Even when we eat and what we eat is affected by the area or country we come from and what we had, did and were exposed to as children. Our tastes may change as we get older and we incorporate other things into our diet but for most of us what we liked and when we eat is formed early in life as are many other things...

Looking for a date for Friday night? Want someone to read thepoliticker.com with and talk to about Eliot Spitzer's fiscal policy late into the night? Like-minded city singles are looking to tonight's Barack Obama fund-raiser as more than just a politically charged soiree: It'll be a raging pickup scene. The rally from 5-8 p.m. in Washington Square Park, promises to draw a young, intelligent crowd. And what better time to hook up than a beautiful fall evening while waving a banner for democracy? "You are likely to have similar political views, and those often cross into other things that aren't...