boys, you need to ditch the car and get yourself a motorcycle, preferably a sportbike (aka crotch rocket), then it's real easy for the girl to be the one picking YOU up for a date :)

no gal likes being out on a date with helmet-hair, and she can't say anything about you not having a car because a motorcycle is a thousand times cooler than a car (though of course it does increase your chance of being maimed, paralyzed, or killed by 100% too)

that said, the girl I loved most was the one that met me on all our dates on her own bike ...

maybe you're just looking at the wrong groups of ladies

helmet hair?what helmet hair?Most of the young ladies I know enjoy being with someone in good physical shape, either that or they wish their beer guzzlin rude fat boy friends would get in shape LOL

I was car-free for about 2 years in grad school. Now I share a car with my girlfriend (on her insistence), but I try to ignore it ;-)

I never really noticed a social stigma. I got a lot of comments on it, and a lot of people thought I was crazy, but I never felt like I was looked down on.
This might be b/c I live in the northeast (Providence RI, at the time), or because I was in grad school and expected to be poor. Or maybe I just never noticed the stigma b/c I'm socially inept and don't really care what other people think of me ;-)

And dating wasn't issue, since I was already with the aforementioned girlfriend when I got rid of my car.

If you read the Honolulu newspaper there seems to be no end of letters-to-the-editor complaining about the new light-rail plans, and how that money could be better spent on highway improvements. On MY island the bus is a complete joke. Hawaii is definitely the most automobile-crazy state I've ever lived in. There are some students and poor people down in the center of town on beater bikes, but I don't see too many others.

If their lifestyle is so "turned off" to cycling, it is quite possible that you don't want to be hooked up to them forever...

I dated several women while not owning a car and finally married one. All it takes is a bit of planning and forethought. You have to arrange to meet or find alternative transportion if and when it is really needed.

Here is an earlier thread that discusses some of the same issues you mention.

So I said 'more social requirement than necessity', and I do believe that most people (75% sounded good), through the use of public transportation and appropriate housing choices, could nix the car. My research has me working in Kenya, and you'd scarcely BELIEVE some of the ways bikes are used there. And they look pretty well maintained too! Almost no one owns a car, people work primarily in agriculture, and a trip to town takes hours of dangerous public transport and/or biking. Really, compared to this, we're absolutely and embarrasingly spoiled.

I have to grant that there are legitimate reasons to own a car. Having a family for example would make biking as primary transport much more difficult, and using public transport much more painful. If our society were restructured a bit though, as must eventually happen when oil prices soar, we are capable of making the shift to a predominately biking country.

That being said, I'm glad to hear some of you have met like-minded people. I just can't fault my partner for not jiving with me 100%. If I required that a sig. other shared my interests completely, I'd be waiting around until the heat death of the universe. And since I've only recently come around to biking and commuting, it'd be a little hypocritical of me to laugh at or shun the people I was so recently among.

-John

i'm going to go out on a limb here. cars are a luxery, not a necessity. they provide a more comfortable existence to their users but in the scheme of things, everything you do by car can be accomplished without one. i'm not trying to invalidate anyone for using a car but i think its true that cars are just a way to make life easier. easier but not healthier for our culture, economy, biosphere, or even our personal health. that being said i got a nice commeht on my calves the other day from a really cute girl as i rode by.

Hehehehehe...my story.

Girl meets boy.
Girl likes boy.
Boy likes girl.
Boy crosses state lines to meet girl. (We met on the internet)
Boy says "Wow you have great legs."
Girl points at bike A and smiles proudly.
Girl says "Wanna go out for dinner?"
Boy says sure.
Girl points at bike B.
~Two months later~
Boy invites girl and both bikes to come live with him.
Girl rents BIG truck and does so.


Now Boy has great legs too :D :D :D




~Epilogue~
Boy now commutes on bike B.
They have riding dates and plan to get a baby carrier for bike A in the not-TOO-distant-future.

Welcome Roadmistress!

one of my job requirements was to have a car. when i did the interview, i knew it that i won't get the job. but i actually got the job. my boss does not mind me cycling. and when the job requires a car (house calls) i just ride my bike! i can get around just as good. my boss is ever impressed with my ride times!

and for telling the oposite sex about i don't have a lisence to drice, i am sure that is a biiig turn off. and makes it even harder to ask one for a date.

"ill pick you up in my long 20foot limo with driver, you just have to pay a nominal fee of a buck fifty"

Who might get the eye of a young woman...A fit cyclist w/o a car or a slob who has a Porsche.?

Look around, in our culture as it is at present, gals for the slob in the Porsche.

Where I live it's not too much of a stigma. I live in a rural area dotted with small towns, I live in one small town and my gf lives in another 13km away. Once her grandma asked why I would bike 13km at night when it was raining. That's a big deal for alot of people. People are generally more shocked at me riding in rain or cold or darkness, though most are impressed by a 40km+ effort. Considering most people my age have a car of equal or lesser value to my bicycle (any piece of **** is legal on the roads here, and my bike ain't bad!) they don't think I'm poor, they just think I'm foolish for choosing to ride a bike.

My gf doesn't have a hell of alot of money, so she doesn't own a car, though her parents own a few cheap ones and she uses them. She doesn't have a problem with me not having a car. We're moving to a big city next year and she knows as well as I do there's not much point having a car there. She knew me when I used a moped to get around was alot fatter, so I'm sure she's ok with the fact I now choose to ride a bike most of the time.

If a member of the opposite sex was to dislike me because of something as trivial as wether I have a car or not, then she's not worth it.

I'm about to commute to work for the first time ever. Oh, I think you guys need to hang out with more punks. In that community, it's driving a car that creates the stigma.

ONE LESS CAR.

Well, I am 39 male American in UK, I am married, sold the car, got the bike...I think that for most women who are intelligent and living with the thought that a guy can be more than the car he drives on the road...I for one know, that most of my peers could not run, ride or swim worth beans....all fancy car drivers, looking 10 years older. My advise, don't change your passions, meet someone who shares your view on life.

Gawd, if I wasn't already married, I'd be falling in love.

yep, women are taught to care about money is what it sums up to....to them money = possible dating material.

Problem is money = more money...that's it....quit reading into it. I've known so many a-holes that had money who treated women like **** that it's sickening. One of them once told me that he usually treated them like that because he himself knew it was about the money...so to him it was justified....I really can't agree with him there, just tell her off if that was the case.

Myself...I don't care...they can think i'm broke all they want...truth is I have as much in my bike as a good used car. My computer has far more than that....basically I spend the money on things that matter to me. Driving isn't one of them...I'm not cheap, actually I'm a bit of a high spender, usually blowing 1/4 of my income on needless stuff every month....such as a top of the line video card, or more parts for my roadie.

However I won't go bragging about it evereywhere I go, since expensive bikes will be stolen if too much attention is brought to them. I also don't say much about how much my bike costs....if a female recognizes it's expensive...it probably means she knows her bikes...and possibly is beyond the car=everything mode of thought.

I consider my cycling to be a filter. I don't hide the fact that I commute everywhere and don't drive, I wear it on my sleave. Sure, most women don't like it, but then again, I don't want to date most women. In the end, if your not dating someone who can accept your livestyle, why bother?

Personally, I find that women who are flexible enough to accept my cycling and see it for what it is are more interesting and intelligent. They are exactly the type that I would want to be dating in the first place.

SecretSatalite, your statement "everything you do by car can be accomplished without one" is blatantly false. This weekend I picked up 3740 lbs of gravel for my backyard patio. I don't care WHAT kind of extracycle, trailer, gullible friends, WHATEVER you have, you are not going to get 3740 lbs of gravel moved 8 miles in any kind of reasonable time frame without an automobile. Even if I paid the gravel place to deliver it, it would still require an automobile, it would just be theirs instead of mine.

If you are trying to make the point that a particular individual does not require an automobile, that is somewhat defensible, but stating that NO ONE needs them is simply false.

Playing devil's advocate here.

I suppose the logical counter to this is that you don't truly need 3740 lbs. of gravel for your patio. You would get by quite nicely with whatever was in your patio before you delivered the gravel. Sure, you want the gravel there, but that is not the same as need.

For the record, I agree with your statement that cars can accomplish things that bicycles cannot.

Well, I need the gravel to HAVE a patio (the gravel is the base layer, the patio stones go on top). It's that or go without a patio, which I don't want to do. But the argument isn't about whether I should have a patio or not, it is whether what I did with my truck could be accomplished without one, and my position is no, it could not.

True, that would be the time I would rent a truck.

Thing is if you use a car only when necessary as opposed to when convenient, more often than not a car will be so impractical cost-wise that renting would be a more suitable option.

[QUOTE=Eggplant Jeff] Even if I paid the gravel place to deliver it, it would still require an automobile, it would just be theirs instead of mine.QUOTE]

So what's wrong with having it delivered? The issue is not that motor vehicles are not necessary to perform some tasks, but that it is possible for many, perhaps most, people to live without one. Someone that chooses a car-free lifestyle would simply have the business vehicle deliver the purchased goods, rather than own a truck so he can bring it home himself.

Sure, that's what I was saying. If you're making the point that AN INDIVIDUAL can live car-free, that is true (several people on here do, in fact). But the statement I was arguing with was that anything that a car can do, can be done without one. And that's only true for a specific person or people, not for the country or world as a whole. Because if neither I nor the gravel store had a truck and there was nowhere to rent one, my gravel would still be sitting at the store.

Oooh, are we playing "unsubstantiated stereotypes"? Because I'd love to make some stereotypical assumptions about the size of your penis based on the way you talk about women.

In other news, can it, jerk. Not all women are taught that and the ones who are, well, who do you think taught them that? Baby girls aren't raised in a vacuum.