For me it is context. A lot of men (particularly people from the East and the South, at least as far as I've noticed) use "lady" as a direct synonym for "woman". I often do so myself: "The lady at the store..." "These two ladies were talking..." and so I don't find it odd or off-putting when other people use the word in a similar manner.
What I find suspect are those guys who turn "lady" into some sort of title or special category of woman. It's hard to describe just what I mean, but I imagine you know it anyway. It's the type of guy who is looking for a "special lady" by which he means some fantastic ideal who will magically have every quality he deems worthy in a woman (subservience to men, a fondess for both cooking AND cleaning the dishes, a libido that perfectly coincides with his and a desire to only have the sort of sex he finds appealing) and none that he doesn't. In short, he's not looking for a real woman, he's looking for a "lady".
Often, he can't spell.
Despite the fact that my OK Cupid profile says in its first paragraph that I'm not really looking to meet people (I add that I'm not opposed to the idea but it's not my purpose in being there) and goes on to say that if you have poor grammar skills then you and I are probably not destined to be friends, I just got an e-mail from someone who--you guessed it!--has poor writing skills. It made me snicker.
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What I find suspect are those guys who turn "lady" into some sort of title or special category of woman. It's hard to describe just what I mean, but I imagine you know it anyway. It's the type of guy who is looking for a "special lady" by which he means some fantastic ideal who will magically have every quality he deems worthy in a woman (subservience to men, a fondess for both cooking AND cleaning the dishes, a libido that perfectly coincides with his and a desire to only have the sort of sex he finds appealing) and none that he doesn't. In short, he's not looking for a real woman, he's looking for a "lady".
Often, he can't spell.
Despite the fact that my OK Cupid profile says in its first paragraph that I'm not really looking to meet people (I add that I'm not opposed to the idea but it's not my purpose in being there) and goes on to say that if you have poor grammar skills then you and I are probably not destined to be friends, I just got an e-mail from someone who--you guessed it!--has poor writing skills. It made me snicker.