The Vagaries of Dating The Vagaries of Dating

what yes of course god

imo bringing someone into yr circle of friends is a really nice way of saying "hey I like and trust you here's my mates btw lets all hang".

But thats just me.

Meanwhile I have decided I will only date people I've gotten to know over reasonable periods of time IRL. Screw this online dating lark. RIP the OKCupid thread; ljub's about to get w/ The One, I'm retiring from active service and Lorax will just have to lump it

You are quitting OKC because of the 'Bam' factor? or other reasons too?

xposts oooh really?! I am liking this advice!

The reason I was worried about asking was sending an 'I want this to be a thing' signal too early. But I guess it's not really too early.

It isn't. I'm not quitting, just scaling my profile right back and making it clear I don't want to meet people from there. But the 'BAM' factor I've actually quoted in my profile, such was your glorious instance of pealing OTM

i wouldn't meet anyone from an internet dating site that would have me as a member etc

I hate hate hate the "so you are awesome but it's not making an audible click is it?" conversation. even if it leaves everyone with plenty of opportunities to save face it makes me feel worse than having someone break things off with me.

I used to, too, so I either kept on seeing the person or - far, far more commonly - passively cut things off by not being available for future dates or by ignoring calls. These were terrible things to do because I know they were offensive and hurtful to the other person (I've been on the receiving end of this sort behavior since then) and because I felt terrible about myself for doing it.

I thought back, and a couple times a guy has told me, "I didn't feel a romantic connection (or chemistry, or whatever)" and in those instances, I was like, OK, cool. Then I put two and two together and realized that I, too could take this route!

Of the guys I've said this to, a couple are still friends, and one is a fuck-buddy. Only one got weird about it, saying "You seemed like a jerk anyway." The others responded that they agreed.

It just feels like doing the right and mature thing to be straightforward like this and others seem to appreciate it. It's like I learned a new magic trick!

This this this! I really can't stand cut 'n run types. The sudden stopping of calls, emails, the lack of enthusiasm when you do see them. I've had male friends outright admit "I just stopped talking to her and hoped she'd get the hint".

THAT IS JUST UNACCEPTABLY, HORRIBLY CUNTISH. MAN UP YOU LOT.

imo it's definitely the right thing to do, and I do it, and as you say results are typically positive. I just hate it and want your form letter ;-)

This is going to sound disgustingly earnest, but if you want a template for the good "no chemistry" letter, just write from the heart. Say what you mean.

Blurgh. While I really feel like the "form letter" is something I actually understand right now and I want to talk about it b/c it's part of a huge, uh, breakthrough(?) for me, I am about to be maudlin and gross. My boss' dog died today - this dog came in every single day and I've known her for 3 years and walked her and dog-sat her very often. I'm unable to sleep, despite I had 2 Tecates. :(

On a positive note, I went to the Thr3adl3ss retail store today and talked to a really cute guy who totally gives me the eye when I go in there, and I got his number. I'm proud of myself, and also amused/appalled at how fucking shy, silly, and goofy I get sometimes.

thanks for the advice guys...I guess the thing is I feel like I could fuck up any potentially good relationship before it starts, and when someone 100 per cent likes me and I know I'm in control I end it at that point because I find it boring. After a while it starts to feel like your "type" is people who aren't attracted to you.

Then you think maybe that means you actually don't want a relationship.

And yeah i'm sort of unsure of which person I would be in one. I live a strange life in that I feel like at work I am one of the most enthusiastic and positive people in a really positive environment. At home sort of the opposite.

What I find weird is when you start to question whether your personality is one that is conducive to relationships. Like for all I know how I behave or who I am could be the problem, despite the fact I feel confident and feel like I can get to know people well...I guess just have to keep ploughing on regardless!

After a while it starts to feel like your "type" is people who aren't attracted to you.

Totally. (Though for a while this was actually true - when I was after straight men....)

Hmm.

Dating, post-divorce. With kids. (I mean, when you have kids. Not that the kids would come on dates. Though that could be kind of funny. "Oh, hi, I brought the boys. Hope you don't mind. Would you hold this diaper bag for a minute?") I've actually already had a very nice dating experience, after my ex and I separated but before the divorce was final. It was a sort of happenstance thing, someone I kept running into and then we started going out some, and it was good in all kinds of ways. Apart from her being generally awesome, it was nice to have that first post-trauma experience. The "rebound," I guess. After a few months it reached a sort of natural end, it was hardly the time to be starting up a real relationship. And in that case, kids weren't an issue, because she had them, too.

But so now I'm sort of thinking about it more, I don't know, actively. Pondering the online options -- I have friends who have done that and some good and some bad experiences, I actually created some profiles on some of the sites but then turned them off immediately because, I don't know, it weirded me out a little to have myself out there like that. It's not like there's anyone I know who I want to ask out. One thing I'm thinking is I need to hang out at some different places than I usually do if I want to meet people other than all the same people I always see. But I'm wondering how much of an issue the whole divorced-dad-with-small-children thing will be. I guess it would just depend on the person. It's not like there's anything I can do about it, that's my life, so anyone who I got involved with would have to be okay with it. I'm definitely not looking for a replacement-mom or anything. My kids have a great mother, they don't need another one. I think I'd be very cautious about even introducing anyone to the kids until things seemed somewhat serious, or at least potentially serious. I don't want to be the divorced dad who has different people tromping in out of the kids' lives all the time.

And hell, I don't even know what I want at this point in my life, relationship-wise. I like company, somebody to do things with and be close to. But, I mean, I've been married (twice), had kids, I don't feel any particular pressure to, like, get married or to have any particular kind of relationship. I don't necessarily need someone to come home to, I live on my own pretty well. But, you know, if I met someone who wanted to have kids of their own, and do the whole nuclear-family deal, I mean, it's not anathema to me either. Part of the confusion is just my age. If I consider my dating pool to be, I don't know, people 6 or 7 years in either direction of me, that range runs from mid-30s to late 40s. (i.e., the never-married-want-children age to the twice-divorced-with-kids-in-college age).

Ah well. If my past experience is any indication, I'll spend a while trying to find someone to date, but whoever I end up with next will be someone I just sort of encounter by accident.

"Ah well. If my past experience is any indication, I'll spend a while trying to find someone to date, but whoever I end up with next will be someone I just sort of encounter by accident."

I feel exactly this way - I tried to date quite a bit this year, and it really went nowhere. I feel like I had my heart smashed to smithereens over and over again as well, because I got really invested in the idea of putting myself out there, getting my hopes up with each girl I went out with. I had this weird moment two days ago where I ran into two girls I had crushes on a few months back and I barely felt anything for them anymore. I think this is because I'm just so tired of feeling heartbroken that I don't want to risk going back to that feeling.

Well, yeah. There is the whole risk-of-heartbreak thing. I was saying to a friend not long ago that at this point in my life -- after two divorces, which were each 9-year relationships, and some other shorter relationships -- a new relationship starts to feel a bit like getting a new pet. You know you're going to love having it, and you know it's going to die at some point. I mean, I don't completely rule out the possibility of a "lifelong relationship" of some kind, but it's sure getting harder to expect it. And it's not what I would go into anything planning on, because my experience doesn't make it seem very likely.

Still, I prefer time I spend with people I care about to time I spend wishing I was with people I care about. So, I guess ... bring on the dating. (It's going to depress me when I revive this thread in six months to say I haven't had a promising date the whole time...)

Best of luck tipsy. If my current relationship takes a dive (looking more and more possible, though not inevitable yet, and I hope it doesn't) then many of my hopes for the future depend on men in circumstances like yours not throwing in the towel!

I'm just so tired of feeling heartbroken that I don't want to risk going back to that feeling.

It sounds to me like you definitely need to go back to that feeling, but not by way of a new relationship so much as just going back to the memories of your previous relationship and feeling again what it was like when it happened.

By this I don't mean replaying things to figure out "what went wrong" (although some of this figuring out may happen spontaneously). I mean just steeping your heart in the sadness of it, like a teabag being dipped around in boiling water. Cry about it. Bring the heartbreak right into your heart and soul and let it live there.

Strange to say, this is a very healing thing to do when you allow it to happen. The difficulty is that nobody, but nobody, ever relishes the idea of feeling pain, so facing squarely up to it and letting it in is damned hard to do. If you decide to try this, remember to seek out people you love and trust and spend time with them while you are going through this.

Eventually you'll notice the pain becomes a piece of you that you accept - something you've absorbed into your emotional sinews. At that point you should be able to face new relationships with confidence, born from the innate knowledge that it is something entirely new and different from your old heartbreak. It will entirely kill the fear. Really.

Thanks, this is good advice.

xxp, thx ljubljana. and nah there'll be no towel-throwing. i like gurls too much.

Yeah don't throw in the towel. Remember there is another subset of women in that exact age range who think "don't have kids, don't want kids, kinda relieved if man has already had their kids so no pressure on me, phew."

... and those who are happy to fully participate in the lives of their partners' kids.

I think part of what's weird to me about the idea of "dating" at the moment is just the sense of not having anyone particular in mind. Going out looking with no distinct aim. Thinking about my sequence of relationships (including the marriage that just ended), I realize that it's been 11 years since I wasn't either in a relationship with someone or at least had somebody in mind as a possible partner. As each relationship ended, there was always sort of somebody else there who I was interested in or who was interested in me. Right now, I know nobody who seems like a possibility, not even anyone who I'm daydreaming about. It's an unfamiliar feeling. (There were two women I sort of had in mind whose paths I had crossed in recent months, so I did discreet Facebook checking on both of them -- one is married, the other is gay. Ha.)

A friend of mine last night was giving me a big pitch on the virtues of online dating -- he's a veteran of it, and he's had lots of dates, some of them good ones. But I don't know. I did fill out an OKCupid profile, before immediately disabling it, and one depressing thing they sent me as a result was a map of the country showing the areas where I was likely to find the most or least compatible people. Not surprisingly, the "most" areas are all big cities, mostly coastal. The Southeast, where I actually live, is the "least." I'm afraid the online dating sites would mostly reflect that: lots of Republican Christian football fans.

...and that period 11 years ago was only about 8 months long, after my first divorce -- and that divorce ended a relationship that started when I was 18. So basically, that's 8 months out of the last 23 years that I haven't been either involved with someone or "pursuing" (or whatever the right word is) someone in particular. No wonder this feels so strange.

Try thinking of dating as another outlet for general socialbility and companionship. It might work. (Full disclosure: I'm just guessing here.)

Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much how I've always met people, just by going out and hanging out with friends, etc. Even the idea of, like, going into some bar with the explicit intent of finding someone is pretty alien to me. When I'm single, I'm always much more aware of who's around, whether they're attached (getting back into the habit of automatically checking ring fingers), all of that. But it's hard for me too get psyched up and say, "OK, I'm going out tonight and I'm going to get someone's phone number," or whatever. So, who knows.

that's probably for the best, honestly - i'm kinda in the same position - feeling some vague pressure to date and "meet someone," but at the same time thinking, "You know what? I don't really need to do this right now. I've got plenty of other things I want to do."

As you get older, whole years go by in that 'transitional' mood.

I am older!

But sarahel otm, a big part of me does not want to spend a lot of time every day worrying about trying to meet somebody. There are plenty of things to enjoy about single life (even single-life-with-kids, because half the time I get the pleasure of their company, and half the time I can do pretty much whatever I want).

It's just, of course, those lonely nights that nag...

yeah - the last two nights, the weather was crappy and i didn't feel like going out, and it reminded me of the good parts of having an s.o.

So OK finally I was just like the hell with it and put up a matchcom profile a few days ago. And now I'm having drinx with what appears to be a totally cute red-head doctoral student on Wednesday. My first Internet date. I feel so modern.

*cheers*

Would just like to update to note that while doctoral student mentioned above did not develop into anything more than a Facebook friend, a subsequent dating episode with other girl has turned into actual awesome new girlfriend. (Though she did not come from Internet dating service. Rather through convoluted series of connections.) So, this is nice.

http://moccsocks.myshopify.com/ - these are bitching for summer sneakers. No more having to go sockless to not look ridiculous.

Jwi

Bizarre, I went to this thread to moan and saw those last posts of mine. I have no idea where they came from, sorry.

Hmmmm perhaps a message from your future self? Or have been on the Doctor Who thread too long?

I like those socks. But I didn't know that ankle socks were so shameful that "getting caught wearing" them was almost as bad as stinking up your shoes by going sockless.

so yeah tonight i will be hanging out with a real live woman who is not my soon to be ex-wife for the first time in 15 years. Im anxious as all hell and have spilled an entire italian sub all over my shirt. So i smell of onions and vinegar...HOT TO TROT.

Maybe she'll be a salad lover.

not so good

Or she'll be well into it, who knows?

cozen up above on this thread, in 2003, asking 'am i a rockist of the heart?' = one of the funniest things i've read on ILX

So... in a massive break with my tradition uselessness, I actually asked someone out. She said yes, and the signs are good, but had to rain check our original date and, what with the festive season, I feel like I've really lost momentum and am not sure how to get things moving...

Asking was a big big step for me though, let alone having her say yes.

*traditional

Any reason not to just jump in and suggest a time and place? You seem to know your town pretty well. Wow her with a great idea. Which I believe you have done before wrt first dates, to great effect.

Hey ljubljana! Thanks for the confidence boosting and wise advice.

I get worried about being overly keen and bothersome, which I know I can often be guilty of and I know is off-putting. But then, also, I feel that sometimes one must seize a moment, before it is lost forever...

You asked her out, then had to postpone, is that right? And she accepted first time? If someone didn't ask me out again after that, I'd think they'd changed their mind! Or did you somehow agree she'd be the one to set the next time/place? If not, she's waiting by the phone, or near it, or thinking about the phone, *right now this minute*

Ha, now I have the opening a reply to a txt fear!

Yeah, that was the story... she gave me her number at that point of postponement and we started exchanging texts.

open it open it, then plan a windblown stormblown evening