One text and I'm ghosted?

Me lol

It could be this man is messaging and meeting other women. Speaking from experience.

Nothing wrong with this but it could be his dating energy is scattered. Are you still chatting with other potential people?

It is early days but the dog walk seemed like low effort.

As I was reading through I thought he would be in touch!

Which leads back to your beginning…

Met a guy on a dating app around two months ago and have been messaging ever since. Had one great date about a month ago but been hard to arrange the second because of illness/holidays. Anyway we had the second on Sunday

You're messaging to presumably have a relationship. Less messaging, more meeting I think. Messaging when you don’t know someone very well can create all sorts of impressions you didn’t mean to create! Meeting twice in two months isn’t great really.

So are you seeing him again?

You really are overthinking this.
I don't believe for one minute that he's thought all of the above about you but let's assume that he has.
Are you a shopping-obsessed bad tempered harridan? No, doesn't sound like it.
If he is the type of person to assume these things about you based on the interactions you describe in your posts, that means he is someone who is overly critical and sees the worst in other people and you really don't want to be with someone like that.

I don't think your text was the problem, I think he's not that into you.

That sounds harsh but honestly wasting energy on figuring out men who aren't putting their energy or attention into you is a complete waste.

Keep yourself open for dates and interesting connections.

Absolutely this. If you liked him and want to see him again, say so. You're hyper-focused on what he might think of you, and don't seem to be giving any thought to what you thought of him on the second date and subsequent text exchanges.

Focusing on how you might be coming across rather than on whether you like the other person is probably the single biggest and most easily corrected issue I see on here, whether it's about dating or making friends.

I wouldn’t say it’s ghosting after meeting twice, and one of those times being a bit boring for you. As much as you are looking for someone you gel with, he is looking for whatever qualities he wants.

He might have brought the dog to see if you like dogs, he might have thought date including dog walk = kills two birds with one stone. Either way, it doesn’t matter as you didn’t like that he brought the dog as it restricted what you did.

And the comment by @smallsilvercloud Going on a dog walk with him isn’t a proper date imo, he’s putting his dog first, when he actually organises a date to concentrate on you for your date! I would consider but I don’t think he sounds that serious anyway, maybe he can prove otherwise perfectly illustrates something - I think two or three hours wandering round a park with someone’s dog and chatting is a good date, no distractions, fresh air, cheap, learn lots of things about each other. Maybe for him that was a perfect date too, maybe for you it was a fail. If (I’m totally guessing here) that’s right, that’s an incompatibility, therefore any more dates are a waste of time. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get dressed up, heels, make up, dinner, a show, whatever, but I’d run a mile from a man who suggested that sort of thing. Incompatibilities are normal, it doesn’t have to be a big fat failure.

Ditch him. What kind of bell end takes a dog to a date?

This is a real stretch, to assume that's what he thinks of you, and a reflection of your low self esteem I think, to assume someone will think this. Your message wasn't grumpy, you're catastrophising! I would gently suggest some counselling, OP, do some work on your self worth so you don't spend the rest of your life worried about what impression you're giving.

This style of dating honestly baffles me. You have presumably exchanged many, many texts yet have only met twice, one of which was short lasting and not particularly interesting?

Why on earth are people dragging things out so much and yet spending so little time actually together? Of course we are all busy blah blah but of you are looking for a relationship it seems that endless texting is a very poor substitute for actually getting to know one another in real life.

Do you want to meet him again? If so and if one of you decides to end this impasse I genuinely suggest that you start meeting properly far more frequently. Maybe it wall go somewhere and maybe not but you’ll know far quicker. And maybe even have some fun.

I’m confused as to why you think your message was tetchy? But, I would have been binning him off before that as he clearly isn’t too interested anyway.

Date multiple men honestly its a game changer

Going on a dog walk with him isn’t a proper date imo, he’s putting his dog first, when he actually organises a date to concentrate on you for your date! I would consider but I don’t think he sounds that serious anyway, maybe he can prove otherwise.

This is going nowhere.
He might be busy, at work, whatever. The date was on Sunday, it's Tuesday. It's not that long.
You are overthinking this and being a bit dramatic saying you've been "ghosted" because he hasn't messaged in a day or so.
The second date doesn't sound that great anyway. There's obviously not that much of a spark or you would have found things to do, dog or no dog, and you'd have made a suggestion (or he would have done) for the afternoon rather than you saying you were going clothes shopping.
If I was out having a great date with someone I had a spark with I would have behaved differently and that's why I think it's a non-starter.

It might be a case of it's someone that theoretically is a good match, would be a great boyfriend etc. but the chemistry just isn't there. So despite the lack of chemistry you feel like you want to keep pursuing it. I had this a couple of years ago with someone. No spark in person or in texts and it all kind of fizzled out pretty quickly because we had nothing to say to each other, even though on paper we were a good match and he's a great guy and he's since met and married someone else and I can see how good they are for each other.

This is an excellent way of looking at things. Dating is about a journey assessing whether you can see something going anywhere, rather than it being a “loss” if you can’t. But if you genuinely do feel compatibility with somebody then remember in future that dating is a two-way exercise: after a lacklustre date you waited for him to say he’d like to see you again whereas you could have said “that was nice, and it was great to meet the distinguished Archibald - unless you’ve anywhere to dash off to now, do you fancy getting a drink if you know of any dog-friendly pubs?” or just “let’s see each other again sooner rather than later, I’ll check my diary when I get home and hopefully we can make it happen without so long a gap this time!” Instead, he got the impression that you hadn’t enjoyed the date, didn’t want to extend it, and didn’t want to suggest another.

When it comes to messaging, it’s really just dependent on how different people view communication. From the samples you’ve given, none of the text chat was particularly scintillating or needed immediate replies. A gap of a few hours is normal, particularly if somebody doesn’t want to get into a protracted game of message badminton. Somebody has to be the one to take a break and then come back later.

Ghosting?! You need to calm the heck down... the date was Sunday and it's only Tuesday??!

This degree of drama is really quite mad.

Well, it would be limiting! And if this is your second date ever, it sounds absolutely zero effort, if you 'walked round in circles'. I like dogs, but no way would I go on a date that was essentially a circular two-hour dog walk with a coffee.

But I think you're being insanely melodramatic with this talk of 'ghosting'. You've met twice, with a a month in between, and the second date was a zero-effort dogwalk that ended in a car park with neither of you mentioning a third date. You'd written him off when he sent a couple of subsequent texts, which you interpreted as signs of ongoing interest, and you then got cross when he didn't reply to a text you sent the next day, despite the fact that you admit you 'weren't getting date' vibes at the end of the dog walk.

If you very much want to see him again, ask him on a third date. If you don't, why are you so cross about him not responding to your text the day after a lacklustre date?

"- I react strongly to long gaps in messages because my ex basically did that to chat to other women and some of that anger probably came through."

I mean this kindly as I've been there myself, but this is not the problem of any new person you are dating. If you are finding it hard to navigate that after having been let down badly in the past then you might benefit from doing some counselling alongside dating because it's understandable that might trigger past hurts but you can't allow yourself to put that on a new partner.

It’s only Tuesday morning! Why on earth do you think you’ve been ghosted?

You take your dog along on dates 😆 🤣 😂 omg, dog nutter level has peaked right here 😆

It's not about whether you got on with the dog, but you would have rathered the dog wasn't there. That's probably not giving him the vibes of how he sees his free time and life playing out.

Too offer we look at dating as a success game. Do we win or lose. Have we won another date etc. rather than a journey to find someone compatible. He doesn't see you as compatible (and I think, if you take out the bruised ego of him not replying, you probably don't think your compatible long term either)