To ask at what point you went exclusive with your partner?

[breadbin123]

Just that really

Sparklingbrook I kind of get that: I am not emotionally very suited to multiple dating.

But OD attracts a lot of game players and people who want to keep their options open. Having other possibilities on the go is quite an effective way to stop yourself fixating on someone who may not be worth it. Makes it easier to move on if someone turns out to a time-wasting dick,

I’m not saying it’s a great idea to be sleeping with lots of people: I couldn’t deal with it. But psychologically it’s helpful having other “irons in the fire”.

We've never discussed.

@thepeopleversuswork

Sparklingbrook I kind of get that: I am not emotionally very suited to multiple dating.

But OD attracts a lot of game players and people who want to keep their options open. Having other possibilities on the go is quite an effective way to stop yourself fixating on someone who may not be worth it. Makes it easier to move on if someone turns out to a time-wasting dick,

I’m not saying it’s a great idea to be sleeping with lots of people: I couldn’t deal with it. But psychologically it’s helpful having other “irons in the fire”.

My friend is having a dabble in OLD and it's all a bit of an eye opener.

Man-'Would you like to meet up'?
Friend-'Yes great, maybe for a drink?'
Man 'And sex'

I assumed, with online dating, that you would chat with someone online for a bit, meet up. If you liked them, you'd meet up again, if you didn't, you'd find someone else online and start over again.

I've never done OLD, but the rare occasion I've been asked out by near strangers I've met IRL (who'd probably have known less about me then you could find out in an OLD profile), I've met with them and, if we agreed on a second date, sort of assumed we weren't seeing other people. Nothing ever came of those dates but they were nice enough people and it would have felt wrong to see someone else at the same time.

6 weeks

From the first date. We knew each other a bit as friends first and knew we were both single, and if there was anyone else on the scene (even casually) for either of us I wouldn’t have gone out with him that first time. We verbally said we were boyfriend and girlfriend a few weeks later after spending the night together for the first time, but that was a formality...we already knew we were exclusive.

I understand it’s different with OLD as you’re essentially setting up a lot of blind dates to see who you click with, but I wouldn’t be happy if I’d arranged a 2nd date with someone who was also seeing someone else. Maybe I just wouldn’t be cut out for it. I’m very glad I met my husband outside of that environment.

Sparkingbrook Yep! That’s a mild example as well.

@thepeopleversuswork

Sparkingbrook Yep! That’s a mild example as well.

I suppose at least there were no guessing games and beating around the bush with that one, but it was a bit much during a first chat.

Seems a fair mix and a bit of a distinction between online dating and traditional.

I met him online dating and am wondering if I'm perhaps trying to rush things when he isn't ready and is not only speaking with me

Where I’m from it’s kind of agreed that if you say you like each other and date to see where it’s going, you don’t date other people at the same time. That’s from the get go. But I’ve never done OLD and I’m not a millennial I know things are different these days.

Online dating and talked for a long time online before the first date. I did not talk to anyone else online or try to see anyone else after the first conversation as I am very much the all in or all out type (he felt the same though I did not know he had no further conversations with other people once he talked to me). Unfortunately we did have to just chat for a long time as I was out if the country to visit family for 2 months etc. We both independently decided to not pursue any other people until we could have the date and then made it officially exclusive after the second date

@VanCleefArpels

“Going exclusive”was not a thing a quarter century ago. You went out with someone and if it went well you went out again until either party put an end to it and then you moved on the next person (or not!). The availability of Tinder etc has made people far more likely to keep their options open for something “better” thus not allowing themselves to bec”exclusive” with someone. This is not a good development in my view.

Agree, and no expectation that you’d be available to spend hours a day between dates texting leading to in depth analysis and agonising over time to respond.

We never had this conversation. It personally never crossed my mind because I simply never dated more than 1 person at a time.
So I guess ours was done before the registrar then😂

3 years friends + 1 year fwb + 5 years friends again + 1 year fwb again + 1 year non-exclusive dating = 11 years before we went exclusive. Been exclusive for last 9. Married for 2.5 years. We took things very slowly.

@AdventureCode

For those saying from the first date, how did that work? Did you know each other long before hand?

Day 1. Yes I knew DH as a teen, but just friends, didn't see him for more than a decade, ran into him at a party and we both fell head over heels for each other within an hour (someone took a picture of us after an hour and it shows us as clear as day totally obsessed looking at each other with stars in our eyes). We never had the exclusive chat or anything, we fell in love, wanted to be together as much as possible and that was that. I wouldn't have been interested in anyone else anyway and he feels the same.

Those saying that it is different with OLD, are probably right to a point. But I think this is more to do with age and personality etc. I met my husband online and although he had one date a week before meeting me, he only ever chatted to one person at a time (ie me). I was the second person he met online and we were exclusive from the very start. I had just signed up online when I met him and as soon as we got along well online I stopped chatting to other men, so was technically exclusive from before our first date. We are both very traditional although only in our 20s when we met and it just never occurred to us to behave any differently. I know other people who approached things differently and makes no difference to me, but I do think our personalities shaped our dating behaviour in a way

@LionessRoar it was very much the same for me and my fiancé

First date.

Not being exclusive is relatively new. As others have said, you didn’t date two people.

First date.

We met in the traditional way but we didn’t discuss exclusivity I just think we have similar values and attitudes. I suppose OLD has changed the way people date; other dating possibilities are more visible iyswim. I guess it’s difficult to broach the subject early doors but would probably want someone to treat me the way I would treat them. Shared values are important but I’m not sure how easy it is to gauge that; I guess you just have to appreciate that until you discuss it someone else might have a different attitude to you.

how did you know you wanted to exclusively date from date 1?

Because I wanted a second date. If I did not want to see them again I wouldn't. And if we went on 3 or 10 dates and then ended the relationship I would be open to dating others from that point on. But it's completely wrong to be dating 2 people at once! Just delay the date with the second one til you make up your mind about the first

Surely stringing people along whilst hoping for someone better to come along is pretty well guaranteed to doom the relationship?

Unless you are not looking for something serious which probably lots of people on tinder etc aren't

I did have a friend who used to have several dates per evening, each for half an hour, to save time. She never found anyone decent though

@SnackSizeRaisin

how did you know you wanted to exclusively date from date 1?

Because I wanted a second date. If I did not want to see them again I wouldn't. And if we went on 3 or 10 dates and then ended the relationship I would be open to dating others from that point on. But it's completely wrong to be dating 2 people at once! Just delay the date with the second one til you make up your mind about the first

That's very much my thinking.

It wouldn;t occur to me to date more than one person.
You may go on a first , second or third date and it may or may not work out, but I would wait to see whether the relationship was over before starting to date someone else.
Dating more than one person at a time is like hedging your bets, and how does it leave space for the development of intimacy or romance?
Not unusual to have kissing or intimate touching, hugging, or more even after a couple of dates- how does that work if you are dating two men at the same time? Are you kissing/hugging/physical with both on different days of the week?
No judgement- consensual contact is always OK in my book, just trying to figure out how it works.

I'm not an expert on online dating as I only did it for a month

But for example, when I met my current partner I was talking to him and another guy at the same time.

Because of the way it works you might have 2 (or more) people contact you and start talking to you on the same day.

And lots of people are flaky and chat to you all evening... and then just disappear the next day.

So in my case I had 2 potential dates who I was talking to. But I hadn't met up with either of them yet.

I was hoping that the first guy (now current partner) would ask to meet up but he was taking it slowly.

And the second guy seemed keener and a good match too.

In the end guy 2 flaked on me 3 times (with genuine and then non genuine excuses) and i was very glad I had not stopped talking to guy1, and in the end I asked him out for a coffee.

It would have been a real shame to "miss out" on him for a guy i hadn't even met yet, and who, as it turned out, after a week of intense texting every day, decided I was "too good" for him.

OTOH if I HAD met up with guy 2, I probably WOULD have stopped chatting to guy 1.

But I'm not sure if that would have been a good idea because even if I met him once I couldn't know if he was potentially relationship material or not.

And the only reason I would be with him us because our schedules meant we met first.

I feel there is a bit of a judgy tone about multiple online dating, but I think mostly it is the lack of context which makes it hard to decide whether the person is genuine or not, they could literally be anyone.

@Sparklingbrook you said the exclusivity talk must be cringeworthy.

Not ime. We slept together, on our 3rd date, and then at some point one of us said something about other people and what we were looking for and I said I didn't want to share and that was it. He'd already deleted his online profile by then anyway

I’m late 30s and seem to come from a time /area/friendship group (!) where you only date one person at a time. I thought multiple dating was a more US thing, and perhaps a more recent thing brought about through the wonders of online dating.

Me and DH knew each other for a long time. We were exclusive from the minute we started to “like” each other. As I said, one person at a time...