To think OLD gets a bad rap on here?

[2023a]

I loved it. It was my primary way of dating in my late 20’s and early 30’s. I met lots of lovely men, had lots of fun dates, two short relationships (both circa one year) with men I’m still amicable with and eventually met DH. Now very happily married. My friends have had similar experiences - pretty much everyone I know met their spouse online.

I read lots of horror stories on here and they just aren’t reflective of my experience. And, logically, it must work for lots of people, or nobody would do it.

So, I thought I’d ask - anyone else a really massive fan of OLD?

I met my husband online so am all for it

Kissed a LOT of frogs (and some frogettes) but throughly enjoyed the experience

I quite often read threads and think the opposite. Like, ‘he said XYZ and you still didn’t block him? You STILL went out with him? How is that even possible?!’

I suppose there’s a huge range - from people with (seemingly) no filters at all to people who appear to filter out everyone.

I agree OP. I think WTF - you still continued to date him/marry and have dc on a regular basis! 🤦‍♀️

YANBU, OP.
The most annoying is when people who've never had an online date in their life, come on here and give their opinion. And say that they're so glad OLD wasn't around when they met their husband 20 years ago. Helpful, thanks

Or when people say you should meet people naturally, through a hobby or whatever. If only it were that simple!

The vast majority of Mumsnetters are great. But there are some who struggle socially - and with men - so chances are OLD was never going to be a success story for them.

My friend has one horror story after next with her. OLD

Different things suit different people.

I dislike OLD because it feels superficial and judgemental to me. I like to meet someone and see how they treat other people before I date them. So much on OLD is dishonest and unnatural.

I did OLD in my early and mid-fifties, and it was fine! A couple of bad experiences but mostly nice men. Had a 2 year relationship then met the current Mr Bats.

I used the free apps, and most of them have the swipey thing like Tinder, and I look young for my age, so the majority of men I met/dated were my age or a bit younger.

I never did like the fact that the first time you meet someone you're already on a date. I think it usually made one or other person a bit over-invested from the off. But then I probably wasn't doing it right.

I disagree. My times have been awful. I signed back up after Christmas. I've had a couple of chats that went no where - I'll happily delete. Two guys who cancelled meeting at the 11th hour. One date, nice guy, but I didn't take it any further (my only positive experience) Met another guy, got on great, both agreed to date number 2 and then on the same day as meeting and sorting a 2nd date, ghosts me.

There is nothing fun in the whole process. It's a necessary evil if you want to meet someone.

You seem the lucky one. I'm just going on what I've been told by the few people I've known who have spoken about online dating.

I met my DFiance online so my overall experience was positive.

My experience was that there are lots of men on OLD sites who want a pen pal, a virtual girlfriend almost. They want someone to message them good morning and good night and ask about their day but they don't actually want to go to the bother of meeting and having a relationship. I wasted a lot of time taking to one man, and I looked him up and he definitely lived alone etc. who clearly had no intention of meeting me, between work, friends and hobbies he was too busy or he was too damaged from previous relationships, I never did work out which. I came across several men who'd been treated badly by a woman and just didn't have the resilience to take a chance.

My rule became, no talking beyond two weeks without a face to face meeting over a coffee.

This is a REALLY good point. In RL you get to see people interacting with others first which is hugely different.
Everyone I know (except me 😀) who is in a recent relationship or marriage met online so it is the new norm. I was just lucky and met someone incidentally through a hobby but people comment that that it just extremely rare now because it is all about timing and being both s ingle/available at the same time as a person you arecompatible with which is much more Kiley in your 20s than 40s/50s

The key is not getting invested before you meet, the longer you chat the more invested you'll become because you start to feel like you know them. An early meeting is key in my experience.

Also, I didn't (once I learned) get into any sex talk before meeting, men who want a virtual relationship will also want virtual sex, so it weeds a few out.

@MrsMontyD i agree lots of guys happy to chat but not met up. Also lots that ghost as OLD creates a sweetie shop mentality. I had a rule of chatting for a few days, swap numbers and have a meet up arranged within a week.

My DP was the exception. We met a year ago whilst I had to isolate as had Covid. He then went on a 2 week holiday. We swapped numbers and turns out we swapped numbers 2 years previously and he ghosted me!

his only explanation was he was a few months out of a relationship and wasn't invested into dating, thought he was. He forgot to reply back and my message got left at the bottom of the pile. Said it was t right time for him.

I was invested into the messages by then. Proceeded with caution, and glad I did. We met the evening he came back and he said he didn’t want to be flaky again. and I had no expectations. But he is amazing. Although it’s become a joke that he ghosted me. He has made it up since.

I have mixed feelings on this. I met my XH online 16 years ago. Things were very different then! Unfortunately we messaged for a long time before meeting, so I had an idea of who he was that in time turned out to be false 😕
I joined again in May (split from XH in the January). In retrospect, I wasn’t ready. I chased guys who weren’t really interested. Reckon I had a couple of catfish. Had 7 dates in row that either disappeared off the app or cancelled at the 11th hour! Several who want to Snapchat only (probably in relationships!).
First date was a disaster. He stayed less than an hour before saying he wanted to go home and do something “productive with his day” 🙄😮 but at least he turned up! Had a few dates after that…goes like: date 1, boring bloke who left after 50 minutes, date 2, seemed nice on the date but got pervy by text when we got home, date 3, seemed lovely (had a second date!) but still lived with his ex while they were selling the house and he wasn’t ready to date, date 4 - lovely guy but his voice was like Timmy Mallet’s and I couldn’t get past that! Date 5 made it to a second then said he wasn’t feeling it..big fab of Trip Advisor and he posted about a weekend away “as a couple” two days after he said he didn’t want to see me any more..so I guess he didn’t pick me 😂 Date 6, finally a winner! Lovely guy and we’ve been dating for 3 months 🥰 so yeah, some right dodgy ones. Tinder was the worst for me..but if I hadn’t done OLD the only people I could have dated would have been my BIL’s friend (who is lovely but I don’t fancy) or my old colleague who confessed undying love at the local pub one night..but of a surprise given that he’s married! I reminded him of this fact and told him it was a hard no!
It was worth it to find a lovely fella but I did kiss a few frogs first!

The difficulty was over-investment on either side resulting solely from the 'date', not from the messaging. It can come about due to strong sexual attraction, or from a lot of projection regarding their personality. I feel that meeting IRL gives you a chance to suss each other out for compatibility. But I recognise that RL doesn't always offer the opportunity.

It’s easy when starting online dating to get flattered and invested by the attention. You soon get wise to not over investing. My trick was to talk to a few guys at one time and arrange dates with them.

once I met and naturally stopped talking to other guys I knew I wanted to invest in said guy.

I do have to confess. After the first date with my DP I stopped swiping and then deleted my profiles very quickly. I knew there was something special. He did the same, but we didn’t discuss it until 6 weeks later.

My experience is the opposite. We chatted for a few weeks and talked on the phone.
We're married now.
It's obviously different for everyone

Before I met my DH I tried OLD. Sadly, my experience is very different to many. I met a man who sounded lovely, we spoke for ages and then went on one date. During the date he was quite different, showed some red flags and I just wasn’t attracted to him so called it quits.

what followed afterwards turned into a horrific nightmare. I had never told him where I lived, just a rough area which was a huge area. I had a fairly distinctive car and he searched the area until he found the car. What followed was months and months of stalking. He found everyone I was involved with, family and friends, found where I worked and would turn up wherever I was. It became a very dangerous situation very quickly. I had to have the police involved but nothing seemed to stop him.

I moved into a shared house l, I was the only female, which helped as the guys were really protective. I also changed jobs. In the end though I lived from one end of the country to the other and thankfully never heard from him again.

I recently found some of the letters in the loft as I was advised to keep them as evidence. There were pages and pages of ramblings. He would send me letters on A4 paper consisting of many pages with just insane ramblings trying to convince me we were meant to be together. Bloody terrifying.

Definitely meet soon.

I did this recently, met someone for 2 dates, first one was good and so was the second one, but I didn’t feel we were that compatible on the second date. Maybe he felt it too as no third date was forthcoming.

It’s very easy to get invested in someone new from both sides though and see things through rose tinted glasses.

Do you think viewing and treating it as a necessary evil might be the reason you’re not having fun, though?

A few chats that go nowhere aren’t a big deal. And people you haven’t met (and someone you’ve met once) deciding to stop speaking to you is hardly earth shattering. The term ‘ghosting’ always seems a bit melodramatic - you don’t know these guys!

Nothing you’ve just listed is particularly harrowing. But, you seem to be treating it as such. Which sounds utterly miserable, I agree. As opposed to talking to a bunch of people you enjoy talking to, going on dates that should be a good time (leave if they aren’t) and hopefully clicking with someone.

Lots of posters on this thread have had a similar experience. Perhaps we’ve all been lucky, but perhaps there’s lots of us - we’re just not as vocal about it as the people having an awful time. ‘I met DH on Hinge and he’s great’ isn’t really an interesting conversational topic, I suppose. 😊

You met up with six people and one of them is now your DP - that seems like pretty good going to me!

That’s awful! I’m so so sorry you went through all that!

I married the (last) person I met on OLD and have been happily married for 16 years.

That said, I did have to ignore a few weirdoes and was just about to give up on it when I met them.