Hat wars and soup-er dates, let the sausage see the roll... The Online Dating Thread reaches 25!

[Yogagirl17]

Erm...hope nobody minds?

yoga - i wasnt scared, i just didnt want to hurt him. I felt bad for hurting him, but had to do it, because i couldnt sacrifice myself by putting his needs before my own.

and no, i think if your self esteem is good, then no wave of emotion knocks it out. I know waves of emotion have hit me ( in a situation like snapes, that started just before hers did, and we spoke about it lots) I adored this man, i was a sobbing on the floor, unable to breathe wreck. BUT - in hindsite, my crappy self esteem ( which i didnt think was bad at the time) had left me very vunerable, and i took whatever behaviour he threw my way, making excuses, or explainations, or looking for hidden meanings, or whatever lame thing i did. Had my self esteem been good i would have seen it for the pile of shite it was, realised i deserved better than the pile of shite it was, and walked away without a second glance. Instead i wasted 3 years being hung up on someone, hoping they would realise how great i was, hoping it would all work out eventually. If my self esteem had been good i would have walked the first time i was messed about.

bantam, why are you updating here while you are on a date!! You should be charming the lovely lady not keeping all of us home on a friday night updated...
Any more details??

My date this afternoon was lovely, nice looking, easy to talk to and he had dimples. He left saying lets do this again, love to see you again - and have heard nothing since, typical. I sent him the 'thanks for a lovely coffee' text and asked if he got to his next appointment on time humph humph humph

watch - i know you weren't scared with the puppy. But you also weren't in love with him, were you?

I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just not far enough down my own journey yet to see it.

Time/Watch absolutely!!!

I had a relationship years ago, it lasted a year but I discovered he was married 7 months in. I put up with the broken promises as I didn't think I would get anything better. If I was there today, the day I found out his first lie, I would have kicked him to the kerb in a heartbeat.

I didn't have enough ego to see he was harming me, I do now. Maybe partly thanks to him. Now, I would rather be single than to allow a person to treat me that way.

I know the pain though, I think we all do, that's why we only want the best for Snape

oooaooooOoooOoOOoo! bantam.

yoga - no, not he puppy i didnt, buy ywk i did. i worshipped the ground he walked on, as ive just said.

my self esteem was bad, though i didnt realise it at the time, and would have argued differently.

If it had of been good, i wouldnt have taken ANY shit, i would not have made excuses for ANY shit, i would have walked away, even though i adored him and would have done anything he wanted.. because i KNEW i deserved better than what he was giving me.

mrscello - absolutley.

Ok, just as a total distraction, have posted a pic of my actual tattoo.

Squeak! yoga

Exactly that MsC! We know the pain and we are trying to save Snape from the same pain. But maybe you don't learn if you don't actually feel it. When I left my ex the pain was immense, it was a proper pain in my heart that saw me curled up on the sofa day after day, I thought I would never get over him, I thought I was destined to be heartbroken for the rest of my life, even though he had been a vile abusive bastard. Now, 2 years 8 months later and with a healthy self esteem, I cannot believe that I ever became involved with him. I can see now that he didn't become a vile abusive bastard, he always was one, right from day one, I can see that now. I thought I was in a good place when I met him, I thought my esteem was good, but I know now it wasn't, and I know that because now I do have a healthy esteem. And I love it.

I'd like the colour in the leaves to be a brighter TBH - wonder if she can touch it up a bit..?

Yoga! that's lovely

Though totally jealous of your figure

Yoga I really do like that. I may get another tattoo, now I am a working woman

Your waist!!!.

Thank you MsC - it's called the "My husband is fucking another woman diet"!

Now I didn't get the job I feel a bit guilty at having spent the money on it but I sooooo love it!

Don't feel guilty Yoga, just enjoy the tattoo, it's lovely.

Thank you all.

its lovely. your waist!!!!!!!

i think we all just want to fast forward snape 6 months or so, to a place where shes good and feels good about herself.

( not to talk about you like your not here snape)

we just want you to not be in pain and to realise you deserve so so so much more than this. So much more that this could ever be.

I kind of want to be magnanimous and accept him for his annoyances (as in basically not wanting to fuck me) because I really don't meet that many folk in pesky real life who get me on any level (he has since apologised profusely for the devil-text) and although it does hurt, horribly so, I like to think we will talk it through and get somewhere. It clearly won't feel the same, but I can move that on. I can't fault someone for not loving me....

You can't fast forward through this stuff though. Even if you could, you wouldn't to really because this is where the healing & the learning happens.

Can you give yourself a bit of time before you attempt a friendship with him Snape? I just feel you are in a vulnerable situation. Of course he can't be faulted for not loving you, but he can be faulted for behaving as though he might and giving you false hope. He knew how you felt and he behaved irresponsibly with your feelings. Can you be his friend without hurting? You don't have to hate him in order not to be around him, but if you are going to be around him, for your sake you need to have healthy boundaries, unblurred boundaries.

Just wondering if I should include that pic in my OD profile? I can't do the cleavage thing, would this be the next best thing? Or is it the equivalent of the 'man with a fish' or 'man with his shirt off'?

yoga - i think cleavage pics send out one message only, so they are usually best avoided, unless its that sort of date you are after.....

snape - have a look at your posts from a few days ago, where you say how unhealthy it is, how bad it all is, how you know it needs to stop. You are feeling very vunerable/ hurt/ upset right now, but these things still stand. You said them yourself. He cant fix it..... you need to, with a bit of time.

I personally wouldn't include it Yoga, I would leave the big reveal until I met a man who I wanted to see it

This just popped into my inbox www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/theyre-just-not-that-special/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaggageReclaim-TheGuideToSingleLivingDatingRelationshipsAndOfCourseManTaming+%28Baggage+Reclaim+Relationship+Blog%29

snape - while you want to like someone, while you want to be their friend and keep them in your life in some way rather than not know them at all (because you are madly in love with them) you can't see them clearly, because you are blinded by need. You are blinded by the feeling that no-one but him gets you and you must hang on firmly somehow because he is giving you this thing you feel you can get from no-one else. So he 'gets you' in a hard to find way. So what? There will be others - you just haven't met them yet. Just because you are strongly invested in going on knowing him, doesn't make him a nice person and doesn't make it the right thing to do for your overall wellbeing.

But I know that feeling like you can't function without him in your life will skew your perspective terribly. I do sympathise a lot. It does come from low self esteem, and essentially you have to treat yourself like a vulnerable child and protect yourself even though you can't see the sense in it right now. Fake it til you make it. You will thank yourself later. I know it's hard. But he is an arse and no amount of wanting him changes that! Really. You can't wriggle out of the facts. He is an arse and he doesn't want you or he would have had you by now. He just doesn't care enough, and you can't be his friend because you are bloody in love with him.

what a timely thing time :)

and so very true.

This should be handed out at schools to girls, so they dont have to wait half their lifes till they realise this is the truth.