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

[Yogagirl17]

Erm...hope nobody minds?

Great link Time

No, won't include the pic - you're right, much better to wait and reveal to the right person

Goodnight hug for snape x

Yes, Watch I thought it was perfect timing too

You are doing the right thing Yoga

I do hope the alcohol hasn't weakened your earlier resolve Snape. but I fear it might have

snape. I really think you need to keep him at arms length for a long while. Of course he would apologise, he was plain out of order, but he knew that already. He wants to warn you off but keep you there for when he needs a second option. I am sorry if that sounds mean. But you deserve to be a first option and if he cant give you that, then move on. Hearts do heal.

Just got a reply from the geek (only took him a day and a half)! "Hectic day blah blah...what do you fancy doing next weekend? I finish work at 5 on sat and not on til 10 on Sunday."

Am I right in thinking he is angling for more than just a trip to the cinema?

He may just be letting you know when he's free yoga but I think you're right

Ok beer goggles have kicked on now but she's very nice thankyouverymuch and in the loo x

bantam you're MN-ing from the loo?! [hshock]

Oh I think I misread, nurse is in the loo and you're MN-ing whilst she's gone! [hgrin]

Yep. End of possibly the most interesting first date I ever had. Involving jazz bands, drunk guys pissing on train tracks, £90 cab fares, suicide attempts, arrests and being put into a finger lock. Ow.

And the nurse is lovely. Currently planning a second date although I've learned not to count chickens etc no matter what people say on the date itself. More tomorrow when I'm not typing into my phone whilst on a train. Haven't had a chance to read the other posts, hope everything is ok snape and yoga ( and anyone else )

Hate Saturdays. Getting up at stupid o'clock while everyone else is tucked up in their nice warm beds. The things we do for our DCs.

Wow, Bantam, sounds, uhh....fun?

Snape, he does not get you, not in what's most important.

He didn't respect you before, and not since your declaration.
He kissed you, sent you that message, now apologises, but still only proposes talking about it next week!

He is draining you for his own benefit, not offering you much. It will feel like scraps of him, not as a friend.

I think you may eventually be able to be friends, but not while you still want him. He will know it and you'll hurt.

If you do reply, I'd just tell him not to worry. That you need space to move on and that you are walking away.

I'd probably leave the notebook, as it was about him and that's an obstacle to your recovery.
Why don't you start a new one, of you moving away?
It could be quite cathartic.

Morning Dog - oh I remember those days! My DCs are older, we are up for swimming, hockey, rugby....

So now the Geek has asked for second date don't know if I can be bothered. Am I becoming a serial first dater?

Woke up, deleted all texts from him. Will meet to talk if he suggests it, but that text has firmly doused the torch of unrequitedness. It has shown a well-hidden side that i didnt know was there. Talking it through could be this week or next or whatever. I've had a lot to think about, and still do have a lot to think about. Quite a lot of that revolves around his emotional fuck-up-i-ness and the empathy I feel with that...that said, it was a lovely friendship - there have been great times and if anything can be salvaged, then I'll give that a shot.

This is far better than not knowing and far better than keeping my mouth shut and mooning around while he fucks up the potential relationship with new girl.

The difficult thing is hurting and not having the person I did rely on to see it through, but all manner of things will be well.

Thank you lovely MN.

Good morning, early birds.

Yoga, do you get to sit in the warm drinking coffee, or are you on the sidelines cheering them on? You'll need to wrap up well this morning!

Hi Lueji and Dog!

Hello, Snape, sweetie. You're being so strong. A friend at work has a card over her desk that reads 'Everything will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end.' I often find myself thinking this.

Morning Snape, you sound ok(ish) this morning xx

Morning Fayster. Swimming is strictly drop & go (usually still in my pjs tho tomorrow is club champs so it will be an entire morning of sweating & cheering). Hockey would have been wrap up warm and cheer but cancelled due to frozen pitches. And rugby is just training so DD and I are currently in McDonald's with hot drinks! Anyone want a roll & sausage??

morning snape-
well done.You know, i think its a bit of a process, im sure you will do lots of thinking over the next few weeks. I think thats why its best to try and have some time before you meet. Even if that means you reply to him and say that.
Then, like you say, you have lots to think about, along with why you identify with someone so emotionally incapable, when actually, you are the total opposite to that.

Interesting how you say he will fuck up his new potential relationship........ that might be the case, but its like you are still hoping he will and he will come back to you.
At the risk of sounding insane, im going to confess this about ywk, i used to think the same, i would find out he was seeing someone, my immediate reaction, bar being distraught, was then to get angry at him for picking someone that wasnt me. And then think it would fuck up, because she wasnt me. and that it was only me he could ever be happy with.

Crazy way to think, but thats how much i loved him. ( and how shit my self esteem was, that i thought that)

I just think, some time out, to think, objectivley, would be really good. Then look at it all again, when emotions arent as high. Doing anything so soon, when there is so much hurt and anger, isnt going to come out with the best resolve.

DD is at her dads this weekend ( and till thur actually, as im away with work next week) i plan on spending it mostly on the sofa, until i go out later. I figure ive earnt it after working so hard this week :)

also - again with ywk ( only because it was such a very similar situation)
it took several bad events to dis attach from him.

it really did. because then i would do ( as you are) the thing when i say it was good mostly, and he was close to me and knew me better than anyone, and without him, i didnt really have anyone to turn to.

each time he did something momumentally shitty, i was incredious at it, couldnt believe he had done it to me AGAIN.

then would forgive him 2 months later.

Its quite hard, to realise someone you know and trusted, that you thought loved you, actually doesnt, and isnt who you thought they were, because you want to see the best in people ( and dont have the self esteem to stop it all)

I just think, its a process, and you will get there, and its going to be a bit of a bumpy ride.

Oh yes watch he'll fuck it up. . Of course the question is whether he can once again, run back into the willing arms of snape when he does that.

Message this morning from lovely friend on fb who was acting with him last night (glad to see he can manage to pull-it-together to act when I've been walking a round in a confused fog these last few days.... ) calling him a great guy and she'd told him to pass on her love, but then thought she'd do it directly.

I think I'll be a bit up and down today, so appreciate the hand-holding...plus I have a hot-cake-date with sponge this afternoon, which will be immense.

And I've just hopped on the scales and I've lost 4lbs on the 'toast of unrequitedness diet' so the positives are lining up nicely.

Taking DD to the gym this afternoon. :)

have a great date with sponge :)

you know, its all as unhealthy for him as it is for you. while i place the blame firmly at his door, for he has behaved terribly. It might be that he found it just as hard to stop the whole thing, because it met so many of his needs.

You had a connection, it wasnt a healthy one, but needs were being met. ( because yours were too, you just wanted more)

and it all got in a tangle, where there wasnt and probably isnt going to be a winner.

I would think it impossible for you to be friends, as that is always going to be how you connect to each other. Quite possibly neither of you meaning to be hurtful, but a toxic and unhealthy relationship/ friendship for you both to be in.

Oh...and I don't think any possible future relationships that voldemort enters into will fuck-up because it's not me - although I doubt anyone else would actually put up with him for any appreciable period of time...his relationships will fuck-up because of him because there is a nasty, insensitive, uncaring side that may or may not be related to his inability to connect with people on a general level, that panics when people declare that they have romantic feelings towards him, because of his chronically low self esteem and then pushes them away.

My martyr-complex refuses to be pushed away because the nasty thing aside, I do still see some good in him...but I recognise that he would make a lousy lousy partner - that there are issues that I could never hope to attempt to fix - people have to fix themselves with the support of their friends. (Is also talking about herself here) and I recognise that I have a disproportionate emotional investment with him, that needs reined in and challenged by myself if there is a possibility of working things through and being friends.

So, yeah. It's a process.

yeah - it is. its because of the reason that you see good in him, when hes treating you like shit, that he just carries on. because he gets away with it and isnt held accountable.

he will fuck up anything, because people will not put up with that shit, and yes, you need to look at why you are willing too ( because he isnt going to change who he is)

He would be a crap partner, because of who he is. and how he is. and you are right, people cant fix other people, you cant make someone better by loving them, even when they treat you craply.

I think, and i hope yoiu dont take offence, but youi need to think about why you would want to be friends with someone who has treated you so badly too. Who has actually shown no disregard for your feelings, and makes no appology for that. Do you really want a friend who treats you that way?

It is a tough process but you're doing great. Even with XH who I no longer loved or wanted back, disconnecting was (and still is a bit) a hellish process. But it's a hell of a lot easier now than it was 6 months ago. Thinking about what you're going through has also helped me put some of the Mr60 stuff in perspective. All the talk about hoping he will fuck up a relationship with someone else, want me back, etc...I'm sitting here thinking, Fuck, I'm still doing that. And he was nowhere near as big a part of my life as PM (ironically, Mr60s initials actually are PM!) or ywk. I've realised that a lot of my feelings for him were based on fantasy, projections of how life with him could have been if we had developed our relationship. Some of it was real - he gave me hope that there are some decent men out there who will get me and love me and support me and a few great orgasms. But I need to take that hope and move forward cause the rest of it was just made up.

Dog - I've also had 2 exceptions so far to my "serial first dating". One was a brief FWB/Fling type thing shortly after XH & I split and one was the aforementioned Mr60. But have ditched quite a few after the first date for no good reason other than nothing went "zing" as soon as we met. Can't decide if that's cold & ruthless and I'll miss out on someone lovely or if it's just practical - and good self esteem maybe cause I don't want to settle?

Morning Snape Wow you are really in the transition zone now! Just at the start though so it's still not fully clear what a disappointing specimen he is so I predict many more lightbulb moments for you.

The measure of anyone is how they act when they are required to come out of their comfort zone and do something that involves taking someone else's feelings into consideration, such as when someone who has previously regarded them as a friend, declares deeper feelings for them.

Said person is not declaring their feelings to a total stranger like some crazy stalker, but to a person with whom they have shared many close times and emotional situations, and pretty much bared their soul.

And said person, having seen that their friend has been "there" for them and provided support in trying situations, may have given the impression of a depth of affection and a degree of warmth which further enhanced their feelings.

But, here's the thing. I don't get much warmth off PM at all. I get the impression that it's ok for him to be there when it suits him and make himself feel all manly and strong and fuzzy, but he's quite capable of letting you down when he can't be arsed and fobbing you off with an apology afterwards. And you can't complain except to us of course, because you are 'just friends'

It's THIS attitude that pisses me off. He interacts with you when it suits him
He is magnanimous when it suits him.
He bloody loves having that power over you, so much so that when it looked like he wasn't gonna be able to pull your strings for a bit, he defriended you to get a reaction. And when he got one, he smugly and callously handed you a crumb of acknowledgement with a side order of derision.

That's not friendship, when he makes you feel emotionally unsafe. It's certainly not fucking frienship when the one time he was required to be a REAL friend, he fucked off and left you floundering in the murk.

He held your fragile heart in his hands and what did he do? Yelped as if it were a burning coal and lobbed it back at you with wounding force.

A real friend would have sat you down, looked in your eyes and faced up to the massive honour you were bestowing on him. Without the fucking crocodile tears.
Without the drama (you of course were entitled to bawl your eyes out).

I dunno Snape, I think you are not unlike me. I suspect you would like to see this thing through and keep seeing him until you feel absolutely nothing for him at all, not even lust. And whilst we all wish you could just turn your back on him, I suspect that, as someone who also knows how it feels to be powerless, you are going to quite enjoy taking that power back.

Hope you have an absolutely brillant day x