Very upset with online dating (v. long)

[Clarentine]

Hello everyone.

Feeling really down today, online dating has not been working for me at all and today it's all got a bit too much for me, feeling really upset and depressed with it all.

I am 27 years old and have never had a proper boyfriend with the exception of one relationship when I was still a teenager, but we never slept together or went on any outings or anything like that, and I can barely remember it tbh, it was a long time ago and I have been single for coming up to ten years now.

I started online dating around this time last year, well it was probably around beginning of November time. Initially I got quite a few messages but it was all people from other countries, men much older than me and so on. I did reply to some messages but the conversation never got very far. Eventually I got talking to one guy at the beginning of December. We messaged and text every single day and finally arranged to meet at the end of January after eight weeks of daily messaging.

I liked him, but I could tell from his behaviour that he didn't like me. The date was very rushed, he didn't offer to pay for me (not a problem, just noted as a possible sign he probably didn't like me) and he left the date very quickly. He never text me to check I got home safely, even though it was dark as it was January (we met for dinner after work) and I had an hour and a half journey home alone on public transport. Not only that, I never heard from him again.

I wasn't like devastated as although I felt a bit disappointed, mainly I was just so pleased I had actually been on a real date after ten years! I blocked him on the website and began again.

After a few months around March/April time I met online what I thought was a great guy. He was very handsome and kind and funny and had a good job. He wanted to meet straight away but after the last fiasco I was feeling a bit shy and said no. We carried on messaging and eventually we met up for dinner and the cinema. He was very romantic on the date and it went really well, he complimented me and I could tell he liked me, he paid for me and the conversation was really natural, afterwards he contacted me straight away and we carried on messaging. We went on another date and that also went really well, it was now May and we had been messaging daily for a few months, he asked me to go away on a trip with him and I said yes and we also decided we would be official boyfriend and girlfriend! I was so happy, obviously and really crazy about this guy. we also agreed to stay at a hotel together on the next date (he paid for the hotel but I also paid some other stuff for him).

Sadly this date was not so well, he seemed kind of 'off' compared to the other dates but claimed this was because he was unwell. He wanted to sleep together but I said no. He knew I'd never been with a guy before. I wanted to wait a little longer until I knew him a bit better, also I wasn't on the pill. He seemed okay with my decision but after the date he went a bit silent and didn't text me as much, less than a week later he sent me an email dumping me, saying it was due to work commitments, I was absolutely gutted and cried a lot, I really thought he liked me as a person and wouldn't be like that.

About eight weeks later he sent me a few texts saying he'd noticed I'd deleted my online profile and hoped it wasn't anything to do with him but I was very strong and didn't reply to his messages and I deleted his number off my phone again (I'd already deleted it when he first dumped me).

Anyway after that I had a few more rubbish dates which I got with a new profile under a different name, I can't describe them here as it would make this message even more long but suffice to say they were terrible and on one of them I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying, I was still not over the guy before and also felt so depressed and unhappy.

Finally around beginning of August I met another guy. This is the guy I'm now upset about. I've never met him yet in real life for various reasons, we had arranged to meet later this month. He seemed really nice and from his photos very attractive, we have been messaging most days since the beginning of August. He wasn't always the best at replying to emails, I once sent him a long message and he said as it was late he would reply to it the next day, he never did and when I nudged him a few days later he said he 'forgot', but he insisted he was still interested in me. I decided not to make a fuss and we carried on messaging and though I never met him I liked him a lot. Two weeks ago I went on holiday and as he said he'd miss chatting to me while I was gone I made sure I sent him a long message before I went and I enjoyed talking to him anyway. While I was on holiday I was pretty busy and didn't get much chance to think of him the first week but the second week while sunbathing etc I did think of him and missed him quite a lot as I was used to hearing from him daily. I was so looking forward to hearing from him when I got back as I had no access to emails while I was away. Well, I got back from holiday yesterday and I was so disappointed that there was no new message from him, I had missed him very much and he had never replied to my last long message! I know it sounds dramatic but I was kind of crushed and sent him a message last night why he didn't reply. He said he didn't know why, hoped I would forgive him, said he was still interested in me and liked chatting to me. I slept on it and this morning I was still so upset over it I emailed him to say I was not willing to put up with my messages being ignored, it's not the first time it has happened, if he really was interested he would reply to me. I told him I didn't want to stay in contact and that I didn't want to meet up any more as we were meant to be meeting for the first time the weekend after next.

I am feeling a bit discouraged, I just want to meet someone genuine who is not just looking for someone to sleep with and who actually enjoys talking to me and doesn't blank my messages. All I ever wanted was to get married and have a family with someone who will be my best friend, and after a very painful year of online dating, that doesn't look likely to happen anytime soon, I'm no closer to having a boyfriend than I was before.

Very, very upset and I don't want to do the online dating any more as it's not fun any more and it's too painful. It looks like I am going to be single forever. :-(

I would give the online dating a rest for a bit, perhaps a few months. It's clearly making you unhappy so is it worth it? Just concentrate on you for a bit, go out with friends and try to enjoy life. It sounds like you had a good holiday, so you know you can do it.

You are investing waaaaaay too much before meeting people.

My advice would be to meet reasonably quickly for a coffee - don't look at it as a 'date' but rather as that first interaction to see if there is a potential to date and things to develop. You're becoming completely hung up on guys that you have no idea if there is any sort of real attraction for or from them to you.

Have a look at the dating thread on here, lots of folk in the same boat who will point you in the right direction, hold your hand if things aren't going so well or cheer you on when they are.

You are 27 - lots of time and opportunity to find someone special

I know it doesn't feel like it but being 27 still gives you lots of time to meet someone

My first thought in reading this is that all the messaging before meeting etc is meaning that you are really quite emotionally invested before you even meet and see if there is a spark

From listening to stories of friends who online date, they seem to speak to various people at the same time and meet very quickly for a coffee to see if there is a spark. Then there's no time invested when one or both might not be interested.

Might be worth trying that?

I can understand why he didn't reply, if you were on holiday and had no access to emails he probably couldn't see the point in writing when you couldn't read it anyway!

I agree that you should probably stop online dating if its making you so depressed and unhappy. 27 isn't old, I was single mostly until I was 40 and met 'the one' just by chance, you have lots of time.

I agree with Sassy that you're getting far too invested before even meeting them. A quick meet - within a week - is essential for me. Anything else I tend to see as someone who's just time-wasting and doesn't really want to meet anyone - this is where you are probably getting ignored because the guys asking you to meet and you saying "no" will be thinking you're not really interested.

You do sound very low about yourself. What is your situation - are you working, do you have a good supportive family and friend circle? Do you have hobbies? Maybe concentrate for a bit on strengthening friendships rather than throwing everything into meeting a man. Online dating can be very brutal if you're not feeling very confident.

Definitely meet up with people within the first couple of weeks, without getting too heavily invested in hours of email, texting, phone calls.

Until you've had a face to face meeting over a quick coffee, you have no idea whether there will be any chemistry, so don't waste time building a virtual 'relationship' that doesn't really exist.

This new guy is someone you haven't met yet? You sound fairly high maintenance if you are rattling off long emails wanting to know why he hasn't contacted you while you are out of the country (and uncontactable).

And in future I wouldn't go and stay in a hotel (in a shared room) with someone I wasn't happy to sleep with. Yes, obviously you ALWAYS have the right to say no to sex. But if a new partner suggested booking a weekend away early in a relationship and I knew I didn't want to have sex, then I'd make sure that was clear up front.

WildRumpyPumpus, I'm sure you mean well, but I find your message very hurtful. Implying I was somehow being a tease with the other guy by going to the hotel with him. It WAS clear up front. He knew I wasn't going to sleep with him before hand, I told him I wasn't ready, he knew there were no expectations, the whole idea behind it was for us to get used to literally sleeping together (not having sex) for the trip we were going to go on later that month, hundreds of miles away.

And as for rattling off long emails when I was going to be out of the country - well firstly he always told me he liked reading my long emails and liked me chatting on, and he already told me he was going to miss me so I found time to write him a message before I went. Plus what about when I came back? I had to be the one to contact him first again? He knew what date I was coming back, he could have dropped me a line. Just saying hi, hope you arrived back safely and had a nice holiday. We already had arrangements to meet for next weekend. How am I supposed to know that's still on if there's nothing but radio silence?

Also it had happened before where my messages had gone unanswered. Is it really 'high maintenance' to expect replies to my messages (not 'instant' replies, mind you, but within say a week or two)? If no one ever replies to my messages how do I know if they like me or if they want to meet? It makes no sense.

Also to the other poster - I'm not always saying no to meeting up with guys online, I did it once, to the second guy because I was feeling particularly nervous at the time he asked, and it obviously didn't put him off because he asked me again later and that time I said yes and we did end up meeting up in the end.

Excellent advice here.

I loathe online dating, I just don't have the right personality type for it - I think you need to develop a rather thick skin and mine tends to be paper thin! - so I just don't do it.

I don't want this to be taken the wrong way so I'm going to say it very carefully and I promise I don't mean any malice or harm. I know that if I had gone on a few dates, had been talking to someone for a while and then went on a weekend trip, then I would be anticipating that there would be some sexual contact - and if there wasn't I would probably think that we weren't right for each other from a sexual standpoint. Ugh, I'm sorry and I'm not in any way saying that you should have sex with someone when you don't want to or aren't ready to, and it is not a judgement on you at all.

LockedBox and WildRumpus you are both terribly misogynistic. I highly doubt he was under the impression he was going to get sex when he already knew I didn't believe in sex or living together before marriage!!!!!!

Obviously on the night in question he was caught up in the moment and asked me if I was sure and he wanted us to sleep together but he accepted it when I said no.

Neither of you know what you're talking about so I suggest you keep your mouths shut.

Gosh that escalated quickly.

I think you might find dating (particularly online dating, where sex is - if not expected - then something which tends to come to the fore quite quickly) tricky if you don't want sex before marriage.

Dear dear OP aren't men nasty shits,
There was that the response you wanted?

Not much to add here but concerned about you saying "I wanted to wait a little longer until I knew him a bit better, also I wasn't on the pill. " Pill or not, you should always use a condom

Don't ask for advice if an honest answer, or a range of views, is going to piss you off.

Either you want to know why OLD isn't working for you or you don't.

If you don't just carry on as you are and let's see if success is just around the corner.

There are experienced posters here who are trying to give you a few pointers about how it works, expectations and any faux pas you might inadvertently trip yourself up with.

They're not posting because they've got too much free time, they're trying to help.

How are your rl relationships?

Because you come across as prickly and high maintenance to me.

Clarentine, I understand that you are upset, but that is not misogynistic. Really, it's not. You have invited comment by posting here, and if people don't know what they are talking about it is because you have not given them some of the relevant information.

Anyway, from reading your OP, I agree that you are getting over-invested in people you don't really know.

When I was doing online dating, I had a slightly different strategy from other posters. I didn't meet people for weeks, but I would always be chatting to a few different people and not getting too attached to any of them, because I assumed they were doing the same and might meet their future wife at any time. I wasn't taking that personally.

TBH, I think you should stop online dating because you don't sound resilient enough to deal with it at the moment.

do you always jump down people's throats when they say something you don't like/agree with? Posters here are giving their opinions on what you posted in your OP - nowhere in which did you mention 'no sex before marriage'.

You presumably came here as you are frustrated at the dating process and posters are trying to give some balanced viewpoints. Listen to them/act on them as you wish, but no need to be so rude.

Hi OP

I can relate to a lot of what you said. IME it sounds pretty typical for OD. My DSis and I both were on it at the same time and regularly had unofficial "shittiest date" competitions. (I won with the man who had a meltdown after seeing his wife's best mate in the bar we were in - obviously he told me he was single! She was once abandoned mid-wine by a guy who got a better offer for that night!)

We BOTH met our now DH's on line (and they have stories of their own! It's not just men who behave badly on OD...)

And there IS a lot of expectation around sex. Your views on sex before marriage are not in the majority, even more so in a bear pit like OD where lots of people are simply looking for a hook-up! So your search might be trickier than most. That's not a reason to give up though!
Have you thought about Christian dating? You don't mention Christianity but I hear COD is a "thing" so that might be a good place to find some who shares your views.

Don't despair. You are SO young! And make sure you keep up with friends and have a great social life without OD, so you don't feel you are missing anything!

bloody hell some harsh posts here on both sides, is that really necessary?

op - it is perfectly ok to enter into a sexual relationship on your terms, and as long as you are up front about that with potential partners how that works out is no-one else's business. But what I would say is that if you're not expecting to enter into a sexual relationship with someone until you are married to them, then sharing a bed with them after just a few weeks gives out very mixed messages, regardless of whether or not you have made the no sex until marriage statement. At 27 you are going to be dating men who are most likely sexually experienced, and for whom sharing a bed will at some point bring an expectation of sex, even if that isn't straight away. You're not obliged to conform to that expectation, but just as a man shouldn't expect to have sex with a woman, so a woman shouldn't be surprised if she shares a bed with a man and he decides that he doesn't want to continue that arrangement indefinitely without the possibility of the relationship moving forward physically, in which case the best outcome for the man is to end the relationship.

The world of online dating is brutal, and I wouldn't go there personally for that reason. The reality is that many men are on OLD websites purely for sex, if you're looking for marriage with no possibility of sex until that happens, then you are unfortunately going to end up with a lot of disappointments in the OLD world.

Unfortunately it's a no-win situation, because if you don't state up front that sex isn't on the cards then you are going to come across men with an agenda iyswim. However if you do state that sex isn't on the cards then you are likely to either be ignored or come across men who will see you as a challenge.

It's a harsh reality, and no-one is really at fault. It's just that OLD isn't for everyone.

I don't think anyone was that harsh until Clarentine decided to chew us a new arsehole.

I don't disagree, but the response from LockedBox was absolutely uncalled for.

The reality is that sexual inexperience brings with it an immense amount of naivety and fear of expectation as well. I was 21 before I lost my virginity, and even then I was conflicted with a mixture of expectation that any man I became involved with would just be happy to not have sex - until marriage if that was what it took, and fear that getting into a relationship with anyone would bring with it an expectation that I should want to have sex, and that at some point I would need to conform to that iyswim.

I was fortunate, I met someone who was prepared to wait, although even then I felt an expectation because he was experienced and I wasn't, so I knew at some point I would either have to sleep with him or risk losing the relationship. And none of that came from pressure iyswim but it's a reality of having a relationship with someone who is already sexually experienced.

Op is now into her late 20's and the truth is that being both a virgin and wanting to wait until marriage ar unusual, although perfectly ok, but if the op is going to put her profile out there in the OLD world then she is going to come up against a lot more expectation than understanding, so she is going to have to find a way to deal with that or potentially walk away from OLD and find other ways to meet the kinds of men who won't have those levels of expectation iyswim.

That's the first time I've ever been called misogynistic - do I get a badge?

I was actually trying to be helpful OP - I suffered through the perils of OLD and will have been married to DH for 9 years in November. So I maybe know a little bit about it.

If you'd mention the no sex before marriage thing in your OP, and that your date was aware of that before taking you to the hotel room, then you might have got different responses on that point.

You say you didn't want to have sex yet but yo wanted to sleep in a bed with him, why?
Then you say you don't believe in sex before marriage? Confused signals there.
You invest way too much too soon and need to chill the fuck out. Your responses to posters on here suggest you are too highly strung and horribly snappy.

Oh and no way would I 'sleep' in a bed with a man before having sex with him. For me, that's more intimate than fucking so maybe don't try that again with someone you barely know?

OP you appear to have 1950s moral + expectations, operating in the world of 2010's and OLD.

Maybe you try offline dating - pubs, work, church??.

OLD can be a bit of meat factory.

The cynic in me also thinks that some men might see your values as a challenge, and be quite titillated by them to be honest. I say SOME men, not all, and that would be a horrible thing to contend with.

TBH, I think you should stop online dating because you don't sound resilient enough to deal with it at the moment.

^agree^

I read your OP thinking, "aww it sounds like OP has had a hard time, OLD is a tricky, maybe a break from it and some time focusing on RL friends and activities would do her the power of good, maybe she's emotionally investing in online relationships a bit prematurely" and then I read your responses to people offering sound advice.

Definitely step away from OLD, (I was originally going to suggest looking at the world of Christian dating, although you don't mention religion, COD seems more geared up towards what you would like from a relationship in terms of no sex before marriage.) and don't ask for help/advice if you're going to be rude to people who offer it.