Ok ladies....roll up...my observations on dating after learning the hard way

[MakingItReal]

Right, I have been dating for a few years now and I see the same problems come up over and over again - causing us unknown strife and heartache. I know there are exceptions to every rule - but in my experience and in every case I know the following is absolutely true:

Translating what he says

1. If a man says he is not looking for a relationship
THEN HE IS NOT LOOKING FOR A RELATIONSHIP. He's not going to fall in love with you and change his mind. He enjoys your company and all the free sex he has already decided that you are NOT going to be a long term relationship for him.

2. If a man says he is not looking for a relationship part 2
He is keeping his options open so that he can freely move on to the next person when he finds her and believe me he is still looking regardless of the fact he has told you that you are exclusive.

3. When he says "I don't want to hurt you
This means he is going to hurt you. He realises you like him and are invested and he is aware he is going to hurt you. Someone who wants to be with you would be telling you 'I'm not going to hurt you'. There is only a slight difference between the two phrases but the meaning of each is completely different.

5. You are more than just sex
This means you are just sex.
If he says it to you along with any of phrases 1 & 2 then you are DEFINITELY just sex. He is trying to convince you you mean more to him than just sex so that you stick around hoping for a relationship.

4. I might be ready for a relationship in the future
Yes, he will. But it won't be with you. If he wanted you to be his girlfriend, you already would be.

The Hard, Cold Facts:

If he wants you long term, you will know. Even shy men or men with commitment problems will not want to risk losing the woman they see as special above all others. So you will know.

If you are in a casual relationship or he is reluctant to commit and you want more the only solution is to walk away. If you stay, he will continue using you, and will value you less and less as time goes on. The only possible way for him to change his mind about you is to remove yourself from the equation.

If he has ishoos, it's not sexy, it's not a challenge, it's not a sign that you were destined to save him and win his love. It's a sign he will make a shitty partner, shitty father and shitty person to invest in. There is nothing sexier than a grown assed man with his shit together.

If he sends mixed messages, blows hot and cold, makes you feel unsure about what he wants and you find yourself posting on Mumsnet or Googling to try an figure out what he is thinking...RUN AWAY. It's not meant to be that complicated and a man that truly cares about how you feel is never going to make you wonder where you stand.

Never, ever, ever, ever underestimate the lengths a man will go to for sex. I hate to tarnish all men with that brush because they ain't all like it, but there are a scary proportion of men (younger ones especially) that will do anything to get sex off you. Espeically if it's good sex. They will jump on a plane, pay for expensive dates, stand outside your window singing Barry Manilow. And this ain't love. It's lust -and it means NOTHING except they really, really want to bang you.

Men, especially the younger and unevolved ones all have a strategy they have evolved to catch women. The good looking, charming ones might sweep you off your feet and you can see those coming - watch out for the underdog that wins you over by telling you a sob story about his alcoholic mother and how much he feels a "connection" with you. They're the worst, you never see them coming.

A good relationship makes you feel totally fullfilled. You don't wonder how they feel about you or why they haven't returned a message or why they didn't make plans for the weekend with you yet. They make you a priority and there's no grey area.

If he is up and down, hot and cold and all over you one minute leaving you confused the next then he is a prick. Without question. He's not scared, he's not busy, he's not anything- but a prick. Walk away, because he likes you...as an OPTION.

If he is still on dating sites logging on "just to check" after 12 dates or more...he is looking for someone better.

If he doesn't message or call you much one day but you notice he's been "online" quite a lot while telling you he is busy - then he is talking to someone else, a new prospect or perhaps someone else he has on the backburner.

Women and men are generally different in that we tend to bond more quickly /decide on one person -whereas they like to keep their options open. Never, ever, ever allow yourself to bond to a man before he's made it clear he's decided he wants you and only you.

If he is a bad boyfriend at the very start, he will be a thousand times worse by the time you have been with him a while and the honeymoon period is over.

If he doesn't make time to see you most weekends or ask you to meet his friends and family and be keen to meet yours or plan things to do together in advance or show in practical actions that he sees you as someone he wants to integtate into his life - they forget his words - his actions say it all.

We teach them how to treat us. So teach him that you are worth all the diamonds on earth by having boundaries in place to accept absolutely zero disrespect, selfishness or mind fuck behavior and he will either move on to the next person who is willing to accept his crap (making room for Mr Right to walk into yours) or he will look at you, realise what a strong, self respecting woman you are and realise that he had better step up his game. Either way you are a winner.

You never, ever, ever, ever, ever have anything to lose from walking away from a man who is giving you less than 100%. If he comes after you - you will be able to take back your power and he will know that he has to value and respect you to keep you. If he doesn't come after you - you will find someone better.

I love that as a mantra don't be a dick to the very best of yr ability :)

He told me sob stories about his past and made me belueve that he felt I was the woman to change it all for him and if I was just patint he would make it through.

And all the while we form genuine bonds with them.

It hurts how they can just walk off without looking back.

I think the main problem with this thread is that it's heavily based on 'what he must have thought is. ' 'what he must have felt was' and ' what his intention must have been was' trype statements made by a hurt party ascribing motives filtered through that hurt.
I have stopped or slowed down seeing someone, because I wanted a signal from them that when I stopped pushing they would show interest. They didn't so it went cold, and I was devastated, only to find that all her friends had 'helped' her understand that I didn't really care, or that I was just after sex or that I 'wasn't serious ' without any of them, or her, actually asking me or testing the theory. I met an ex once to whom I said ' did you know I was infatuated by you' and she actually said 'we decided you were just putting that on'. So beware of sharing and reinforcing 'hurt person' advice and confusing it with fact.

There's nothing wrong with having difficult stuff in the past (everyone does to a greater or lesser extent). It's the expecting someone else to change that, or psychologically heal you, that's the warning sign.

He told me sob stories about his past & made me believe that he felt I was the woman to change it all for him too! Almost from the moment t we met...

Lanark - is it not the case that rather than withdraw you could equally have said to her 'Hey, are you into this? I feel like I'm doing all the work here.'

Just as she could have asked when you withdrew 'Hey, what's going on, I thought you were into me?'

Whole thing could have been avoided with a conversation, no?

I'm with Robinson here, it all seems so hard and emotionally fraught and involves hours and hours searching for meaning and validation.

What happened to going down the pub, shagging a bloke and thinking, 'you're a bit of alright, let's see where this goes', and if they turn out to be a dick, telling them to jog on, and if they turn out to be excellent in the sack but not much else going on, keeping it on for a while for shitz and giggles.

And if they turn out to be the Top Trump in you hand - yeeees, winner!

I have to say, WHY are you and so many women even engaging in this BS - if a bloke fed me any of the lines he did in your last post - we wouldn't even be communicating, let alone in a position where he could do that to me.

To stick my toe into this water further (for I feel I may be at risk of a flaming here) the fact people do engage with this bullshit surely FUCKING ENCOURAGES it.

I've been blunter than Robinson as she was here at the beginning and I've tagged along at the end, but I'm disheartened by how many women your post has resonated with, not because it was poorly written, far from it, but because it just seems that there are so many women and so many men caught in this ridiculous charade.

As Robinson said, be uncomfortable with uncertainty, have no expectations, be honest with YOURSELF, if someone tells you something and you don't take it on face value, it's YOU that are being disingenuous, not them.

Never have another date with a man who cries on the second date about his mother - you are not his psychotherapist - you presumably would like to be his lover, it's not your job to heal.

Only spend time with people who are fun and make you feel good, for however long and for whatever reason.

Kindness is important too.

And never engage in bullshit - that means YOU TOO, play it straight - it's the only way.

PS - Women like casual sex and are sometimes more than happy to engage in a relationship on that level.

But rules and games? People are individual and complicated, good and bad in one body usually, and should be valued as such, to distil men down to a common denominator that can be represented by a set of bullet points is reductive in a way that you seek to show them to be.

It's inimical from either side.

The opening post is very black and white. The world is shades of grey.

Being honest with yourself and knowing yourself is hard work, before you can even start trying to be honest with other people.

But trying to date without it is like trying to ice skate on mud.

if someone tells you something and you don't take it on face value, it's YOU that are being disingenuous, not them.

Ok. Someone I was involved with said to me last year, lets enjoy the new year together and the whole year is ripe for enjoyment. I took that at face value. They kept saying this year is going to be great for us, we have so much time. I took that at face value. Contact daily, etc.

The "year" lasted 2 months. As I was dumped as soon as he found a gf he wanted and told me to my face he was using me for sex while he looked for someone he really wanted.

Who was being disingenuous here? Not me!

But, SoThatHappened you did take it at face value. No one's accusing you of being disingenuous here. It turns out he was obnoxious, at best. That's not on you, that's on him.

File and forget. Chalk it up to: some people are dicks. Because they are, and we've all been dicks ourselves at times too.

Yeah I guess Robinson. I've never been a dick in that way though. If I dont want to see someone, I wont engage them. I wont use them until I get someone I want I cant do it.

I still cant forget this guy though. That is the problem. All that great sex really bonded me to him :(. I still miss him.

*The trap for low self esteem people (like me) is that when someone doesnt want to move that mountain you don't go down the logical road.

Logical road - this is a person who does not care about how I feel, therefore I don't want this person anymore.

Illogical road - but he seemed to care about me at first...what have I done wrong? How can I fix it?*

This resonated with me. I have low self esteem and I when I get treated like crap I believe it's my problem. Wish I'd read this a while ago, might've saved me a huge amount of heartache.

Lanark what you just described there was game playing though. Not a nice way to treat people.

Hound This post wasn't written for everyone. Some lucky women have the self esteem and the tools to walk away when they should, but not all of us innately have that.

Some of us have ishoos of our own and can be easily manipulated. Women around the world are hit and abused and find it hard to walk away because there is a psychological factor that you can't fully appreciate unless you have been in it that ties you to these awful relationships.

The man I described in my post, is a suspect, a fully fledged narcissist. Have you ever dealt with a narcissist? It can take a perfectly sane person and reduce them to a shrivelling wreck. They attract you by perfectly playing the role of exactly what you need and making you feel the happiest and most special you've ever felt. Then all of a sudden they ignore you and find you boring. They do things to deliberately make you feel desperate and needy (like going on dating sites or not calling for 4 days) and then blame you for how they deliberately made you feel. They make up lies faster than you can question them and rationalise everything they do to make themselves the victim. You find yourself playing detective. It’s never happened in any other relationship, but suddenly you’re scrolling back years on their Facebook page and albums. And you find yourself further incapacitated to defend yourself.

I am not saying these "rules" I have written are there to protect healthy woman who have good relaitonships; they are there for people like me. Who haven't learned to run a the first sign of bull shit and who end up caught up with a bad boy, a player or someone with a personality disorder.

It simplifies it for people like me who need reminding that good relationships just don't make you feel crazy.

Rumi

when I get treated like crap I believe it's my problem

Me too. I think that is the essence of the women who need to learn these rules and live by them. It protects us.

If someone who has previously treated me well and is saying and doing nice things suddnely changes and treats me like crap, I always believe it is my fault. So I stick with someone bad hoping it will get better.

I always believe the best of others, and the worst of myself.

I think in following my new rules thought, what I am doing is self -defence. So I am saying "no, I won't allow that" and I think the very act of taking that step and of having firm expectations and boundaries is the very thing that grows self-esteem

Because you're treating yourself like you're the most important person and you (not this mind fuck twat) is the prize to be won.

I have successfully used these new rules to sack off someone who had been making me miserable for months with his up and down games.

Sometimes in times of weakness I let these guys back in. In fact I feel so ashamed of the behaviour I've tolerated I can't tell my good friend.

good relationships just don't make you feel crazy

I'm going to remember this ^^

I don't think self-esteem is necessarily innate. Mine certainly isn't.

A list of things I've done related to self-esteem and dating includes but is probably not limited to:

• endless conversations with other people, men and women, about dating, sex and relationships; about boundaries and needs and experiences.
• endless amounts of introspection and writing a diary and thinking really hard about myself
• a not-inconsiderable amount of therapy (not prompted by romantic relationship-related issues, but certainly didn't hurt in that area)
• a huge amount of reading (I even read The Rules just so I'd know first hand how utterly regressive it was)
• getting hurt, hurting other people, having break ups, having catastrophic dates, having my heart broken (spoiler: they heal), loving a lot of people, having sex with a lot of people..

And so on.

Rumi

Me too!!!!

I don't think it's innate either Robinsons but I think a lot of it is grown in childhood -like a solid foundation, and then relationships factor in over the years for sure. I never had bad relationships like this until recent years and I am aware there was a trigger that lowered my self esteem right before it all began.

I love your list and I am working on a few of those myself.

I think the reason we allow people to treat us badly is because we don't realie that we deserve better and truly believe that. I think if you do, you would just not settle for less than what you wanted or felt you should expect but the trouble is that it's a catch 22 and the bad relationships further lower the feeling that we deserve better and therefore it goes on.

And I think I would tentatively suggest that while that dynamic is ongoing and you're aware of it, dating is likely to be much harder work than it needs to be..

definitely!

TheNaze self-declared "nice guys" make me run for the hills - they are the absolute worst & I've never been wrong on that one

OP your list is spot on. If you have to wonder, dissect, agonise, confusedly try to understand a guy, hope he will change, bet on potential, then he is NOT the one. Love isn't meant to be that stressful, painful and hard work. Most of us learn that the hard way

I do think men and women are wired differently, partly an evolutionary thing. If Im with someone I watch their actions and don't apply my brain to wondering how they feel about me or what they're thinking. I take heed and read the signs, wasn't always so but after I made a conscious decision "no more bullshit" everything was fine after that

Sometimes in times of weakness I let these guys back in. In fact I feel so ashamed of the behaviour I've tolerated I can't tell my good friend.

I am so ashamed that I wish my bad guy would come back...I gave him hell for waht he did, now I bitterly regret saying anything to him as he isnt talking to me now. I wish I had said nothing and then we still could have been in touch occasionally and I know how utterly pathetic it makes me sound.

good relationships just don't make you feel crazy

I have never had a good relationship I've realised. Ever.

Yes, thanks to mumsnet for making me see that self-declared nice guys just want to fake niceness and then they feel angry that they put nice coins in and the vending machine didnt put out sex