Trying to find our soul-mate. It's dating thread 108

[PrizeyPrize]

1. The first rule about the dating thread is you don't talk about it with people you're dating.
2. Develop a thick skin.
3. Do not invest emotionally too soon.
4. It's all BS until it actually happens.
5. Trust your gut instinct.
6. People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
7. You are the prize-they should be trying to impress you.
8. If it's not fun, stop.
9. Loo update is mandatory.

10. No dating the thread. 11. Read Why Men Love Bitches (aka WMLB), and take from it what you will. 12. Don't serve up moose burgers on the first date (although this is still in debate right now) 13. Matthew Hussey also very useful. And very easy on the eye even if you don't find him any good. 14. IF THEY SAY THEY DON'T WANT A RELATIONSHIP, THEY DON'T WANT A RELATIONSHIP

I am off out with the bloke from last Friday, tomorrow night !

Even if there's nothing there as such, he is a really nice person, as far as I can tell.
I am willing to see if anything happens.

I think I have posted this before but it was probably a while ago so I'll post again.
I read that the trick to online dating profile photos is something like the following:

Pic1 - Best picture you can find (this is the sell yourself shot)
Pic2 - Good picture of you with friends (shows you are social)
Pic3 - Good picture of you doing what you enjoy (proves hobbies are real)
Pic4 - Good picture of you doing something else you enjoy or of something you love (again proving you are a real person not just a photo)
Pic5 - Everyday picture of you (they need to know what reality looks like)

One of the biggest complaints from men is that their dates don't look anything like the photos which is why the last picture is so important. You have already hooked and reeled them all with the other photos so the last is just setting expectations to a reasonable level and won't hurt at all.

In my oppinion Dieu as far as the 'favourited' man goes, if that is all the interaction you had before and had not messaged I think that is perfectly acceptable. I don't think striking up a conversation with you to tell you that you do not look like your profile and is therefor not interested would be acceptable.
If however you had started chatting online as a result of 'favouriting' each other then the ghosting and blanking is completely unacceptable!

As far as all your pictures being of you looking "glam" are concerned, as per my previous post you need to add a little reality into the mix so you don't place yourself on too higher pedestal to begin with.

Looby I gave a friend briefed who I will text where I am going and then when I am back, she is discrete and knows where I am at.
Photos I ended up with one at a theme park with DD ( almost certainly I don't look my best), one taken for work doing my job ( very professional, but every day) and one as glamed up as I ever get going to a daytime do. I don't have many photos of me. I did include my DD in one photo, because I wanted to make clear I am a Mum.

Nominating myself for Knob of the Day award.
Messaged my Highly Unsuitable (via post! snail-mail!!) yesterday. So now I get to be anxious for a few days.... He'll probably ignore :(
Great.....

However, there were a few new fish in the net last night so might investigate those later.

I don't know if everyone does this or not, but I find that hiding my profile for a week or so, and then unhiding it again is a good tactic in terms of keeping sane and reasonably relaxed about the whole thing. Also its good to see different faces pop up after 10 days instead of the usual selection of un-dateables....
I only have one pic up. Me lying on the grass at a music festival.

ReCycledParent

Thanks for the photo tips ... problem is, I don't have an everyday picture of myself really ... I'll try and find one that is half recent. I'd hate for someone to think i'm mis-selling myself, photos are so deceptive though. I once went out on a date with what I thought was a very hot/fit guy. I arrived, he told me he'd put on 3 stone since the photos ... so it's not just us women who seem to be incapable of putting the real us out there he turned out to be a twat so the 3 stone became irrelevant anyway

Argh you've all moved on to the next thread! Can't even find the old one now to catch up

Update: MrWoodsman took me wild camping for our 5th date on Friday. It was magical. Plonked me down with a bottle of wine, put up a little tent near a gorgeous waterfall in a small valley, foraged for wild food and cooked for me

It was an amazing date. Lots of snogging and talking. Back at his the next day we had our first portion of mooseburgers (difficult to do this in a tent!) Which was great. I'm feeling weird though because although he's been a bit quiet since, I am totally fine with this as SO not looking for The One. If we can have nice burgers every so often I will be content. Naughty me. Not had a fwb before but would be v happy if this is what develops.

mrwelshboy Well...there's another matter. He.Floats.My.Boat. Incredibly clever and mentally challenging, really made my brain fizz. But terribly damaged and a bit dangerous- date on Sat when I was supposed to be staying over ended with me on the sofa waiting to sober up so I could drive home. Which I did at 3.30am. After a disastrous attempt at 1st time burgers. I'm gutted as this really is the end of it for me but he ticked so so many boxes. Would have been a perfect friend with potentially amazing benefits if he could have just learned a bit more about what we're both into. Oh well. He'll be in my brain for a long time that's for sure.

Have a new iron though, lets call him mrvw. We have been chatting online on and off for weeks and only just spoke in person- he makes me laugh masses but he is FIT and I'm not sure whether my 6.5/10 is a match to his 9
Hoping to meet up next week for caffeine.

Happy dating all x

Sick - unless I'm confusing myself over the dates, you appear to have been serving mooseburgers up to two different men on the same day (Saturday)

Is that allowed? Is it wise?

Do you recommend it?

Oops yes that's right scarlet naughty me:)

I hadn't been able to decide between them and it just happened that dates were on concurrent nights. Choice made now- although Mrvw is looking v promising I must admit. I did say I'm not looking for The One didn't I

Sick - indeed you did. Keep your options open, I say!

I was pondering your observation that it's "difficult to do this in a tent!" I suppose it was a very small tent. I mean, it isn't difficult to do it in a tent as such, is it? I've done it in the garden in a tent. I've done it in the garden NOT in a tent ... but I digress. (And was younger then.)

Sick that sounds great ( the tent date)
Defo good to keep options open.
In 4 weeks there is only one guy on the site who I'm genuinely into - he's ten years older, seem to have lived a bit, seems like loads in common but yet to meet up
We've exchanged about 150 messages (longgggggggg) & talked about meeting up but nothing in the diary... Everyone else who messages me just appears to be DULL or VILE.
Dieu can I copy & paste your 'no thanks' message?

I need to meet up with the only guy don't i? Let's call him Owl-man.

Tex, please do feel free to copy and paste my message. As I said, I haven't had a bad response yet!
What the holy hell are mooseburgers?!

Dieu - mooseburgers = sex.

The idea, as I understand it, is that men like to go out and catch the moose for you, therefore it's not a good idea for you to invite them back and just feed them mooseburgers too soon without them having made any effort.

Or something like that.

Moose burgers!?!? I thought I knew everything about sex slang. I was mistaken.

I was just about to ask if the burgers were what I thought

Nothing new with me, there's just no-one I fancy from their pics. I guess I need to get out & actually meet some IRL. I'd be worried how to tell them if I didn't fancy them, after all thats what 1date did to me & it wasn't a nice feeling

My photos are all reasonably normal and not glam. Because I don't look like that

I've never heard I don't look like my pics but I suffer from a hormonal problem and get bad acne flares which really stresses me out when dating. Not sure how much of a deal breaker acne is. I therefore wear heavy foundation sometimes but I try not to overdo the other make up. I have quite bad scarring

mr Shy is back and asked me on date 3. Midweek cinema. I think I might go

This is my first time posting on this thread although I've been old on and off for a few years, I've just recently joined okcupid again.

I'd arranged a date with a guy tonight, we swapped numbers and a few whatsapp messages, he seemed nice and I was looking forward to going rather than already being convinced the date wasn't going to be for me.

I messaged him at 4pm to confirm the time and at 6.45pm he replied asking if we could do tomorrow instead. I asked why and his response was "I played football last night and my whole body is aching"

My initial instinct was to tell him where to go and I'm not going to go out with him after such a SHiT excuse but I wanted to get some opinions. Would you reply and if so saying what??

I'm late 30's and never really been in a serious relationship. I am sick and tired of OLD and never meet guys in RL.

I'm fucked arent i?

RooDaisy

Don't write him off. Maybe he thinks he would have been a shit date had he seen you when he was tired? So hes actually trying to be nice? Give him a chance I say?

QueenLizIII

You aren't. It will happen. OLD really sucks at times though. Which sites are you using?

We'll agree to disagree on that Recycled. I thought it was rude of him. And I do look like my photos … on a good day! Thanks very much though for the pointers on photos. It's definitely a good idea to put on a variety, as you outlined. I found that really useful, so thank you
Putting up glam photos has definitely had its disadvantages. The men are very focused on my looks as a result, and I'm not comfortable with this. Better to attract a smaller, but less shallow crowd. It also means less pressure for me, if and when we do meet up, so that's a bonus too.
I'm very new to this, and still learning.
I think what I'll do is to have a break from the whole thing for a while. I'm getting scunnered with it anyway (I can see why Match rope you in with a minimum 6 month subscription!) … then I'll go back on in a week or so with some tweaked photos.
Has anyone else done this, and is it the norm to go off and on occasionally?
Bit annoying when it's a paid site I suppose, but definitely better for my emotional and mental wellbeing I think!
Thanks all - brilliant thread, and helping me keep my sanity!

The other thing is that having an obsessive personality such as mine, and OLD, don't really go hand in hand! It is depressing to a degree, but also strangely addictive.
I wish I could get back the excited, optimistic feeling I had when I first joined!
You can't hurry love … corny but true! Wish I wasn't so damned impatient

Pipppopin** I just wanted to say your geeky guy sounds very much like my son who has Aspergers - that's the sort of thing he might do with the door without realising he had done anything wrong but in so many other ways he's a lovely lovely boy. I could be way off the mark but maybe give him a chance? If it is that they're trainable!!

loobylou
I'm more cynical than you I think
Do you not think he should have let me know earlier? I just think it's poor to have left it to the last minute, I'd decided I wasn't going by 6pm but the fact he didn't offer an excuse until I asked makes me suspicious....