Break Out The Red Flag Bunting, It's Dating Thread 131

[VetOnCall]

Dating thread rules:

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

lovemusic33 thats what I initally thought, why would you turn your phone off?!? How would I know? Its on Whatsapp and I can still see his photo. Is there any other clues?

thanks Smeaton. I guess we will just have to see what happens! Half tempted to try and ring to see if it goes through but would be awkward if it did! Luckily my afternoon client has just turned up, their problems will distract me for a bit and I can lock my phone away.

runs and cover are you just on POF?

My mum recently was on GSM and in the end she decided to go for tinder (she is 67: go mum!!) and she is loving tinder. Hahaha!

I tried POF, hated the platform.

Just had a lunch "date" with a male friend of a friend. On paper he's great, he is quite attractive, good job etc. But he is odd. He's been pestering me for weeks to go for dinner (I know him quite well), I agreed, but only if we went for sushi. He was talking about dinner again, but somewhere far away. Nice guy, just odd.

Mr Italian still being super cute, he told me he was with his friends last night and he told them he had met a very, very, very sexy and beautiful english girl who is a little bit crazy. He is really sweet.

Just 1000's of kms away.

Mr25 is also hitting the spot with messages and he is rather beautiful. I'm free this weekend. Should I????

so i was a little sneaky and got my friend to swipe my iron on tinder last week and she just text me to say they matched ... 🙄

he told me he was still using it, so i cant
be mad. although it still does make me feel a bit shit. he said he was just swiping / chatting for fun and not meeting anyone. lets see if he messages her..

esk1mo its the worst when you know something but still makes you feel awful. Be interesting to see if he does message her.

So my iron replied to my Whatsapp (so I am not blocked) but he said he was sleeping all day. He did work a lot (most of the day and night) yesterday but I am not so sure. I have left my phone on do not disturb for a bit.

Cover your list is great, I feel so much better now

pudding I'm on POF, Match and Tinder. Match is ok, rarely anyone new, so I've either dated, messaged or eliminated all the potentials on there. Just hanging around waiting for new ones to ignore me now.
I get a lot of matches on Tinder and if I don't hear from them within 24hours then I'll message. No one ever replies.

esk1mo I know that horrible sinking feeling when you realise someone you like is still looking online. How many dates have you had?

Minnie if he was sleeping, how did he manage to be on facebook? I'd be a little wary but there's nothing there to be suspicious about yet.

thats exactly what I thought runs ... He never turns his phone off when he stays at mine so the whole thing seems a little off. so I am going to play it carefully for a bit. See how often he does contact me etc.

smeaton you're definitely in the best place for advice!

Personally I like ones that are a bit different. I see so many generic ones "looking for a partner in crime, love to share a bottle wine, fine dining, dancing the night away, my kids are world'. That type of thing tells me nothing.

If you're interested in music, tell me what type. If you like films - what type. I like profiles that make me laugh too, so maybe mimicking the generic profile stuff we see. Something like "I'm not looking for a partner in crime, as I don't want to get you into trouble", or something along those lines.

smeaton I also like a funny profile. The best one I saw recently was " I am cooler than the other side of your pillow".

I like different photos from different angles, at least one without sunglasses and hats. Something that can be a conversation starter.

Smeaton I like a shortish, funny profile. Just two or three paragraphs without all the usual cliches.
I want to know that the person has interests in life outside work, that they can string a sentence together and what they're looking for.

OKCupid has some good questions that you could use as starting points.
-What I'm doing with my life.
-I'm really good at.
-I spend a lot of time thinking about...
-on a typical friday night I am..

If you write something, I'm happy to look at it for you.

Runs I've replied to your pm!

people who don't want a relationship don't pull you into a cuddle and hold your hand in bed do they?

Third they do though, especially if they think/know they're going to get a shag. As Cover said, no man who wants to be in a relationship with a woman is going to risk losing her or putting her off by telling her the opposite.

As for my POF matches, despite repeatedly checking my EX postcode is present and correct, as out of the first 12 blokes that show up, 6 are in South Wales, 2 in Bristol and 2 in Wiltshire. Only 2 are actually in Devon and they're both in fucking Plymouth! None of them are remotely attractive based on the photo that shows up, there's one photo featuring a fish and one featuring kids, and the headlines include such gems as 'even the tide won't take me out' and 'seeking hotwife girlfriend to explor...' I don't know how that sentence ends because I don't want to click on the actual profile.

FML.

runs we knew each other from gym but matched on tinder, spoke at gym 3 or 4 times before our first date. kissed on date 3, DTD date 4 (and 5 and 6..)

i told him i wouldnt want to sleep with him knowing hes sleeping with other people, and he said he wasnt. but its been a week
since we saw each other, and havent spoke
since saturday.

oh FFFFFS! Just got a message on Pof - 2 pictures, 1 of him who looks quite scary and the second one, with a WEDDING band on his ring finger. He likes bigger girls, golf and football. That.Is.It!

esk1mo if he says he's not sleeping with anyone else then why is he still swiping on Tinder? I'd be having it out with him. If I'm sleeping with someone and they're still looking in the sweet shop, then they're telling me I'm not good enough and they're looking for someone better.

Smeaton I've gone out and really clicked with someone whose profile was 4 lines, so dont feel you need write an essay. But for me, it was all about managing to neatly distill what you are about as person, and what you are looking for into that box (many people miss the second criteria and I think its really important as it shows you actually have some kind of emotional intelligence to know what you are looking for other than looks and dress size!).

I strangely enough used to really enjoy the process of crafting a profile text. I suspect mine (on POF) used to put a few people off as its super blunt but I like to think of it as an added filter :D

runs thats true. thats what im thinking aswell. but he said he just swipes when bored and just does it “for fun” and i guess an ego boost..he is a very honest person though, he hasnt lied about anything as far as i know.

we arent ever going to be exclusive, and i did just want FWB but i also want a friendship and trust with that. ive never had FWB before so i didnt realise how easily your ego can be bruised, maybe i secretly hoped he’d like me enough to give up
tinder for a while...

anyway, my friend has messaged him so lets see what happens.

esk1mo sounds like you need to have that chat. With ex FWB from the very start we agreed we wouldn't see anyone else and if we wanted to, we would tell each other (and that is what happened and I ended it). I don't know if he was on tinder during that time as I wasn't, but I trusted him, and I guess he trusted me. For him it wasn't an issue and to be fair we saw each other nearly every night and when we couldn't it was because we were working etc.

I wouldn't want to be non exclusive with anyone after DTD a few times. Have a chat.

no man who wants to be in a relationship with a woman is going to risk losing her or putting her off by telling her the opposite.

Sorry, that's not true. I've done it myself before, I know other men who have.

Fear of rejection, fear of commitment, fear of the unknown, work/life stress. They can all lead men to back away from something they know is good, or to place limitations on it, in order to maintain the status quo or to reduce the perceived risk of something going wrong.

I'm not saying it's the norm, but it is a huge generalisation to say 'no men ever did X'. That's like a group of men saying 'no woman ever wanted a no strings shag'

pudding i guess the fact you could see each other so often worked in your favour? i can only see MrF once or twice a week, and he has a high sex drive (he takes legal testosterone boosters for gym).

id see him 3-4 times a week if i could, but i dont want him round when my flatmate is home and he cant accomodate . i told him im busy this week with work and he said “lets just see each other next week”

i actually spoke to him earlier. we had
an accident 2 weeks ago and he wanted to know if got my period. i text him saying not pregnant and he called me, being all chatty and nice.

its all a headfuck.

esk1mo this is your problem right here: "maybe i secretly hoped he’d like me enough to give up tinder for a while"

Secret hopes are a problem in any relationship. Whether you're married/just friends/at work/whatever. Saying or agreeing to something while secretly hoping the opposite will happen is always a bad, bad idea. Lying to yourself and others is not the way to go.

I would say you have 2 options now:

• Accept that he's not going to come off Tinder for you, decide if you're okay with that. Judging him and being upset if he does strike up a conversation/meet with your friend is only ever going to end with him saying that you were never going to be exclusive so why are you upset?
• Tell him this isn't working for you, re-negotiate new boundaries, or stop seeing him.

Ok, well I stand (actually I sit on the sofa) corrected. But if a guy does that Bant then he knowingly runs the risk of losing the relationship, right?

Bloody hell, just when I’d disabused myself of the idea that Mr Darcy types actually exist mutters