HI all, checking back in after some time away from the thread and finally feel comfortable enough to share a recent experience which may be helpful for newbies and not-so newbies to OLD
I have been OLD for a few months and have had some great and not so great experiences – drawing strength and support along the way from this thread as well as books like WMLB and Amy Young videos.
Considered myself, up until very recently, quite savvy about the ups and downs of OLD and thought I had a good gut instinct about the guys I was matching, chatting with and dating. I was in touch recently with someone who sounded right on my wavelength – we spoke on the phone a few times; he was articulate, intelligent with an amazing job. It was difficult to arrange a meet up quickly because of his work worldwide……. Except it was all lies – and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I didn’t trust those all-important spidey sense when I should have done. To cut a very long story short, I got a grip before it was too late – something he mentioned had me checking what he said online. It was clear he wasn’t who he was and where he was. A chance Google search (as thank God, I had his full name) revealed that this guy had a history of conning and duping women he had met online. In fact, something I unearthed stated that he had actually been convicted of this. Luckily, other than my phone number (easy enough to block and delete someone), I had had the sense not to give him access to any of my social media – where I suspect he would have tried to suss out whether or not it was going to be worth his while pursuing me. A lucky escape.
So easy to build up an image of someone in your head. I swear, I thought this guy was going to be the one - he just sounded so plausible and credible – and I think that’s partly where the danger lay, as I didn’t feel I needed to check him out and verify what he had said.
Believe me, I am not stupid: I have my head screwed on and have had many experiences over the last few months from which to draw. But this taught me a massive lesson -well, several actually including the all-important thread ones here:
- Do not invest emotionally too soon.
- It's all BS until it actually happens.
- Trust your gut instinct.
- People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
Apologies for the length of this post but I do hope that sharing this experience could be useful for some of you. You may think you have a rapport, you may think you have some chemistry with them – but until you have met them, they are strangers; you don't know them until you know them!
And because I am sure I will be asked…this guy was on Tinder. I am in a big city – the pool is not bad and quite buoyant most of the time; I use/have used a combo of free and paid-for sites. In my personal experience, living where I live, it’s not been worth paying to see the same faces on both.
Would it stop me going back? No, of course not – I have a lot of fun on the whole with some great guys; I just haven’t met ‘the one’ yet. What will I do differently? Well, reminding myself of the thread rules and I’ll definitely be exercising slightly more caution in the future.
And finally, if you have a date this weekend, enjoy!