Dating Thread 188 - Living and Loving in the Lockdown

[JeSuisPrest]

The Rules:

1. The first rule about the dating thread is 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. Know your worth.
8. If it's not fun, stop.
9. Loo update is mandatory.

10. No dating the thread. 11. Treat others as you'd like to be treated 12. Any relationship you have that could get ruined by having a conversation about your feelings, standards and/or expectations wasn't really stable enough to begin with 13. The things you choose to ignore/ tolerate now are the reasons you will break up in the future 14. OLD can get very time consuming. Keep doing other activities you enjoy.

Optional: Please give your irons (potential dates you are talking to) nicknames like Mr Scottish. Initials are allowed (Mr S) when you are an item.

Cough Some of us in that age category are reading @Menora @EchoElephant

I've not lied in my profile nor felt compelled to. The chickens would come home to roost at some point and then I'd quite rightly be given the elbow. If anything I'm pretty bashful. For example, I found it impossible to post the other day about stuff I'm proud about.

I think people are not lying about wanting a relationship in general but just because someone says it doesn't make it a viable thing in the end. Often when we get the shitty end of the stick we believe that the wants a relationship thing was a lie, but it wasn't necessarily, it just had to be tried on for size and fit.

Re: boringness, isn't that just a lack of chemistry ? You just have to make your excuses and leave the conversation rather than trying to get blood out of a stone. Were the profiles dull too ?

Agree about the relationship and that’s a perfectly reasonable thing, but so many times it can feel like it’s just a way of saying what they think women want to hear, when they have no intention of giving up their bachelor life and going back to domesticity. so it can be more a case of when reality kicks in of what it would be like, they don’t really want it and never did. I say this after talking or dating a good many men most of who didn’t ever like domestic life very much with their wives in the first place so why would they like it with someone else?

I don’t know what it is with the boring thing but literally out of dozens of messages the men do not seem to have or be bothered with any type of conversation past basic information. I’ve got a couple in my matches now who just keep sending ‘hello how are you’ messages. I’ve tried to talk to them and they have nothing to say!

I should really say it probably works both ways but men tend to have very short profiles which says

Height
Age
Location
Then 3 lines about ‘looking for someone (or the one) to cuddle up with, go on walks and eat nice Sunday dinners and watch comedy films’ etc etc all the domestic cutesy type of things that appeal. It seems nice. It seems romantic. It seems like they are settled

9/10 if you do hit it off with them they will complain about their ex wives, they live in really messy flats rarely clean and go to the pub all the time 😂

@HairyArsedMan sorry! I appreciate that not all men in our age category are the same. But I'm struggling to find the decent ones.

I agree with Menora about the boring conversations.
It goes something like "how was your day?" So I'll answer and try and add a little humour or an anecdote that they can ask about.
And get "lol" as a reply.
After that's been repeated a few times then I give up

As for the boring dates, they're usually with men that seem nice enough, so there seems no reason not to see if they are better in person. Because not everyone is good at messaging.
But they just want someone to sit on the sofa and watch tv with them. I've met so many that do nothing other than work, eat, sleep and watch tv.

And they say things like "I don't go to the cinema/museum/coffee shop.... but we could do that together". It's like they're waiting for a woman to entertain them.

My last date was quite proud of the fact that he did literally nothing all weekend. Except in the summer when he went out for ride on his motorbike.

These are the only type of men that are matching with me or messaging me. I've tried messaging ones that seem more my type but just get ignored.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's just that it's a very familiar scenario for me. I think because I struggle to even get to the decent conversation stage, the disappoint of it not progressing a little further is even more amplified if that makes sense. I've been single for pretty much my whole adult life so that's where I'm starting to think that maybe the dating and relationship game just isn't for me, nothing has worked so far!

I think some blokes are just echo-ing what they see in many women’s profiles there @Menora. Most women’s profiles I see on Bumble and Tinder have nothing written at all, or if they do write something, it’s the romantic vision you refer to. I’d love to give you a go on my Tinder profile Maybe that’s the way forward - a crowd sourced dating agency where the dating pool has to match other people together Blimey did I just have a million dollar idea ? I’ll have to think through the consequences of that approach 🤔

I think the complaining about the ex is universal and understandable. It seems all the women I’ve dated have been very hard done by. I’m fine with hearing about it. It’s good to understand where they’re coming from. I appreciate if you are one of those women, I get that you’ll be raising an eyebrow if some bloke starts muttering about their ex though.

@CognativeDissonance if you have been single your entire adult life, it's going to take a bit of practice/trial and error. You can see by the thread that there are plenty more experienced souls who are still finding it hard and facing the same issues.

I'd personally get my profile reviewed if I were you, then try somewhere like plenty of fish where you can just finetune your chatting skills as there are like a gazillion people there. OLD isn't for everyone I think but don't get too despondent over this.

I would love a go on a dating site that has more substance but I tried Match and it was very expensive and exactly the same!

I know the situations between men and women can be similar and I’m just talking from my own experiences. There are interesting men out there but they are going to be meeting more people a lot more quickly.

We have probably all been hard done by and its hard to keep wiping the slate clean and starting again my one wish is that everyone would just be more honest. Cos there are millions of us not getting anywhere the way we are now 😂

I see it as a problem of the vast majority of people are not that suitable for you or me or the next man or woman. Swiping is depressing because you’ve got to casually dismiss hundreds of people. At least on PoF/Match you can filter and search, and avoid that monotony, though then you’ve still got the deluge of nuisance messages to deal with if you’re a woman.

I agree that OLD is a numbers game but I can't help thinking that, in its current format, it's failing the majority of people. It's become very superficial, where everyone's judged on a photo and their age. This leads to people using old photos, taking a few years off their age and manipulating a few facts to make themselves more attractive.
And then there's the sweetshop mentality, that there's always someone else who might be better. Why bother putting effort into your messages when you have a few chats on the go?

I know not everyone is like that but filtering out the ones that are has become almost impossible. I've been doing OLD for about 5yrs now and I see the same people on there (using the same photos from 5yrs ago) which would suggest that many are not finding the right person.
I don't know what the answer is but I can't help feeling there must be a better way

echo that is a whole lot of lying you’ve experienced, no wonder you’re doubting everything.

I found the one week to meet thing worked best - sparky initial messages and a rush to meet, then take it from there. Obviously that can’t happen at the moment, so in your shoes I would step away from OLD and take the time to do some counselling (Skype) to work out what’s going on. Why are you ignored/lied to? Do you need more assertiveness? I don't know. But to me you sound lovely and you deserve to be happy.

I echo 100% the plan of not bothering with the so boring ones. How is that ever going to get better? If they can’t be sparky at the start, what does it say about them?

@EchoElephant definitely agree about a sweet shop mentality and how people are judged. But doesn't it just mean online dating isn't for everyone? I have two great friends, one less obviously attractive than the other. The very attractive one only goes for younger, very buff men, and always gets attention when OLD. The second only gets much older men if that. My second friend has tons more going on in her life, well travelled, creative, kind, worldly, great job and solvent but online dating just doesn't work for her in that respect because she doesn't fit that look and men swipe her by. I think it just works for some sometimes and not others. I personally don't like it much and I don't think I'm a bad catch but as a stay at home mum, it's one of my few options these days!!!

I was becoming very disillusioned with OLD before I met Mr Ad too. I had been on there about 18 months on and off and was just seeing the same faces. I also paid for Match and saw the same faces on there and received loads of messages from men I had no intention of replying to, which felt horrible.

I know it's easy to say but if I find myself single I intend to stay that way rather than go back on there. The swiping does get a little addictive though.

Sorry to those of you having trouble. I honestly don't think the current climate helps though. I think there are probably a lot of men (and women) who are just OLD to pass the time or relieve boredom during lockdown and not actually serious about meeting someone when this is over.

I also agree about the lying thing. I've recently realised I'm very trusting with people which leaves me wide open for people lying about their circumstances.

TigerDater I think I'm guilty of trying to see the best in people, so I overlook some obvious things, or I let myself get talked into believing that it's not that bad. The whole saga with Mr Friends Only was one big manipulation so I'd feel sorry for him. I definitely need to work on being more assertive and also being able to read and understand people.

Eesha your friends sound exactly like me and my friend. On paper I'm the one who has lots going on, she's a stay at home mum with 3 kids. Yet she was never short of dates, matches, interesting messages. She's found herself the perfect match now which is great. But I've even let her loose on my profile to see if she can get anywhere pretending to be me. And she struggled to get any interest for me.
I guess I just have the wrong face for OLD

I don’t know anyone who has had any better luck than me on OLD. Everyone I know has met someone IRL or they haven’t told me where they met. So I should try POF? I really hated that site it feels grimy.

I am not sure it’s ALL about having the right face for OLD surely. Echo you saw my profile and said I look like most other women haha 😂 and I’m 39 with teenage kids, so we are all in the same boat for the same reasons probably - unless you are 28, no kids, size 6 and travel the world and have a load of photos of yourself in bikinis we are all just swiping and swiping as there is just too much choice.

I’m not even that fussy looks wise anymore I do have a ‘type’ but I try to be open minded and I will talk back to anyone who talks to me - still nothing.

@Menora i actually had a few dates via POF and found the men quite open and refreshing there. It's worth a shot though you seem to easily be able to get irons anyway, it's just a numbers game.

@EchoElephant I would add my attractive friend only likes buff men who probably see her as a MILF type! These are not the relationships of the century! I only know a few who met their long term partners and it was pot luck at the time.

I met an ex via POF and we were together 2 years to be fair.
Unfortunately in my time away from POF I seem to have accumulated mostly women in my meet me section so now I don’t know if to delete my whole profile and start again
It all is very busy on that site I don’t know where to begin with it

@menora check your profile on looking for and see if It’s men. Mine also randomly used to change.

I met mr g on Pof, I had my profile turned off and just messaged a few people near by. There are some men on there who have been on there years and message the same badly spelt messages to every woman who joins.

Like a few of us had been I was stressing about the number and type of messages off mr g. Now we just speak every evening and that’s much better and send an occasionally funny pic or something during the day

Ok I’ve changed that part
Can’t seem to work out how to set a radius though?

I’ve had 7 messages so far which all say a variation of ‘hey’ from empty profile men so I’ve had to change the setting to 50 characters or more in first message

I am already depressed by this and want to give up 😂
I’ve had a bit of a wobbly day to be honest

Ha, I was wondering why I didn't have any views on PoF. Realised profile was invisible. Made it visible for the last week. Still no views

Menora somewhere in your settings you can set a distance but it only has the option of everywhere or 75miles. I think you can specify UK only.

You'll get a lot of chancers sending messages when you first appear. The ones that probably message every woman.

I like the suggestion from Jane1978xx of hiding your profile and just messaging the ones you want to chat to.

And having seen your profile, I've no idea why you're struggling to get interest. You've got good photos and your profile is short and conveys your personality with a little humour.

It’s got to be me! Am I trying too hard? I don’t want to be single anymore and I don’t think it’s because I don’t like being alone I am sick of being alone!

For meet me I am not sure you can set it. You can set it in the search section but I’m not sure it applies to meet me also. I only ever went on the nearby bit and said hi to people. There was the weirdo I spoke to for months who wouldn’t meet me then I went off for a bit then I met mr g so for me Pof was v easy used like that I didn’t have to talk to loads of people.

I haven't put much on my bio, I'm not convinced people read them! I'm not really sure what to write anyway.

I get a few messages a day, but no one I like the look of or sound of really 😔