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.

I have found out what happened!
She left him said she didn’t feel the same. He got left with basically everything to do/sort and is feeling a bit overwhelmed but ready to move on. He also doesn’t want me to think he’s a loser for being divorced or a failure I think he’s a bit embarrassed about it but we had a little chat
Bless him

Mr Army is a few months younger than me. First time I have dated younger and he is actually more mature that the older irons I have had.
Missing him badly tonight. Realised earlier that it will be 7 weeks on Friday since our late date. I think/hope he misses me and is just been practical about everything. Not getting hopes up as it's not looking like anything will drastically change on Sunday.

The last time I saw him I mounted a kerb in the car park as I took the corner too sharply and before my drive back he checked my wheel/tyre and the wheel arch over to make sure it was fine. Actions speak louder than words. Just have to hold in for a bit longer and hopefully he will want to see me as soon as he can. (I mean why wouldn't he, I'm pretty amazing)

I hear from his practically every day, the longest I have gone without hearing from him is around 36 hours. I have gotten better with not waiting for his message or wondering why he isn't contacting me. Im also not doing to text after text and letting him text me first some times.

@EchoElephant. I feel you, I've become pretty ruthless at blocking. I know its groundhog day so not much to update, but make a little effort!

@Dancerinthemoonlight have you and mr army talked about life after lockdown? Do you have any other irons?

Belated happy birthday 🎂 @Dancerinthemoonlight I've got a lockdown birthday this weekend. I've made a big effort with friends who've had birthdays during lockdown, but I have a feeling they won't reciprocate 😕

So glad I woke at at 3.30 am so I've had time to catch up on this thread 😂

@BatshitCrazyWoman when’s your birthday? We won’t forget 😁

Ireland has published a lockdown releas me plan and you can have 2 visitors from within a few weeks but should social distance with them in your home. Which in reality won’t happen I expect as it will be bf / gf or grandparents in most cases

@jane1978xx do you know if it has to be the same 2 visitors each time?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/ireland-extends-covid-19-lockdown-to-18-may-before-phased-exit. This is the article I saw it doesn’t actually say that but as you are still supposed to distance maybe it could be different people

@myfabby no other irons. All the other irons fizzled out a few weeks before lockdown.
We haven't really talked about life after lockdown as until Sunday no one really knows the next stage of lockdown. Trying to manage expectations than make plans and be disappointed when they dont happen

Morning everyone. It makes for difficult reading when some of you are having a tough time juggling WFH and caring for/paying enough attention to DC. I am fortunate that my DDs are 20 and 15 so very much self sufficient in that respect. Just plenty of checking in with them, spending time chatting with both about their differing concerns and frustrations.
I was a teacher for many years. Most teachers have a dual focus when dealing with young people and MH is extremely important, more important than ever. So please don't give yourself a hard time and your DC are no doubt reacting to the massive changes to their lives too. Your love, support and understanding is more important than 'keeping up '. Schools and teachers will adapt the curriculum when our DC return.
In other news, Mr Van and I seem to be doing okay, chatting every day and doing quizzes sometimes. He's not terribly flirtatious but we did kind of clear up the other day that we are planning on resuming things when we can ( had dated Nov-Jan before he disappeared but only reappeared just before lockdown was announced )
I can feel myself retreating from long term FWB Mr Cocky who is getting increasingly horny and frustrated but that's a situation that needs to be addressed once lockdown is over.

My birthday is on Sunday

@menora I'm just catching up on the thread and it struck me how differently you described Mr Muddle in this thread compared to the last one. Have you re read what you wrote when you met him compared to what you say now? I'm asking because you have started describing a new iron, and it seems to me to read quite like how you initially talked about Mr Muddle. I always think that we should look back and learn, not look back with regret, and Mr Muddle seems like such a learning experience for you. I hope this time is different.

Yes there were loads of things I saw differently - that’s the issue I was so willing to overlook them I excused them away and found ways around them all the time. I was also so fond of him so quickly none of them seemed to be ‘that bad’ but as they all accumulated they got worse and worse and his muddled, great big softy persona was not actually that real. The real him is only like that when he was trying to get me to like him. Once he established I liked him he stopped making any effort. The usual real him is actually pretty cold and detached from a lot of emotions - distant, critical and resentful. He still came over as Muddled but it dawned on me it was all self inflicted through constant crap choices and just avoidance of real life. His most favourite thing to say was ‘I feel ill’ but with non specific symptoms and all he wanted to do was go to sleep and escape. Are you depressed I would ask. No according to him it wasn’t depression.... it was me

New iron I will not be making the same mistakes with jumping into anything. He knows I want to be friends for now and he says he’s ok with that and he hasn’t even questioned me why. He’s not doing any subtle or obvious pushing me, not trying to establish anything, he is just enjoying our friendship. He’s also pretty consistent so far. The red flag I am wary of is his breakup of his marriage.

I also will not be putting him into the bubble of people to see if this happens, because I have other people to see first.

Mr M had wangled his way into being in an exclusive relationship with me very fast. A lot of heavy flirting, following me on all my social media, also making comments about guys in my friends list etc (who I ended up deleting!) and some shady AF behaviour.

I think it's great you can see all of that now @Menora One of the concerns I had was that you allowed him to move things on very quickly. As you had with the previous Mr M. I think it's really positive you can look back and see that. From some of the things you posted he didn't seem worthy of you. But so difficult to see that for ourselves sometimes when we are caught up in the emotions.

I’m also in counselling and dealing with my boundaries!
But I see what you mean - I was instantly sympathetic to him about it when he told me. I did feel sorry for him but I don’t think that was his intention seen as I’ve waited a while to find out and had to wangle it out of him subtly 😂

Yeah I felt like oh wow, these men like me! And I got so carried away. I really really fancied Mr Muddle and we had sex constantly which was quite distracting to a lot of the issues. Once there was no sex between us, it deteriorated really fast.

menora I always feel sympathy for people who have ended up in complicated situations, even of their own making, but there's a difference between empathising and allowing yourself to get sucked in. I definitely learnt that the hard way with OLD! Now I think 'Poor man, that's tough, but what benefit is there to ME in getting involved? Only to be kind and helpful and feel good about myself? Not enough. Bye!'

That's not a negative reflection on you or your iron by the way, just an observation I've made about my own experience.

The way the conversation went was that he feels frustrated all his plans are on hold. He has a lot of plans! So I was sympathising with that side of it (same for a lot of people) and then I asked a little bit about his situation and he said along the lines of ‘there isn’t much to say really as it’s happened now, she didn’t feel the same way anymore. I had made loads of plans for the future and mostly frustrated I can’t move house yet’

then I asked if they were going to pack up the house together, he said no it was all down to him and had been that way for a long time now he sees on reflection. Then he said he isn’t a dweller and didn’t want to put any problems on me, he did worry about telling women on OLD he is a divorcee (and that he has a ‘failed’ marriage) but he’s getting used to it now and a lot of people are in the same situation as each other so he feels less of a loser then we laughed about it a little bit kind of thing and changed subject

That's good it all sounds pretty normal @Menora and sounds great about the counselling helping in general.

I read a lot of you talking about counselling earlier on in this thread and I would second everything that has been said.

It has helped me completely turn my life around after a terrible 15 year relationship. I've been going for 2 years now- it is expensive but it is the one thing I would NEVER stop. For a while I could claim it back through work which helped a lot.

And she was probably around the 4th person I tried. I thought counselling was absolute waste of time (plus massive hassle to get to when you have work and young kids) but I saw how this woman massively helped my friend- so tried out one appointment and have never stopped.

It meant when I started OLD last year I really felt I'd processed all my baggage and could look forward really positively to a new relationship and experiences.

Despite that it's surprising the issues that keep popping up- but I don't panic, I just put them to one side until I can deal with it in my therapy session.

Just thought I'd share that incase it helps anyone.

I'm starting to really crazily miss my boyfriend now and have no idea how or when we'll see each other again. I'm backtracking a bit from moving him in as my place is just far too small.

He lives with elderly parents so he's worried about visiting me with young kids and passing an infection back to his parents- even when the lockdown is lifted. He also lives nearly 2 hours away so lots of logistical challenges. And before lockdown we'd only been together 4 months, so still very new. He is utterly awesome though which is why I will move heaven and earth to get us together again though!

@Menora i also felt like the way you were talking about your new iron was very similar to how you talked about the previous one. I like @tigerdater 's view about asking yourself what value this would add to your life rather than you just being there for every sad soul.

I agree I do see how I instantly felt sorry for him so the important thing now is to work our whether he is a sad soul and if the dynamic is me cheering him on/up.

As a mate he could add a lot of good stuff to my life having him around. He appears pretty self sufficient ie not looking for a new mum/wife and this is the only time it’s come up so far - and I initiated it to see what his response was.

How often do people chat with their irons?

I might be an outlier, and it wasn't under current circumstances, but when my BF was an iron I probably got in touch every 2-3 days and met up every 2 weeks.

No we text every day, but still will probably only meet up eow.

I mean when we can meet up again, obviously. We haven't actually met up since February 😬