Dating Thread 190 - Living La Vida Lockdown but not out...

[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.

@cravingthelook, happy birthday. Hope you have a lovely day

Thanks. I just got pretty flowers delivered from my aunt 😊

My friends all sent me a message

My ex is bringing the kids for an hour later as it's not my day iyswim

I've got a 5 hour training web conference this afternoon 🙄

Mr Food has suggested Saturday afternoon

I know it's daft to but I'm hoping Mr Music messages (he knows) and Mr Swan steps up to this friendship. I know they won't but part of me is hoping.

@unambiguousbeard I'm in the same position but can't bear to let him go. He's there for me as a friend too but it's so hard not knowing what the future holds, if anything.

Your advice needed. It’s all a bit sorry / pathetic. Met a man OLD and really hit it off; we were both very excited to meet IRL. I thought he looked let down when he saw me (which was sad as I thought he was beautiful) but he asked to meet again... then covid. We kept writing and skyping every day for two months (often several times a day), intense and intimate but not flirtatious. Finally, we met up when lockdown eased and had two great days together, at the end of which he said there was no spark but he wanted to continue as we were, as friends. I thought I’d be up for this but I feel rejected, humiliated, disappointed and sad. Should I try and stay friends? I don’t want to at the moment, but I feel like I’m abandoning him and not honouring our friendship. (We are both divorced with grown kids).

Happy birthday @cravingthelook. It'll be me (not) celebrating this time next week ! Sorry Mr Music did the thing that seems to happen so much on this thread: big interest, made all the right noises until you were keen, then demurred. It's common but still heart breaking stuff.

I'm interested in this idea @JeSuisPrest of doing heartbreak on your own terms that you said in response to @unambiguousbeard. Do we really know that those outcomes are certainties for @unambiguousbeard and Mr Unsuitable ? I admit it does seem fairly clear cut from what she has said, but they clearly care for each other and get on well now. I can see Mr Unsuitable has done the I'm 'not good enough/right for you' thing in effect disqualifying himself from the relationship and maybe avoiding having any responsibility for her feelings. But that did come at a very low point in his life and may well have been a place where he was trying to do heartbreak on his own terms too.

Looking at it more generally, the statistics show most of our relationships will end. Should we then let fear of a negative outcome interfere with our present day situation ? When comes the tipping point where we do the heartbreak on our own terms ? Is that tipping point artificially too soon in a time where we can conveniently grab someone new online and repeat the whole shebang. It ties in a bit with that adage (I forget whether it's a thread rule) about the things that bother you at the beginning are what will end things. It seems like a circular, self-fulfilling prophetic thing. I do agree with @CheesecakeAddict's counselling - that the more faith we can have in ourselves the less we will imagine future heartbreak as a terrifying thing and the more this tipping point can be extended.

Enough waffling, I came across a profile on OkCupid. It was so thoughtful and thought provoking and I felt much on the same wavelength about many things said in it. I've swiped right on the same profile (without the wordy backing) on Bumble and clearly it hasn't been reciprocated. Try again with added words ? I suppose I have very little to lose.

@prowlingbroom you are under no obligation to remain friends with this man. You signed up to date and he's not interested, so he doesn't then get to dictate what kind of relationship you have instead. And it's fair enough needing some space from him given that you've been chatting to him for the last couple of weeks over lockdown. Tell him you need some space, then archive your conversation and delete him. If you decide after time apart that you do want to remain friends, let that be on your terms

Happy birthday @cravingthelook and a forthcoming one to @HairyArsedMan - I have one too next week - September must be a very romantic month as I know so many people with birthdays mid-June. My parents got married in the September so you can probably work out the rest.

@prowlingbrooms - I've had this request twice and have declined the offer. What with work, an allotment, a night school class etc, I haven't got the time to "stay friends" with someone so that they've got someone to shag/go to the cinema with when they are bored. It's hard enough to keep in touch with my actual mates sometimes.

Mr Mountain Biker sent me a message yesterday. I told him that I was trying to learn how to do long division (it's a Dark Art as far as I'm concerned) as part of a list of things to do before I'm 50 in a couple of years. He's sent me pages from a maths textbook to help. I like him a lot.

To all.
Park date tonight with Mr R. I think he’s going in for at least a hug 😂
Should I just lay it on him and try a snog? 😂

@Menora do it!! 😁😁

@prowlingbrooms Call me mercenary but the only irons I've stayed in contact with are the useful ones like, plumbers, plasterers, electricians, mechanics etc. They sometimes come in handy for other things as well .

I second the just do it @Menora

@prowlingbrooms your post has made me so angry, you sound like such a nice person. I rarely swear but some dick has kept up a friendship with months because he wasn’t either bored or just seeking validation that someone found him attractive without considering your feelings. You have no obligation to remain friends. Personally I would respond with ‘you’re right, there is no spark, but I don’t see the point in being friends as I have other people in my lifewho I can spend time with now’ just because he needs his ego to be deflated.

Also you should be pleased your intuition about his reaction to you was correct.

I made myself bacon and poached egg brunch ... I managed to burn my arm on the air fryer - it fecking stings

I also checked and Mr Music has been active on WhatsApp today. I know I know, checking prolongs the hurt.

@prowlingbrooms

I agree you don't have to stay friends and actually by doing so it's even more of an ego boost for him.

@Kin2

it all started with me offering him a profile review!!!

From which you concluded:

too old
too far away
so not your type

Ha! I made an exception for you!!!

@prowlingbrooms, I don't think you need to feel any obligation to carry on chatting to or being friends with someone who has made his feelings clear. You want different things. IF it suits you fair enough but that isn't how it reads from what you have posted.
@Menora, definitely snog if the moment seems right. I think you need to get more of a sense of how you feel about each other, beyond nice chats and flirty banter.
Mr Van and I had talked about meeting up and then yesterday's news kind of took that possibility into a different category ( staying over etc) It was late last night when we chatted so it only got mentioned briefly and not brought up when we were talking this morning. As per his name he drives for a living so we chat whilst he's in the van working. Doing a quiz tonight so I will see what he says after that. I am keen to see him although I do have one or two reservations about whether our personalities are completely compatible going forward.
Still swerving Mr Cocky, feeling good for having the break. I will talk to him again at some point because 6 years of ' friendship ' is not something I can just walk away from.
Mr Photography wants to see me at the weekend if my plans allow.

@TigerDater

Hi *@BendyLikeBeckham and @Kin2*, I don’t remember what my name was back then or even if I had one, but I remember the uproar at the time and I simply didn’t understand why passions ran quite so high, so I dipped out as a result. I’m glad you are both happy though. Love can appear in the strangest and sometimes most inconvenient of places, it should never be something to apologise for 😍

I think it was because we broke the Sacred Thread Rules! Also a bit of silly humour on the side that some didn't really get. But anyway, that's long in the past. What you say is true about strange ways, and we often reminisce how crazy it was that while we were looking for dates online on OLD sites, the irony was that we met here! And further, whilst both of us wanted just casual arrangements, we ended up in a relationship together. Thanks for your kind words

[quote TwinkleInYourEye]**@BendyLikeBeckham* and @Kin2* -I don't understand...what is wrong with you getting together? I know it's in the rules but really - unless it was an affair (presuming it wasn't if you were both on this dating thread?!) then why did people object? I'm being nosy but also I'm happy for you - it sounds romantic.[/quote]
Thank you @TwinkleInYourEye It wasn't an affair, just two single people who found each other in an unexpected place.

Kin was quite horribly called a Predator by someone who shall not be named, so we left the thread. But anyway, I'm not meaning to spark a debate on the rules (most of which are very sensible) or hijack the thread any further.

I wish the best of luck to everyone on the thread with the dating world. It must be super hard in lockdown. I hope you all find what you are looking for, especially happiness. I'll bow out again now!

@HairyArsedMan I see heartbreak as something we will inevitably get over with time and perhaps counselling. When I was dumped out of the blue I was hugely inspired by other women on Mumsnet who had been through the same thing and come out the other side so while heartbreak isn’t something I want it isn’t something I’m afraid of anymore.

I think tipping points of when a relationship should end are sometimes brought forward by the knowledge that online dating might provide us with an array of replacements should we end the relationship but there’s also the sunken costs fallacy where we won’t leave a relationship because of its longevity whether we’ve been happy for most of that relationship or not. There’s also a rule where if we can’t talk to someone without a fear that the relationship will end that it’s not a very good relationship which I think is the most important to me. Usually it’s referring to whether having the ‘exclusivity’ chat will push someone away but I have had maybe 3 or 4 conversations with Mr R that could’ve led to him walking away but he didn’t. This is huge for me because I had a marriage where we never argued, but then never resolved issues. I’m kind of waffling now but I certainly think we can be more assertive in getting our needs met (and listening to what our partners needs are) with a view that if the relationship ends then in the long run it’s for the best.

Happy birthday @cravingthelook

My update is that, as I feared, when Mr biology and I finally met up I just didn't feel as much of a spark... But, we get on so well and the chat is brilliant, share lots of the same values etc. So do I rule it out? Or see how I feel when/if we meet again? After a pretty much celibate marriage I really need a relationship with passion... But can that grow? (pardon the choice of words!)

@prowlingbrooms agree with everything @StealthNinjaMum has said. Cheeky so and so. Not a friend at all.

@unambiguousbeard I don't think you are happy with the limbo you and Mr U repeatedly find yourself in. And this is stopping you from moving on. But you are well aware of this. I think @JeSuisPrest is right. If you don't end it on your terms (and you could be at least 6 months free of him by now) he will end it on his at some point.

@misty9 I would say, if you are not feeling it, don't force it. There's no point in settling.

@Misty9 unless I was repulsed I might give it another go if you got on as well as you say. I like a snog to test chemistry. Difficult right now I know.

We did have a kiss... and it wasn't awful, but no butterflies. Or fanny flutters! But the men who usually give me those are also usually complete w*nkers! Oh I don't know.

@Misty9 I think with only one meet I would give him another chance as the chat was good and you like him as a person. The spark might be lurking! But I’d not waste loads of time.

@cravingthelook happy birthday I hope this evening you do something lovely for yourself.

I don’t know where I’m going with this dating lark! Anyone I like doesn’t like me - only weird ones or men I just don’t like the look of or their profile seem to love me!
I am still chatting with my first iron Mr Posh and I like him- we will hopefully meet up soon BUT I have a niggle about him and what he might be into sexually and I don’t think it’s for me! I feel like I’ve invested all this time talking to him building anticipation about meeting but now I don’t know whether to just lay my cards out now to allow him to back out or allow me to? We are having a chat later but I don’t know how to broach it -in a message would be easier for me but is that cowardly? What do you think Oh wise ones?