Would you all mind if I join please? After my first two weeks ever of OLD it’s clear I need sensible, seasoned guidance if I’m to survive unscathed.
First to say - I’m older, and have a few rigid dealbreakers - which means the pickings have not been rich, for starters. From the few options and the even fewer appealing options, this has been my experience so far:
Mr Sex on Legs - bloody gorgeous, and quirky profile with good prompts for chat. Matched quickly, and moved quickly to fun flirtatious banter, but he only ever messaged at midnight and even if I replied straight away, he didn’t respond. After a week or so if this it was pretty clear to me he was playing his choices and massaging his own ego throughout. I sent a polite brief message before I unmatched, but then realised he probably didn’t get to see the message as I unmatched straight away. Lesson 1 learned.
Mr Shakespeare - looked alarmingly like my ex husband but with sharper, wittier chat. Messaged lots in week 1 including him referring to meeting up. A few days later I, being bold (and having done my -stalking on here for tips- research), suggested a call or meet because I didn’t want to get too invested based on chat alone. Even though he agreed, no firm plans were suggested despite me offering some options, and from that point the chat got thinner. Got to last night when, like blood out of a stone, he agreed to a 15min phone call tonight. But when I slept on it, everything just felt wrong and looking back at his messages it was like I was about to put him through some kind of tortuous ordeal. So I’ve written him a long polite note just saying it’s clear that for whatever reason there’s a disconnect… and I’ve not unmatched yet, to give him a chance to read it, but I will.
Mr DJ - matched on Friday, really nice two way chat, he brought up the idea of meeting within the first 24hrs. Loads of chat and moved to WhatsApp yesterday. Again worried about investing, today I tried to progress the idea of a meet soon (as I’m going away for a couple of weeks and didn’t want to drag on a chat for several more weeks). Logistics tricky (he works irregular hours, we are not in the same city) and I made a total car crash of articulating things in the process. To cut a long story short now he has graciously backed off to a ‘let’s see if we want to chat / meet when you’re back’ kind of thing. Dammit.
I am so not a pushy person. But also, the idea of over-investing in a few profile pics and good chat, without some kind of real life / real time encounter to see if the chemistry is there, just feels way too exposing. On the other hand I kind of feel a bit punished for being proactive, by the responses of Mr Shakespeare and Mr DJ when I’ve tried to move things on.
Sorry for the length of this. I prostrate myself in front of you OLD experts. Help me see the light, please!