Haven’t heard from date

[Raspberryvanilla1]

Meant to be going on a (fourth) date tomorrow, haven’t heard from him since 4pm yesterday afternoon. First three dates went really well - we both enjoyed each other’s company, and he was really keen for us to meet up again.

I know it’s only 11.30am now but he has almost always messaged in the evening/morning so far, feel a bit deflated. am I overreacting to think he has probably lost interest?

Tia

@workshy44

I have to agree partially with what CecilieRose is saying I'm mid 40's but when I was younger men had to work far harder to gain and keep your attention. Ghosting wasn't a thing and to be frank women on a whole had far more self esteem and self respect. They certainly were not putting up with the crap that seems to be taken by the masses on this site anyway I think part of the problem is internet dating, before you met someone at work or a bar in most cases so they actually had to make an effort to approach someone. Now it is a case of swiping and so many women's self esteem is on the floor they seem to be overly flattered if someone does swipe and accept someone who doesn't tick the majority of their boxes. The power has almost entirely reverted back into the guys hands. Sleeping with someone early doesn't help as people only seem to value now what they have to work hard for, as everything comes so easily.

This is 100% what I am trying to say. The power has almost entirely reverted back into men's hands. And most people here don't seem to be able to see it.

I think there's a difference between blaming OP for this man's rudeness (which is unkind and unreasonable) and suggesting that to avoid getting hurt she might choose to take longer than a few hours of conversation to decide if a future guy was trustworthy, straightforward etc.

My friend is OLD and has slept with 5 orv6 men who ghosted after sex. I am advising her she doesn't sleep with guys on the first date as the sense of rejection and pain she goes through is something I'd like her to avoid.

But there's no doubting that in each case it is the men who I blame and despise and think badly of.

I think if anyone jumps into bed straight away then they won’t really know each other well. Sometimes after the event there is enough of a spark to keep an interest and it works out but it’s a high risk strat for any man or woman if you aren’t in to casual hook ups. You just need to know yourself. I personally had to know someone well.

@CecilieRose
Women don't help by jumping into bed with someone they've met once or twice via an app. It used to be the case that men would want to stay in your best books for a very long time because they'd feel lucky to be with you and everything that comes with a relationship. What incentive is there now if they can just match with someone else and sleep with them? It's probably already happened.

Ok judgemental Edwardian auntie. Some women wait for marriage before they have sex… and end up in unhappy or abusive relationships where the man abuses or cheats on his wife. Other women sleep with a man on the 1st or 2nd date and have been together for years in a serious exclusive healthy relationship with zero cheating.

@Lockheart

Don't play any silly games, don't lie about your plans and don't try and use weird reverse psychology on him.

Just see if anything happens and if not, ask if you're still on for tomorrow.

Do this 😊

If you haven't already, I'd send one final text "Hi, how are you? It's 8pm in Ryans Bar tomorrow right?"
If you don't hear back you have your answer. No dignity lost what so ever. Dignity would be lost if you kept sending a barrage of texts/ calls etc after that!

Its less than 24hrs.
I think youre jumping to conclusions.

Phone could be out of charge. Or.
I sometimes take days to reply. Busy life. (Sorry)

maybe he fell down a well and his phone was left at the top

Actually someone I know was locked in a bathroom without his phone in an apartment in NewYork and only escaped because THE next DAY he heard a neighbour in the best flat and was able to alert him. His girlfriend assumed he hadn’t phoned snd was passed off…

I slept with DH on the first date.

I didn't even fancy him all that much but I'd been through a fallow period and thought I could do with some practice.

We've been married 21 years and have 2 adult DC.

So, judge me CecilieRose? Your Victorian attitudes match your name.

I kind of get some of what cecilierose is saying. If you want to shag on the first date, then go for it BUT then you can’t leap back into wanting the wooing and the gentlemanly behaviour and, most importantly, then getting upset that he hasn’t called .

If you’ve entered into equal sex, then neither party has to pursue things. If you’re getting in a stew that he isn’t then morphing into a boyfriend, then that wasn’t equal “liberated” sex, it was sex with expectations.

I wouldn’t text, OP. Everyone wants to be the hunter, not the hunted - this applies absolutely equally. I always found overly-keen men an incredible turn-off.

Do you have the next date set up eg time and place you are meeting rather than just a vague "well go out on saturday"?

Because if so he might just assume you will be there and that he doesn't need to check in every day after 3 dates!

Anyway, back to you OP.

the fact it isn't showing as read and was mid conversation would suggest more to me that something happened to his phone. Maybe he dropped it or something and can't get back on it.
I expect also all your contact details were on his phone.

He's probably right now panicking like mad because he can't get anywhere to get the phone fixed while at work and has no way to get a message to you.

Or hes just a prick.

I hope its the former as you said you were getting on great. I'd wait a bit longer. Send a message asking if tonight is still on? See if it gets read. had you already arranged a time and place by the way? if it is the case his phone is knackered and he can't contact you he may well turn up there in the hope you do too. Does he know where you live?

@DottyHarmer

I kind of get some of what cecilierose is saying. If you want to shag on the first date, then go for it BUT then you can’t leap back into wanting the wooing and the gentlemanly behaviour and, most importantly, then getting upset that he hasn’t called .

If you’ve entered into equal sex, then neither party has to pursue things. If you’re getting in a stew that he isn’t then morphing into a boyfriend, then that wasn’t equal “liberated” sex, it was sex with expectations.

I wouldn’t text, OP. Everyone wants to be the hunter, not the hunted - this applies absolutely equally. I always found overly-keen men an incredible turn-off.

It's truly incredible how many people are just incapable of understanding this and resort to insulting me and calling me names.

If a woman is hurt and offended by a man not wanting to see her again after sex, then it wasn't liberated, was it? It was the woman feeling like it was going somewhere and believing the man owed her something. Someone genuinely happy to have casual sex wouldn't be pining over a man not texting her back.

Maybe he's sick? Maybe his car broke down? Maybe he's with a friend? Maybe he's lost his phone? Maybe he's having a mental health crisis? Maybe he's really scared because he likes you so much? Maybe he just doesn't know where his head is at right now? Maybe he's looking after a relative? Maybe God forbid he's in a coma in hospital somewhere? Maybe he has childcare issues? Maybe he's been kidnapped by a unicorn? Maybe he's stuck on a rainbow somewhere desperate to get down and call you? Maybe he's been turned into a rock by an evil fairy?

Ffs it's all bollocks OP don't text him again!! If a man wants you, you'll know it. If he doesn't - fuck him.

@Lockheart

Don't play any silly games, don't lie about your plans and don't try and use weird reverse psychology on him.

Just see if anything happens and if not, ask if you're still on for tomorrow.

This in spades.

Interesting thread…..in defence of casual sex for women, I’ve been married, divorced and now have the odd casual relationship because I basically missed sex. As a woman I am upfront with OLD and state that I am only interested in casual. The choice is amazing, nice, attractive men that are 10 - 15 years younger that are mostly (not always) good in bed and eager to please. Much prefer this to marriage personally, although that served a purpose.

OP, personally I would wait to see if he gets in touch. Don’t contact him and move on:)

@Lockheart

Don't play any silly games, don't lie about your plans and don't try and use weird reverse psychology on him.

Just see if anything happens and if not, ask if you're still on for tomorrow.

I wish people wouldn’t call boundaries “ silly games”. You don’t behave how you want at work, your professional . You don’t act like you want round your children you parent and practice patience. Same with dating. You can be the real you without giving everything you’ve got until you know who’ve you got and how committed they are. Don’t call back, let them call you. Then you know if they actually like you or are just taking your calls or answering messages because they are bored or might get a bit of sex. Don’t drop everything for a last minute date. Keep up the investment in the rest of your life.

“ you’re”

I wouldn't bother chasing this up in any way., very silly at this very early stage of knowing him. being all romantic or whatever,and having sex already, can sometimes be meaningless to some men.

@DottyHarmer

I kind of get some of what cecilierose is saying. If you want to shag on the first date, then go for it BUT then you can’t leap back into wanting the wooing and the gentlemanly behaviour and, most importantly, then getting upset that he hasn’t called .

If you’ve entered into equal sex, then neither party has to pursue things. If you’re getting in a stew that he isn’t then morphing into a boyfriend, then that wasn’t equal “liberated” sex, it was sex with expectations.

I wouldn’t text, OP. Everyone wants to be the hunter, not the hunted - this applies absolutely equally. I always found overly-keen men an incredible turn-off.

Expecting to be texted back by someone she’d seen for three dates and had a fourth planned with is hardly on a par with ‘wooing’, but I don’t think one man’s bad texting manners proves any kind of general rule.

I’ve been married for aeons, but I always slept with everyone virtually immediately as a rule — nothing worse than really liking someone after seeing them for a while only to discover you’re incompatible in bed/they have some specific kink/they’re a terrible lover — and my experience does not at all bear out @CecilieRose’s depressingly Edwardian auntie idea that canny women keep their knees together in order to inveigle men into ‘investing’ in them. Sex is not a deferred reward women dangle in front of men, just as it’s not something men ‘do to’ reluctant women who are calculating how much he’s invested while taking off their knickers.

What I think is different now is OLD, and the ease of being able to swipe on someone rather than having to ask them out, and the way that OLD has normalised something I’d only really encountered in the US when I was younger, the expectation of dating multiple people and not assuming exclusivity until it’s brought up.

But this isn’t a gendered thing.

@CecilieRose I agree, personally, that sleeping with men early along with the complications of women's cocktail of bonding hormones can be a recipe for upset. People think in theory they like casual dating (sex without a defined relationship) but noone likes to be treated casually. The idea that intimacy is 'casual' is a nonsense. It can leave a person humiliated and vulnerable. I also agree that the apps have introduced this casual sex culture (whoever cares least wins) and its overall a destructive force on deeper and longer connections. What I dont agree with is the 'well what do you expect' tone. Actually, social norms mean we expect a reply to a text after someone put their penis in us. I dont think anyone on here has suggested that casual sex means you should expect an entire relationship out of it. A simple reply, or even just the basic decency of saying. Look im not interested in pursuing further. In a lot of ways the apps have facilitated the ability to be a cretin in that regard. We no longer meet one another through a variety of social connections that would naturally frown on being ... basically a bit of an arse really.

Dating for 3 years I almost always slept with someone in the first few dates. As someone said above....the last thing I want to discover after liking someone is that they're shit in bed. Ultimately some were arses, some weren't right for me or me for them, and then I met the man im with and did exactly the same thing. They all behaved differently irrespective of sex early on. That said, after those years I had a strong sense of who was after only one thing and avoided them.

[quote supercali77]@CecilieRose I agree, personally, that sleeping with men early along with the complications of women's cocktail of bonding hormones can be a recipe for upset. People think in theory they like casual dating (sex without a defined relationship) but noone likes to be treated casually. The idea that intimacy is 'casual' is a nonsense. It can leave a person humiliated and vulnerable. I also agree that the apps have introduced this casual sex culture (whoever cares least wins) and its overall a destructive force on deeper and longer connections. What I dont agree with is the 'well what do you expect' tone. Actually, social norms mean we expect a reply to a text after someone put their penis in us. I dont think anyone on here has suggested that casual sex means you should expect an entire relationship out of it. A simple reply, or even just the basic decency of saying. Look im not interested in pursuing further. In a lot of ways the apps have facilitated the ability to be a cretin in that regard. We no longer meet one another through a variety of social connections that would naturally frown on being ... basically a bit of an arse really.[/quote]
I can assure you I was in fact fine with having sex on first dates, rather than ‘fine in theory’ — I do and did know my own mind, thanks. And I can’t say I was left struggling with ‘bonding hormones” in the aftermath, in fact if anything it was the men who seemed put out if I made it politely plain I wasn’t planning to see them again. Not in all cases, obviously, but fairly frequently.

I agree with Cecilie as well, yes there’s always exception to the Rules but mostly guys lose interest after you sleep with them straight away.

@Dropcloth oh I did the same as I said in the post following. I said can be a recipe for upset because not every woman is the same. Similarly I put some men out when it transpired I just wanted a bit of fun with them. The issue with being treated casually cuts both ways.