Thread 219: Dating in a winter wonderland

[Shayelle2009]

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

Happy Birthday @Dazedandconfused10. Hope you have an extra special day.
Congratulations @Naimee87, what a fantastic achievement. You should be very proud of yourself.

Well done @Naimee87 - knew you'd smash it!

Congratulations @Naimee87, that must be relief!

Happy birthday @Dazedandconfused10 :)

Well done Naimee!

Happy birthday Dazed!

Right, back to work...

Heyyyy!!
I keep flipping to the thread to read/catch-up but i'm swamped with emails. Run up to Christmas is mental. But it's amazing to hear from everyone! I feel like i really know you, like as if we're an established group of friends. When i take a break i'm finally going to catch up on how you all are. How many of you have some date '0's happening and whether any of you are getting hot/steamy with your current irons! Or running scared from knobs and twats...
One story that comes to mind is @InABetterPlaceNow did you DTD yet? ...

Hugs back @Naimee87 🥰🥰 hope you're not drowning in work! And your son’s twatty teacher is staying in his box and not winding you up!

@Naimee87 woohooooo 🙌🏽 this is such great news!!!

@Dazedandconfused10 have a lovely birthday and I hope all your plans go well 🥰

@Yellowhighheels ummmm yeah ... don't like the sound of this one at all. Sounds like he's trying so hard to project a good image that he's got himself in a weird place. The accent seems quite fake and quite an effort to maintain. Money is a tricky one because sometimes things come out of the cuff but it also looks quite 'stage managed' the way you describe it

Back later to catch up with the rest of the thread!! So much chatting on this thread 😊

Hmmm whats a pension? 😂 ....

Congratulations @Naimee87 coolness factor of driving big trucks is off the scale (plus seems a great field to get into right now)

All quiet here. More work thrown at me.

Good luck everyone with date zeros and ones and chats to bloom this week!

@ibelieveinmirrorballs thanks for those comments. It's important for me to remember that thing about being the person who triggers a partner to feel bad. I had that with my ex and also a couple of toxic boyfriends. MrBeau felt different from them but in the end, if the actions are the same then the feelings you end up going through are the same. Also - my house is nice, my life is pretty sorted & that means I'm ready to date and if I get serious with someone, they can enjoy what I have too. It's all upside isn't it?

@Shayelle2009 thanks for that tip. I'll look into it all now.

@Isitreallyme177 that update from you made me feel really sad. There is a thing called 'boarding school syndrome'. Have you thought about getting any therapy? I've got another appointment booked today, I needed it after all the shenanigans from my ex last week. It would be really good if you could find a way to move on from that thinking as it's not good for you 💜

And I have two date zeros on Saturday.

Coffee with MrBet
Theatre with MrDublin

@Shayelle2009 we're a little closer you and i just now! Well perhaps? Hope your travel was smooth given the circumstances. Sadly the teacher is even worse than a twat so i will up-grade his nickname to fuck-turd as this fits quite nicely. He's got it in for me and DS big time. No amount of what i do is alleviating any pressure. He's demanded i now bring/collect my DS every morning and lunchtime and bring him in the afternoons if he had lessons(they do three days a week). My DS is 12, his school is 15minutes away and he goes by himself on his mini-BmX. All kids here go by themselves from the age of 6/7 really. No clue what the fuck-turd thinks i do all day but clearly he doesn't think my job and sole income for my tiny family is important at all. Ugh! The space that fuck-turd is taking up on this planet should be given to a new decent human-being!

[quote Naimee87]@Shayelle2009 we're a little closer you and i just now! Well perhaps? Hope your travel was smooth given the circumstances. Sadly the teacher is even worse than a twat so i will up-grade his nickname to fuck-turd as this fits quite nicely. He's got it in for me and DS big time. No amount of what i do is alleviating any pressure. He's demanded i now bring/collect my DS every morning and lunchtime and bring him in the afternoons if he had lessons(they do three days a week). My DS is 12, his school is 15minutes away and he goes by himself on his mini-BmX. All kids here go by themselves from the age of 6/7 really. No clue what the fuck-turd thinks i do all day but clearly he doesn't think my job and sole income for my tiny family is important at all. Ugh! The space that fuck-turd is taking up on this planet should be given to a new decent human-being![/quote]
Oh my god. What does the head think of this? I remember for a short period when I was at primary school one of the Mums became quite influential on the PTA and she hated my mum. This twat of a woman would report me to school or write to my mum if I did the slightest thing'wrong' in her book. It's was awful as my mum was also single then and she had to deal with it all on her own. People used to be so shitty to her sometimes. I'm sorry it's happening to you. As long as DS knows you've got his back he shouldn't be too affected by it.
The teacher is reacting way out of proportion

An old topic but on The 'flakiness' i think i'd be considered to be the 'flake' in my circle of friends and family. I don't ever intend to be but i think i'm a 'yes' person. So say 'yes' without considering what i'm saying 'yes' to and what that ultimately involves. A friend pulled me up on it once though and basically said to me, if you aren't able to meet-up then don't agree and if you don't 'change your attitude' our friendship won't survive. She's really a lovely girl but i hadn't realised my 'flakiness' came across as disrespectful and that it seemed like the time she set aside just wasn't important to me but this was never the case. Just things happen to come up all the time. Or i double booked myself and didn't know how to untangle myself becausei really don't like to let people down.
Flakiness with dates, is something different i suppose because it leads to a feeling of being 'played' or being 'one of many' so when you get let down last minute you take it really personally. I think the worst is flaking after a really good few dates, where you've met and got a feeling things will progress then you get let down.

@BelladiMamma
Well the Head was in copy on this email so my only guess is they are 'of the same opinion' or that the Head doesn't want to admit he has an incompetent teacher. It's really hard to deal with and i'm convinced if a man was involved here, partner or bf they wouldn't be able to scrutinise us nearly as much as they are.

Congrats @Naimee87!

And thank you all, having a great day so far!

@Naimee87 Haha not yet!! I'm really making him work for it 😅 Though I seriously regretted my decision part way through meeting him for coffee on Monday and whispered that to him as he was winding me up for the umpteenth time. No respectful place will have us if I decide to bail out yet again so I expect I'll be seeing him at his this weekend!

I'm now completely at ease with him though (and my hormones have completely taken over) so it feels like it was the right call!

Ended up having another 3 hour video call with him last night where we discussed both politics and religion and both commented after with a smirk, heh - we still like each other - so it's long overdue at this point!!

Thanks @Shayelle2009, are you still France based? We are just meeting in a lovely pub on Friday and spending the evening there. I think the mum thing was him saying he went to dinner and her asking him more details. Apparently she ended up saying he deserved some happiness so was chuffed for him. I told him we just need to make it work now otherwise risk disappointing her!

@InABetterPlaceNow i hope it's fireworks and sparklers when it happens. First time with magnet-man was amazing and has stayed that way hence why he has the name he does. I like the sound of the video call, i think this does suggest interest a level higher than messages/voice notes. Sounds all good to me! Yay!

@Naimee87 I can well imagine this kind of thing in Switzerland - in my experience they are ridiculously socially conservative and the idea that a family might a) consist of a single parent rather than two and b) have a mother who needs to work and is not there to do every single thing at all times is way out of their ideas of “normal”. The fact that children still go home at lunchtimes says it all - making it really hard for mothers to resume work. I know where we were (canton Schwyz) very few mums returned to work after having kids.

@ibelieveinmirrorballs @Naimee87 that sounds god awful. I do remember doing some research for my work into parental working patterns and Switzerland and Germany came up as very conservative given the 'home at lunchtime' issue.

[quote Naimee87]@BelladiMamma
Well the Head was in copy on this email so my only guess is they are 'of the same opinion' or that the Head doesn't want to admit he has an incompetent teacher. It's really hard to deal with and i'm convinced if a man was involved here, partner or bf they wouldn't be able to scrutinise us nearly as much as they are.[/quote]
Have you checked? They sound awful. State sanctioned sexism and the patriarchy at its best! I'm so sorry you're going through this.

I know I’ve mentioned it before but I think it was in canton Appenzell that women weren’t given the vote until 1991!! And in federal elections Swiss women were given the vote in 1971! Unbelievable.

@ibelieveinmirrorballs oooh the 'posh' canton! Very nice! Haha! They are very backwards here when it comes to roles/responsibilities that's true. But it's about time the school (well fuck-turd) decided to admit that HE needs some additional support here. I know it's all very one sided because you're only getting my version and of course every parent is going to side with their child and support them because they are a child! They need guiding through life!!! But how the school is behaving is very unprofessional. At least my DS is only there till the summer. So why they are kicking up such a fuss over a few months i've no idea.

[quote BelladiMamma]@ibelieveinmirrorballs thanks for those comments. It's important for me to remember that thing about being the person who triggers a partner to feel bad. I had that with my ex and also a couple of toxic boyfriends. MrBeau felt different from them but in the end, if the actions are the same then the feelings you end up going through are the same. Also - my house is nice, my life is pretty sorted & that means I'm ready to date and if I get serious with someone, they can enjoy what I have too. It's all upside isn't it?

@Shayelle2009 thanks for that tip. I'll look into it all now.

@Isitreallyme177 that update from you made me feel really sad. There is a thing called 'boarding school syndrome'. Have you thought about getting any therapy? I've got another appointment booked today, I needed it after all the shenanigans from my ex last week. It would be really good if you could find a way to move on from that thinking as it's not good for you 💜[/quote]
Well the silence from Mr Cricket has just been explained in a 20 minute phone call, he has sprained one wrist and broken a bone in the other whilst playing rugby. He said he missed going for our coffee, and that if he feels up to it we may go for a walk next week otherwise we'll do coffee when he gets back (he took the Ireland secondment but is coming back on his days off and non flying days) and working over Christmas if he can fly. He also offered me the use of his washing machine!😆 he also asked if I knew of any carers as he can't even wash himself. I did say I can't help with washing him.🙈🤣

@BelladiMamma💜 thank you. I have and I've been looking into it, I read something yesterday about it and all I could say was yep that's me. The thinking I'm not good enough is just the tip of the iceberg. I struggle with abandonment issues, hence the clinginess but also the not wanting to let people get close because they'll just leave anyway. I struggle hugging Mr Cricket (he always greets me with and says goodbye with a long hug and kiss on the cheek) but when he does I feel safe and actually wanted.

I probably do need a therapist . I'm not even sure what has triggered it recently because I can usually put my feelings in a box and put it away.