Dating Thread 220 - where we forget about pensions and get back to dating

[WeWantTheFinestWines]

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

Glad you asked @PurpleStripyScarf!

[quote StartingAgain33]@InABetterPlaceNow I don’t think that sounds too soon at all! You guys have had a good build up, I remember now :) You probably know so much about eachother!

Sorry, I keep forgetting who’s who. I’m awful with names - especially avatar names - unless they’re next to faces so I can build up a picture of a person!! I often end up not commenting on someone’s sitch as I don’t want to get their back history wrong! Is that just me?![/quote]
That is me too! I'm awful with names in general, usernames in particular and I often don't comment for fear of getting everything wrong.

@PurpleStripyScarf nothing amazing, just insulation material that the warehouse workers hadn't loaded properly so when he came to double check everything one pallet fell off and smacked his face...he was so mad!
@Stayingstrongish yes try letting your mind wander a bit when your chatting with someone and see what floats in, then you can work it into the conversation! You've got a ton to look forward to with all the ages... 12's really fun, he's still happy too read before bed/keep a night light on but then it's full on 'gangsta' mode when he's
out with his mates or when they come here. Haha!!

School meeting is in less than an hour! Got to figure out how we can tell this teacher to 'do one' in the politest and calmest way possible!

Hey @Naimee87 hope the psycho teacher behaved himself at your meeting! What a nasty piece of work.

Wow @Eesha soooo cute how you guys haven’t DTD yet really sweet!

Had a lovely luncheon but there was only us and one other table in the entire restaurant which is always packed to the rafters at this time of year. It’s very depressing.

Thought I'd check in and say hi! I've been busy de-cluttering. Mr Cricket's place was so nice and tidy and uncluttered that it gave me the urge to sort my flat out. It also helps me to not think about things. The girlfriend is supposed to be visiting now so I am sat on my hands not messaging even though I want to ask him about the Cricket (it's thanks to him I have a new found interest and understanding as he talks to me about it and explains it so easily).

My head has been all over the place this week but a lot of that is to do with being the week before my period (at least I can say I'm not pregnant, never have I been so happy to be woken up by period pain) and the 5 year anniversary of when my marriage ended is next week.

In amongst all the paperwork that I've been shredding I found 4 copies of my divorce application. So my goal for next year is to finally get that sorted. Mr Cricket and I were talking about divorce on Saturday and he said "you know what its like" but I don't as I'm not yet.

On the subject of Mr Cricket, I believe we'll be okay, I think our friendship can handle this(we will just be extremely good, close friends now🙈). We value our friendship too much to fuck it up and walk away. I said to him on Saturday he has to do what's right for him. I can't tell him what to do, he needs to work that one out.

Now I'm off to declutter the bedroom and my tupperware cupboard. This could take some time🤣.

Heeeey Isit 👋💗

@Heartbeats0708

Glad you asked *@PurpleStripyScarf*!

Ha ha so it's not just me whose mind was in the gutter about his "load"?! 

Good luck with the school meeting @Naimee87

@Isitreallyme177 well done you. Good to keep busy. Tough situation, and you sound very stoic 👏 👏

Arf at load @Naimee87

(On a more serious note he’s right to be furious - they should be triple checking things are secure that’s a serious H and S thing and could have been very nasty for someone!)

@Shayelle2009 I felt the same at my local Italian, usually packed to the rafters but this time hardly anyone. This is going to be a tough month for some.

Yes, we decided not to DTD though agree it's pretty inevitable. We sortof want to make it special as its been a while for him plus we recognise its actually going to mean something to us both.

I have a few group coffees I’ve organised for next week - assume I’ll just remind everyone to try to take a test before we meet? Not sure how busy places will be.

I don't know if you'll be able to watch this, but it's made me laugh out loud all on my own, which doesn't really happen ever

vm.tiktok.com/ZM8cbQpxn/

@PurpleStripyScarf it is what it is. I can either sit here wallowing some more or get on with things. I've done my wallowing and picking apart everything. It happened, it's how we deal with it from now on that matters. To be honest his life is still a mess and it will just get messier if he goes to court for joint custody. I'm happy that he felt he could confide in me about all that and the fact he is lonely(why he didn't come to me before I don't know, I even said that to him).

On the plus side I had the best sex I've ever had🙈🙊.

@WeWantTheFinestWines

I don't know if you'll be able to watch this, but it's made me laugh out loud all on my own, which doesn't really happen ever

vm.tiktok.com/ZM8cbQpxn/

Some nice dancing on ice there @WeWantTheFinestWines 🤣🤣

So happy for you @Eesha! What a nice way to go into 2022 🥰🥰

@WeWantTheFinestWines

Having had a serious accident on ice (my mate bought me some crampons) I have learned through careful research that's actually the best way to fall - "go low and land on your bum" as it's safer than face forward.

trying to get my booster tonight, wish me luck!

[quote SpringlikeBunk]@WeWantTheFinestWines

Having had a serious accident on ice (my mate bought me some crampons) I have learned through careful research that's actually the best way to fall - "go low and land on your bum" as it's safer than face forward.

trying to get my booster tonight, wish me luck![/quote]

I'm so impressed with that guy but the look on his face makes me howl with laughter! Good look with the booster, it's a great feeling to have triple protection.

@Naimee87

It is odd - like in my age group I recall being 16-17 and ME AND EVERYONE BEING CONVINCED how ugly normal length female legs looked like in flat shoes.

Like you couldn't be "dressed up" or attractive if you wore flats, or there was something wrong/unfinished with your look.

Now it's so unusual to have heels! I have one pair of wedges but only wore once, last years summer. The make up went years ago too.

And I've been "out-out" and to nice places and gain romantic and sexual attention from men who actually are a lot more attractive than the earlier ones!

Sending love back my insecure teenage arse

[quote SpringlikeBunk]@ibelieveinmirrorballs

Yeh I did get where you're coming from - obviously it's not down to your iron to change his lifestyle or comms to suit you

But if you feel it's gravitating more towards "occasional dates on his schedule" and you want to feel more closeness and flirtation then I think it's good you're saying that what you have isn't enough?

Neither of you is right or wrong but it's just articulating what you're feeling and where you are.

Plus maybe I'm sexist, but I like to feel a little bit pursued rather than "scheduled in"?

I mean I am very fond of MrHedgehog for sure, and he's "on the right side of enthusiastic behaviour" so far (just about!).

I mentioned I found it emotionally tough having the big gaps in communication and he has responded to that - not with lots of phone calls but just checking in more.

But if he goes all taciturn on me (he's admitted he's a workaholic plus has a big existing international social life) then obviously it's his right, but also it's down to me to make changes or detach or multi-date a bit.

Like if he doesn't contact me much and then resumes in a month, I'm not sure I'll feel connected enough to prioritise him? Or if we meet then might be back to "first date" level.[/quote]
Well I was brave and vocalised something of how I was feeling this morning - albeit during the working day so not ideal. But I woke up thinking fuck this, other than one decent phone call midweek we've had very little contact and none initiated by him really. Adding this to the hormonal maelstrom I've been in and probably what amounts to a comedown from the weekend and I was really starting to think 'this isn't working for me'.

I managed to say somewhat strangulatedly that the very little contact this week, plus his batting away my flirty text on Monday, plus the big week I had having to go out for dinner with exH, starting chats with therapist etc... had all led to me feeling a bit wobbly and weird. I said I don't need contact every day or even much more than we have but after an intense and brilliant weekend to have so little didn't work for me and that I think I'd just needed to hear him say "that was a brilliant weekend, let's do it again soon". To be fair he said exactly that on Sunday as we said goodbye, but.... . We agreed to talk it all through on Sunday as I'm out for the day tomorrow and I felt a LOT better for letting him in a bit to how I was feeling, and even though I felt vulnerable (hard for me) I think I have to stop pretending that everything's super brilliant and I'm fine when I'm clearly not.

He just called and opened the conversation by saying he was really sorry he hadn't been more supportive this week, and "by the way, I had a totally brilliant weekend and please can we do it again soon?". I feel so much better . I think I really do need to hear things stated verbally sometimes! It's so hard for me to articulate what I need without feeling like it's being NEEDY.

@Eesha How lovely!! It sounds like you're building a wonderful foundation!!

@Isitreallyme177 Good job keeping busy! He definitely needs to figure stuff out. Just make sure you don't let him go down the "no decision" route. You deserve better than that!

@ibelieveinmirrorballs Yay! Well done for speaking to him about it and I'm so glad he validated you! I don't think it's being needy to state how you're feeling about things (though I'm guilty of thinking the same!) especially if you share the other things that might be playing in to you feeling wobbly that aren't about them. You can't expect someone else to be a mind reader, it's not fair on them, and we all have a different experience. Then hopefully they can meet you half way or at least understand you a little better - I think it's only really "needy" if you're expecting them to drop everything, but we want teamwork, right?!

We had our work zoom Xmas quiz today! Was made extra fun by sharing bits of it with MrT.

I won't go into the details but MrT video called me last night as he needed to vent about something and I was just blown away by how similar we are in the way we think things and also how respectful he is of other peoples thought processes. It was nice to be able to support him a bit and for him to let his vulnerability show. Had I not decided to already shorten his name, I definitely would have after that 😂

Weirdly, now I'm getting used to the non love bomby bit I'm also starting to pick up on the more subtle things that make me feel like actually, I think he might like me about the same as I do him at this point. Also realised I'm quite used to partners low key hating me (or at least seeing me as a miserable cretin who can be controlled) on some level, so that's a new thing to work on!

In the booster queue, moving well so far. Have a book in case. No hot doctors to be seen.

@InABetterPlaceNow I'm either firmly in the friend zone or I'm something more but I'm not an inbetween, and if I'm firmly in the friend zone it's not happening again. I woke up crying as I had a horrible dream about my old cat, I went to send Mr Cricket a message to tell him as it would have been something I would do (he always asks after my cats like you do with children and he was there for me when she died) but I stopped myself.

@Isitreallyme177 I'm sorry about the nightmare! ❤️ I'm glad you're thinking it through. Unfortunately I speak from experience, having been swept up in what feels like quite a similar situationship and I made the wrong decisions (I'm a horrible human).

Ofc it ended up in heartbreak all round, some serious scars on my part, and it's actually something I've ended up disclosing to MrT as if we were to go FB official at some point there are people with pitchforks that might try to get some revenge. It was horrible, as I was sure it would be a dealbreaker, but thankfully I've worked through all the issues (now) that lead me not to be boundaried enough and was able to explain them, and thankfully he was able to hear that.

Just going to hide in a corner now for making bad decisions in my past 😔 I don't want that for you!!!

@InABetterPlaceNow I really like him, it took me a lot to put my feelings back in the box and forget about them when he told me about the girlfriend last month. The past week I've done a lot of thinking, I said to a friend this morning "I wonder if he's dissecting it all to the same amount" her response was "most probably".

It doesn't make us bad people, it makes us confused people. I don't know if he'll tell her, I don't know what he'll do. What I do know is worrying myself sick won't help, pushing him won't help.

My ex took the moral high ground the other night, and I just thought you have no right to take the moral high ground over him.

You're not a horrible human, you're human, no ones perfect and if they say they are they're lying.

@Isitreallyme177 ❤️ It's so hard, isn't it? My best advice, is to just allow him the space. As boundaries have been crossed, you might also have to be careful of it turning into an emotional affair (if he continues with the gf) as things are really fuzzy in that area and it really does leave you open for the other stuff happening even if really infrequently and you becoming stuck and hoping. It only takes you both being in a wobbly space.

We've been in NC for over a year now, but had you asked me back then I was sure things would work out. They might do for you, but it could go the other way. I'm now at the point that I'm really glad they didn't. MrT has all the qualities that he did, plus the ones I wished he'd had (being able to communicate, knowing what he wants and being boundaried etc etc).

It's why even if MrT and I don't work out I have faith that I'll meet someone who's "right" eventually. I'd never put myself in that position again - I'd walk away and if he made the choices he needed to and came back we would have picked things up from there.

I can only say that for having been through it though. I wasn't able to at the time - was a dark place in my life for a number of reasons and I needed him at the time.

The thing is @Isitreally177 is he has a girlfriend and you willingly slept with him. And now you want to stay friends with him. Don't you think its all a bit strange in that you then will not move onto anyone readily available? It's all very well saying you're only human but you're the one that will inevitably get hurt. He's giving you breadcrumbs, knowing you like him, whereas his girlfriend gets the 'girlfriend' status etc.