Dating thread 229: Traversing the world of dating

[SortingItOut]

The Rules:

The first rule about the dating thread is don't talk about it with people you're dating.

Develop a thick skin.

Do not invest emotionally too soon.

It's all BS until it actually happens.

Trust your gut instinct.

People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.

Know your worth.

If it's not fun, stop.

Loo update is mandatory.

No dating the thread.

Treat others as you'd like to be treated

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

The things you choose to ignore/ tolerate now are the reasons you will break up in the future

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

Ibelieve nice is exactly what you want. Sounds promising.

Lollysticks he's a dickhead and would never prioritise you. Good riddance.

I’m on a small uk holiday with my tweens
im actually super happy as it’s the first one we have had since the split and my son is OUT of his little man cave

it’s quite funny going out and semi flirting with waiters and basically anyone male as a single mum 😁

good luck with dates , tattoos and erections

god bless the queen !

HowlongWillThisTakeNow
I found that thread hard reading and I don’t even have a penis! I think you might be worrying unnecessarily

From what you've said it sounds like you messaged him and for several months he ignored your messages completely. You then told him that you'd been having mental health issues and he responded.

You shouldn't be angsting over the meaning of your messages or not. Do you do this with any other "friends"? I ask this as I am trying to use these same criteria for myself and if I sense myself angsting AT ALL with MrM I have to tell myself that I'm not being entirely honest re my feelings about him. Do you think you could do the same?

Thanks - why the actual feck do I actively fight NICE?

As Ibelieve said, it is pretty obvious that you don't see Mr Cricket as a friend itis. You're posting about him on a dating thread for a start. As long as you keep him in your life, you will wish for more. If he wanted more, it would have happened by now. This is not good for your mental health. Try to nurture your actual friendships and practice some self love. And block and delete Mr Cricket.

Is the passport office at Victoria open on Saturday to collect passports?
No not mistaken the thread! This is the excuse I have been given for a broken date and I don’t believe it. It’s true the passport has been held up for weeks but…

@ibelieveinmirrorballs …why is MrM not progressing into more than friendship? Is he in love with someone else? Or too busy with kids? What’s his take on this? Have you discussed it too? Is he fully divorced??
@WeWantTheFinestWines …ditto…1 session going to bed and another one early morning!!

@JangolinaPitt …I don’t see why picking up a passport means not having a date?? What’s he on about? Who’s this iron Jango?

He finished things between us because he didn't want the same level of commitment - I think his ideal (as an emotionally avoidant type who sort of doesn't do love) would be to have lots of very strong friendships with people, some of whom are fwb, and for me to be one of those. We get on incredibly well but he was never very emotional or demonstrative outside of the time we would spend together, when he does an irritatingly good impression of the world's most perfect part-time boyfriend. He's genuinely a lovely, kind and thoughtful person who tries hard to be very honest and upfront about what he's like and what he can offer. It's difficult to turn down the friendship he's offering, although he's also savvy enough to know that he shouldn't push it onto me because he knows I had stronger feelings than he did about us!

@ibelieveinmirrorballs …how long have you “dated”? I’m a perennial romantic…if he’s divorced and sorted with his kids there’s a chance your friendship can progress. I think any single guy over 45 must be thinking of finding love and someone to grow older with.

@JangolinaPitt sounds a bit dodgy

@Thisisworsethananticpated happy to hear that you're having a nice and easier time with your kids atm!

Just went for a wax with a new person. She made a mistake and took EVERYTHING off, ffs. I feel like I will have to give MrS some sort of explanation for the change, emphasising that I am not interested in looking like a prepubescent child.

He might love it! I used to like having nothing there but can't be arsed without an iron. And I used to think oh no the pre pubescent thing - but a child fanjo looks nothing like a grown woman fanjo, even a (hot) naked one.

@WeWantTheFinestWines well, that's certainly true. I sometimes wonder how different it looks as I age, whether it's obvious that a baby came out of there, etc

hotnakedgelato

thank you . We SO needs this time

ah ! Welcome to my world (no pubes)
and once they grow back they prickly

#fuckthisshit

ibelieveinmirrorballs

with him I (M) think the only approach you can have is to assume he 100% won’t change
I don’t understand this myself either
but there are these people
i do wonder what wired them that way ?

Is it possible they had a difficult divorce? Or had already met the “ love of their lives” or focused on kids?? I am not a commitment phobe but I see bits of Mr M in me
Some emotional attachment happened when @ibelieveinmirrorballs was with him or they had their escapades . I think sometimes people need time and solitude but a love interest as well. The problem is the commitment . Maybe not the right time for him ( or for me)
But I think if he ever told @ibelieveinmirrorballs , “ I love you” he meant it. Because I do too

@Thisisworsethananticpated … happy to hear you are in good place with kid and holidays and Balkan. I’m also a serial baldie down there 😂😂😂. If there’s no love interest I let it grow a bit but very little 😂😂😂

@Thisisworsethananticpated i do wonder what wired them that way

Like @Mila14 I see myself very like Mr M, I have always been upfront and honest about what I can offer in a relationship

What 'wired' me this way was having emotionally distant parents and then marrying someone emotionally distant who emotionally abused me throughout our marriage and had tonnes of emotional affairs.
That stuff scars you for life.

I'm 'lucky' to have found someone who is happy with what I'm offering.

I commend Mr M for staying true to what he wants and being honest.
I also commend @ibelieveinmirrorballs for knowing that he can't offer what she wants and walking away from their 'relationship'.

@SortingItOut …I commend your sincerity!… I’ve been reading your posts with utmost interest. It’s quite amazing I recognize snippets of myself in many of the ladies posting here. It’s quite nice and I feel we are quite free to say what we want and not being over judged … on the contrary… lots of empathy here

@Mila14 I know that I don't want to follow the norm regarding relationships, society is very lacking in showing people what is possible so I like to fly the flag for stating clearly our needs and sticking with it.

Reading Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl was like a smack in the face and so I started counselling to address all my issues.

I know I don't want a full on relationship of living together etc
Right now I can't see a time in the future when I would change my mind but who knows.

I love living on my own (with adult children, 1 of whom is at Uni and when back splits her time between me and her Dad) and even though its been 4 years it still brings me joy.
I really like Mr K and seeing him one or two evenings a week works for me (and him as he has his son 4 nights a week).
I'm not big on emotions and neither is he. We rub along in a relationship lite with no expectations- its perfect.

@SortingItOut Bought the book 😂😂😂. You are very lucky with Mr K. I don’t want to live with any man either. Maybe in the future but I’m not sure

Thanks all for thoughts (and support!) re MrM. It feels like it would be a lot easier if he were just a bastard. But he's not. I think he's pretty great and hope we do stay in each other's lives (eventually, it might be that we need to not be for now).

@Mila14 we never said I love you, it only went on for a few months and wasn't really that kind of a relationship... we would meet every fortnight and have a brilliant weekend away, and text or chat a fair amount in between but not in a soppy way. I think it was him realising that if it carried on, I would want a bit more - to integrate a bit into each other's lives. Nothing outrageous, and as he said - perfectly normal things to want. But he was happy the way things were and didn't want more than that.

It's very hard to walk away completely. I left it alone for a couple of months with NC after it ended and then got in touch about something inconsequential - he called me immediately and suggested we meet the next day. We then spent 12 hours together and it was exactly as it had been before except this time we were able to talk a lot more openly about what had happened and about his emotional issues, because this time it wasn't so personal and neither of us were getting defensive. When we spoke earlier this week he said something a bit confusing about how he's decided he wants to try to be "a better person" about all of this stuff and joked and said he'd decided to be celibate but then went on to say he's thinking of going to see a therapist to discuss his inability to do love or vulnerability. The very cliffhanger we ended on was on the fact that he wasn't able or willing to do this to sort his issues out and I decided I had to respect that and it wasn't really the right thing for someone you'd known a few months to be haranguing you to get counselling. And so - it left me feeling a bit weird. I need to leave it be. Trying to let it all go knowing that he isn't going anywhere, that I don't need to try to force anything, and that I need to move on. What is meant to be will be, and even though it's my instinctive urge to try to press people into saying exactly what they think of me and exactly what they want and to eliminate all uncertainty... I need to let it go.

Sorry for the essay, it's helping to write it all out.

It’s been funny having a holiday as a single mum
I like it
I don’t look at nuclear families or couples and feel a ‘pang’ anymore
im happy in our little 3

i saw a couple who were mid argument and I was like ‘yeah , that was me’

im very happy to feel this way !

im not pining for anyone (Balkan) either

ibelieveinmirrorballs

given your last post I’d say you have clearly stirred some emotions in him also - and made him think
but , if he won’t or can’t change …..

SortingItOut

it’s interesting as some people have what you experience and then end up damaged , and seeking pointless futile unions (see ‘women who love too much’ !

so maybe better to be your way
less pain !

I like how everyone here has different things and ways
hetero normative we ain’t !