Dating thread 230: Summer shenanigans!

[ButterflyOfShay]

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.

PS forgot to say…. @FloydPepper I’d give little miss Stroppy a wide birth! ❤️

ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers
FloydPepper

ive had a disastrous week of self inflicted mistakes and too much stress alcohol

car crash emotionally
and yesterday lost iphone

so I’m off the sauce
I mean it

@Thisisworsethananticpated …are you ok? All ok with Balkan? Try to enjoy your holidays and get a grip on your drinking. Do anything you need to recover and get your mojo back

Hey @Thisisworsethananticpated sorry to hear you've had a disastrous day (or two).

Others have more experience with quitting drinking than me, and I'm sure they'll be along soon. I'd be tempted in your shoes to give sobriety a whirl - you might find the emotions settle and clarity floats back in to keep you company. I know things have been rough for you, so sending you virtual 🤗 and ❤️

Good luck tonight - hope you have a lovely time. And I’m glad the ‘gentle probing’ shed a bit of light 😬

I’m ok but I’m in my last nerve with kids
I literally cannot wait to get some respite from them both
and research a scholarship to military boarding schools (joke !)

I’m back from my date zero, which was interesting.

now, not blowing my own trumpet here but I know I’m a bright bloke. But blimey I felt like the class dunce tonight. She’s super intelligent. Academic, lecturer, author. English isn’t her first language so over messages she comes across as bright but in person it’s another level.

Which is great. It’s my type. I just think we might differ a bit on our politics and beliefs about a few things. I need to digest I think.

Ha  I hear you @Thisisworsethananticpated

Can I ship along some of the local kids who've been raving out and about near my peaceful rural location tonight, I'm sure there will be bottles and cans galore to pick up on the dog walk tomorrow ... nothing I didn't do mind you

Politics can be a real issue for me @FloydPepper but .... how exciting!!! A good date!!!

A nice date. I wasn’t blown away romantically but she’s fascinating to talk to. Super passionate about her job, her writing etc.

I guess if I do see her again she needs a name for the thread…

@Thisisworsethananticpated hope you're feeling better today. A period off the sauce can work wonders - it's like a secret weapon you can wait to deploy when ready. Signs this may be imminent include ✅ losing one's iPhone and ✅ plotting to send one's children to remote and austere boarding schools

@FloydPepper sounds like a great date to me... the big thing I look for rather than commonality of views necessarily is openness to discussion and the ability to think critically - I like to think whatever views I hold are open to being examined thoughtfully and I'll adapt/change them if someone challenges them adequately! She sounds like she got your brain fizzing and wanting to know more about her, which is pretty fabulous.

No further letters, paintings, or other gifts arriving by carrier pigeon here... I'm in London next week for a couple of work awards dinners and MrNice in theory is going to meet me after one of them for a snatched 'date' ... other than that we don't really have the chance to see each other till the end of July so that's what it'll have to be. Oscillating between being quite into it all and having doubts/panics - think we need to get into a routine of seeing each other more regularly but our calendars have been a nightmare with holidays and commitments that hardly intersect at all. This will improve in a few weeks' time but is very frustrating for now.

FloydPepper

did you fancy her ! Sorry to get base but putting aside the intellectual sparks 😁

ibelieveinmirrorballs, BelladiMamma and Mila
all roads are leading to …. Sparking water and cordial . Kindly noted x

@FloydPepper great sounding date, you sound like you are in awe and I think that's great!!!

@Thisisworsethananticpated I can't drink (much) at the moment because of health issues (weird stuff going on with liver enzymes) & also out of respect for MrD who's teetotal, so I now indulge my 'it's Friday night' feelings with zero alcohol martini, and botanicals. Lashings of tonic water of all varieties and different colours, a ton of ice cubes too. Amazing how you can trick the brain sometimes!!!

Thanks everyone for your comments.

My best friend told me to reach out to him as she thinks we've both been too defensive and rather than discuss things its easier for us to end things.
She thinks we need a chat about it all and about the future as she thinks I will want to live with someone in the future and I'm saying I don't as I don't want the same crap living together situation I had in my marriage (very true, these are exactly my reasons!!) but Mr K is not my ex and he's actually nice and normal.

So I've messaged and he's agreed to meet for a chat because we both weren't in good places when we chatted before but he has reservations about the future....

@ibelieveinmirrorballs im the same, I have views but now than happy to have them changed by a better argument or better information. My reservations are mainly around that I feel she had very strong and well informed views so where we did disagree the conversation became about her “winning” that argument. Argument is too strong, but you know what I mean.

my last long term relationship was with someone super bright and forensic in their argument so when we fell out I never felt listened to, I felt cross examined and whilst she usually “won” it felt like that was the point. Victory rather than resolution.

last night was good natured, deep but not an argument, but I felt shades of “let me explain why you’re wrong” rather than “this is what I think”. I think for some people a conversation with differences of opinion can become an intellectual exercise in putting a case across, and I felt shades of that (which reminded me of my last relationship).

@Thisisworsethananticpated did I fancy her? I’m not sure. I didn’t not fancy her…

*more than happy
bloody auto correct

@SortingItOut I am glad to hear that you had a good chat with your friend. I’m sure it will have felt useful because she knows you well and everything that has gone before ( marriage etc) It’s also positive that Mr K has agreed to meet and talk through things. I always try to tell myself in these situations to listen more than I speak or rather ask the pertinent questions and then listen to their answers. ( I have a habit of answering my own questions- did it the other night with Mr V 🤦🏻‍♀️) I guess the other thing to be clear about is IF you continue to see each other what needs to shift or change going forward? Being sidelined by him on Sunday understandably was hurtful but in your subsequent discussion the future became the reason he gave for ending things. So is never living with someone an absolute no go for you? And was he using it as an easy get out , saying something that you couldn’t argue with?
3 years indicates that you have both made an effort to sustain this. I guess now it’s a case of working out which bits are dealbreakers for both of you.

SortingItOut
look after yourself lovely

and yes after 3 years some completion is necessary and critical (or not completion )

i was struck by how sad you felt when you went to that event , and didn’t feel like you could talk with him . that felt really sad to read .

look im the last person to dish out advice
but that struck me for you and how it must have felt . It might be worth flagging that to him and hearing how he responds

FloydPepper

that’s good enough ! Have you texted since (that dreaded question )

@FloydPepper …this is one of my problems with the few people I dated. I don’t not fancy them… conversation is good etc…but I want to fancy massively and feel ultra connected. Im not ready to settle yet…

@SortingItOut …you need to clarify to yourself and with him whether you both want a future together. Maybe it’s possible to stay together without projecting or planning much in the future? It’s good you both have a second chance at talking. All the best
@Thisisworsethananticpated …I’m addicted to green tea🤓…try other things too, or put strawberries and ginger and fruit in your water jug. You will feel great soon. I totally get the kids issue. I’m now bracing for 3 weeks of kids but I will find my me time too 😊. Very important we have our space too

@SortingItOut this sounds like a very productive conversation with your friend in that it has made you consider whether it's reasonable to resist ever living with someone again on the basis of your previous experience. This is not to say that living together is of course always the most desirable option but I think even to raise that as something to be contemplated is a good thing, from what you've said before. I hope that you have a really great talk with Mr K and I'm so pleased he's agreed to it. It sounds to me as though there's something amidst all of this, to do with commitment and vulnerability and how to negotiate moving closer together in a way that isn't threatening to either of you, that is worth working on. As @Thisisworsethananticpated says, the image of you feeling unable to approach him at an event, the man you have been intimate with for 3 years, is very poignant. There's something in this image which says a lot about being close to someone, but somehow still quite distant in some ways.

@FloydPepper I know exactly the kind of thing you mean, and agree that having the kind of intellectual sparring match with someone that feels like a competition to the death... till your one person's position lies in tatters, roundly defeated... that is not enjoyable at all. I think it helps if both people can retain a sense of humour about it all because that is key! My previous iron MrM was an academic and there was sometimes a sense of him behaving as though he operated at some sort of slightly loftier level when it came to all this. Our first disagreement was on the subject of Free Will and I got annoyed at his slightly patronising tone as though HE'D done this subject to death previously and anything I had to say on the matter he most likely would have already considered.

I've just done my first ever park run. Pretty badly. But I did it. <proud face>

@ibelieveinmirrorballs well done on the park run!!!!

Hello all..just caught up with all.the shenanagins in the thread, taken an hour! Busy lot. Some great stories here. My Mr farmer is ...interesting. First date last week. Got on really well.not sure massively attracted. Due to divorce crap ongoing, I realise I am emotionally unavailable and holding back on any kind of commitment. Too used to my own company I think after 3 years separated. Some great advice on this thread .... we have a coffee date soon so let's see. I'm calm and laissez-faire, he is so.intense so slight mismatch there.