Online Dating - Lovebombing and Ghosting

[November657]

Hi everyone. I’ve been using dating apps for the past few months and I’m starting to notice that some men are very quick to start lovebombing you- talking to you about very personal things quickly, saying they feel a connection with you, promising you the world…these type of men usually ghost after a month or so.

Anyone else having a similar experience? To be clear I haven’t got physical with any of these men and most of this lovebombing will be done over the phone prior to meeting.

Any advice to avoid this moving forward?

Stop talking so much before you meet, take literally everything with a pinch of yeah yeah yeah. Pay close attention to the stories they tell about themselves, ime they will literally tell tales on themselves quite quickly.

What’s the actual purpose of this though? Do they just get an ego boost talking to a woman? It seems like such a waste of both our time

Google their name.
Check out as much as you can before you meet. Place of work? Sports interest/club name?
Never ever fall for a hard luck tale and give or loan money. Ever.
Keep your wits about you & your antennae up.
Tell someone where/when you’re meeting them and what their contact details are.
Don’t sleep with them too soon.
You'll soon sort the wheat from the chaff.
It’s fun. Enjoy yourself.

They might think that if you feel 'emotionally close' to them you'll be more likely to have sex. They are testing which levers to pull, even unconsciously

I have considered that. I fell for it once and was really hurt when he ghosted me (we didn’t even meet up- pathetic!)

Im starting to think these dating apps are riddled with emotionally unstable/damaged men and losing hope! It does leave me questioning if it’s me though!

Yeah, for many of them it represents a higher likelihood of getting laid than approaching women IRL.
A lot of them are terrified of women, especially if you are reasonably confident and you've lived a life. I think that's sometimes why they don't meet - they liked the ego boost of messaging, but IRL you might rumble them

That would make sense in a way. I had one of them come back after ghosting me, ask for forgiveness and a second chance, just to do it again! (Still without ever meeting)!

Obviously there are happy, confident ones, but there are many who are not. And as we grow older we learn not to try and 'save' them.
OLD is good for getting outside your usual social milieu, but I fear it might favour men who are too scared to leave the house

I haven't dated many due to being very picky, Jack the lad types - no, free spirits -no. Also anyone that doesn't have stability in their life or had a recent toxic break up.
I did have one short term relationship just over a year who was very full on at first then decided he couldn't deal with the 'pressure' and still 3 years later! He tries to come back because the grass isn't greener, lol I just ignore him now. Lots of them pop up again after months of no contact, sometimes years, I'm not dating now but makes me wary of giving my number out in future.

Yes they always tend to come back because they just don’t have the abundance of options the way us women do…they get ghosted and ignored left right and centre so they try to go back to a door that was once open. Good for you for putting that boundary up though

That's absolutely it

Would you consider daily messages prior to meeting a bit of a red flag. I’m talking about good morning texts and lots of back and forth?

I'm not the most experienced with OLD, by I met my bf on there and only exchanged messages for a couple of nights before meeting for a coffee and the rest is history. I wouldn't invest too much time before a quick catch up irl, as you've found, it can be an utter waste of time and that can be ascertained often within seconds face to face

If you match, you should be meeting that week. Ideally ‘prime time’ Friday or Saturday. That’s the green flag.

You absolutely should not be spending a fortnight+ pen palling each other with him spamming you with ‘good morning beautiful 💕💕💕’ texts. That’s just building fake intimacy on his part in the hole that you’ll shag him on the 72nd of Jultember when you finally meet. Or, you’re never meeting and he just wants a pen full stop.

Available long periods of message and talking on phone prior to meeting.

You'll gain more from meeting.

Being love bombed and then ghosted is definitely better than being love bombed and ending up in a relationship with a narcissist!

I wouldn’t go back and forth texting too much. I’ve not done OLD but have a colleague that does. I think that a few messages back and forth is necessary to establish if you wish to meet or not, if you’ve got much in common but I’d save the majority of it for the meeting. As long as you know enough to satisfy whatever your boundaries are, keep the conversation for the first date. I’ve recently started dating an ex colleague and after he emailed me to ask if I fancied a drink (after bumping into him again a couple of years after he left), and once we agreed a time and date (5 days later) we didn’t message at all. 14 days between date 1 and 2 and we didn’t have each other’s phone numbers so only a few messages re meeting again on the work IM system. Then we swapped numbers but we keep most chat for in person.

i’d see it as a big red flag to be love bombed by someone I’d not met. I see so many posts on here saying how different they looked from their profile or how they can’t hold a conversation etc

Only started using it in November and there was this one guy who love bombed me in our first WhatsApp chat. I was very reserved and he said maybe we could talk again on the weekend. I never heard from him again! I unmatched online and deleted his number within a couple of days. I suspect he was testing me and seeing if I fell for the bait and when I didn’t follow up begging for another chat, he realised I wasn’t hooked as he hoped. That said, you find men like this IRL too.

earlier this week I had a man send me an angry message and tell me my ‘bad attitude’ is why I’m single in my 30s and looking online… all because I (politely) refused to give him my number the first day he messaged me. Blocked!

I do agree though it’s best to limit text and phone calls until after you’ve met them. Some men are just looking for female energy in their life and perhaps an ego boost and will happily waste your time or string you along.

I've given my number to just one guy this month and he was meant to call Friday night or Saturday (today) unless he calls by 9pm I’ll assume he’s ghosted me and he will get blocked if I don’t hear from him by Monday with a reasonable excuse.

Think the best thing is to block & move on quickly. It’s tedious trying to figure these people out.

Tbh I feel like a passing connection or one chat isn’t such a problem and often they fall out of the picture quickly.

I have had men send me daily messages for weeks, constant chats, what feels like a good connection, deep conversations, on the same wavelength - then poof, one day they just disappear back into the void they appeared from. I find it hard to fathom why they would put all that time and energy into being my penpal and never want anything more.

Tbh, I dont think having a good connection over text early on is an issue. If there's any hesitance about setting a date to meet once initial good chats have happened then nope. If there's no momentum, there's nothing there.

Be careful as a lot of the really full on men can be fake accounts by scammers
often the very good looking ones in the military etc and often with a really big sob story.