Dating Thread 242 - Mid-Summer daters

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The Rules:

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

1. Develop a thick skin.
2. Do not invest emotionally too soon.
3. It's all BS until it actually happens.
4. Trust your gut instinct.
5. People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
6. Know your worth.
7. If it's not fun, stop.
8. 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

😂 I have my fb dob as 1913 so I dread to think what matches I'd get if i signed up 😂

That’s the bit I find, so many of them don’t really message. Then they leave a day or two and pick up where they left off, etc. It makes it hard to get to that initial meet up as you’re not quite sure if they are even wanting to meet or are stuck in pen pal land.

(PS I did a profile review for you last year sometime, I remember you had a lovely summer photo with a river as the backdrop)

Aw no @PinkIdentity I'm gutted to hear that, it was sounding so promising! I can understand that giving you the ick, it would me too by the sound of it.

Just catching up with posts over the past few days and it’s nice some of you are progressing with your dates and it sucks to hear there are so many men being juvenile and crude in their messages - what a turn off!

re. Height chat - no one should be lying about it but I understand why they do and I agree it’s so different when you meet people IRL. People aren’t quite so fussed about age /height etc. I’m kind of lucky I guess in that I don’t worry about a man being too short as I’m under 5ft 3 but also because I see height as the least interesting thing about a guy! I can get why some tall women want men who are tall though although personally I think it looks fine when the man is shorter.

the main guy (iron?) I’m talking to right now is 6ft 3, so I’ll definitely wear heels when we meet! I’ll call him Mr Politics as we talk a fair bit about political theories!

@Ghislainedefeligonde I found if I take things really slow with the men who seem like love bombers they lose interest - possibly because they see me as a hard nut to crack and want to move on their next victim. I see those early stages as them dropping bait and seeing who bites. If you retain a degree of detachment and ensure they know you’re not constantly accessible for messages or meet ups it does put them off a bit. The men who are just eager but are actually genuine are more patient. So it’s a good way of getting rid of at least some of the fakers/love bombers.

I think they get a kick out of deceiving women so they prefer to lie to a woman who wants something more than to be honest with someone who is open to casual sex.

@NellyTheCake have you set your location preferences as 'strong preference' or any other variable as that will help narrow it down/be more accurate.

My friend uses Facebook dating and gets hundreds of likes but I'd say she hasn't got many strong preferences plus it sounds awful but the men tend to be a very mixed bag. I tried it for a bit and saw a lot of the same faces, plus a lot of IT people.

@Meepme yes, distance is a strong preference.
It's weird. If I get a like from someone local it says they don't match my preferences when they are within my distance settings.
But I can't see profiles of anyone less than about 50miles away.

I'll probably give up in a few days. The standard of men on there isn't very good.

@GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife thank you. I still have my river photo and some new ones.
But I still struggle to get any interest on any of the apps

I found FB dating a bit rubbish tbh. Didn't have the location issues like you, but I never got notifications if someone messaged, so I would go to WhatsApp v quickly and then the convo would dry up. I did find the guys on there to be of a poorer quality than say Bumble. It is good that it doesn't show your friends tho.
Best of luck with it.

I have fixed my fbook dating issues by logging off & on again.

Still hasn't fixed the quality of men on there 🙄

@Thewildthingsliveatmyhouse I agree that Bumble seems to be better. But I think I've managed 3 matches/dates in about 5 years.

Currently trying to understand Hinge. It seems to become more popular where I live. But I'm a little confused about what I'm supposed to do.

NellyTheCake

it’s pretty simple 😊

create a profile

receive likes 👍
gjve likes 👍

the main thing about hinge is that it does have the ability to showcase more of your personality that say Tinder

You do have to pay though to get the most out of it

Thank you
I got stuck on answering 'my ideal date is...' etc type of questions. I need to think of some interesting answers.

I was also under the impression you were supposed to like/comment on individual parts of a profile, rather than just "swipe right". Think I've misunderstood that bit.

You can choose the prompts and avoid the cheesy ones

I think you can both comment and simply like too

they have upgraded it a bit since I was there

Itssnotunusual I had chip shop goodies too! I hope you enjoyed your freedom

NellyTheCake It feels a bit like a job interview doesn't it!
I remember looking at Hinge & Cupid ages ago & they didn't make much sense to me, but I've recently gone back on Cupid & I get it now. Absolutely 0 going on for me on there though.

I managed the full hour of Speed dating on Bumble for the first time yesterday... I just clicked match on everybody & looked at their profiles later. My ideal age range is 37-50 but I had one at 34, one at 56 & one at 57.

So I ended up with only 3 to chat with, one promptly started the sex chat ('I like the bumps under the buttons at the top of your dress') WTF! Second one asked if I'd had second thoughts about my ideal first date (mentioned on the speed dating) 'Er, no, I'd still like to go for a walk & a chat'. He then unmatched! Third one, disappeared for hours then said 'Sorry, I forgot to ask your name' so I sent 'My name'

& he unmatched!

To be perfectly honest whilst I have used bumble, hinge, eHarmony among others in the past I have only every really found people I actually would want to talk to on tinder. It's quite possibly my age and those within my age range just are not really using those sites/ apps. I've just never had any luck with them! Mr Scott and Mr Analogue were both from tinder as well as any other irons I've entered the talking stage with. It is just Mr Analogue at the minute though!

I feel like I'm unusual for not talking to anyone else to be honest. But if I like someone they usually have my full attention till I see how that thing is going to pan out.

I'm currently receiving a steady stream of WhatsApp conversation from Mr. Analogue. We have quite a similar sense of humor which definitely helps keep the conversation going. Though there's a few other similarities that are kind of weirding me out which I discovered on our date on Thursday. Just a few shared quirks (that he didn't know I had and I only discovered by happenstance)

I didn’t get on with Hinge at all. Hated those prompts. Went through all of them and none of them I could think of a suitable answer for.

Badoo is hideous as well. I literally got bombarded with messages from totally unsuitable men.

Still chatting to a couple of Bumble and another couple on FB dating but can’t say any of them are particularly floating my boat right now.

Is it just me or does anyone else find men you haven’t met Calling you babe dating sexy gorgeous beautiful etc jarring?

Hinge is the only one I’m using now! I did find the prompts a bit annoying at first but then I chose different prompts so I could think of better answers.

Yes - I agree re. “Affectionate” names with men you’ve never met. I often unmatch if it happens. Once I even said to the guy “thanks but oatycookies is fine” after his initial message where he called me cute, beautiful and gorgeous 🙄

All the guys I’m talking to currently on the app just use my name thankfully. I’ve heard some men do it because they are talking to so many women at same time and don’t want to slip up and say the wrong name. And others are trying to create a false sense of intimacy in the laziest and quickest way possible

Me too! If someone opens with something like 'hey beautiful or hey cutie' I actually find it really off putting.

@Itssnotunusual …I’ve never used Tinder 😳… I’m late 40s, so I thought it just wasn’t good for my age? May I ask which age bracket are you on?

Mid 20s so it's definitely popular with the age bracket I'm dating (24-34). My recently divorced aunt who's in her early 60s has used it among other apps though and has had some chats/ dates from it so I wouldn't discount it at all. I find the interface the most intuitive of all the apps, personally!

It’s not just you… I find it off putting being called all those things when I don’t know the guy enough and we are not really even close to being an item…🙄. I’m on best behaviour and talking to NO ONE. I really don’t want to waste time and energy if I don’t really like the guy enough. Hopefully your current irons develop a frisson and you will see your boat moving in the right direction

By the way… details count. Got talking to a chap yesterday and on paper he was looking ok. He had instagram few pics linked to his profile…it was nice places, beach pic…oh hang on!…I think I know this hotel… yup…pic of 2 drinks and a hand of woman with married rings on it. Asked the guy and he said, pics were last year and the woman had been married before and was now an ex girlfriend. Show me a woman who is divorced and wears her old husband marriage band… I promptly UNMATCHED 😂😂😂

@PinkIdentity I'm mid 50s and most of my dates and 2 relationships have come from tinder.

Thanks for everyone's help with Hinge.
I've put it aside for now while I think of what to write for the prompts.
And I have a chat going on fbook dating which is ok so far.

I’ve never actually tried Tinder so tried to sign up earlier.
Got a message saying my account opening was as on hold while they checked ‘inconsistencies’

Then got saying that due to me breaking their T&C’s that Im banned for life and no appeals can be entered into.

WTAF???

Good level of wariness there @PinkIdentity

The only situation where I think that is OK would be someone who was widowed.
In fact my girlfriend asked if I minded if she wore her wedding ring on our first date, I didn't as both of us are widowed and never stopped loving our partners.
It's just they arent here to love any more if that makes sense

@SamW98 I had exactly the same! I contacted them and basically they didn’t care, wouldn’t tell me what I had done (nothing!) and couldn’t fix it. I hadn’t even used the bloody thing! So, the block is for life too 😂

What on earth happened ?? Can you call a number and speak to someone about this? They clearly have made a mistake