Dating Thread 242 - Mid-Summer daters

[qqq82]

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 a question that I state in my profile men shouldn’t ask me. I’m happy to discuss when I meet them but not before as it’s not that important to our initial getting to know each other but I find it an annoying question (it’s to do with asking my heritage).

It’s great because it filters out the men who haven’t read my profile or the ones who have but decided to ignore my boundaries! One guy I’d been chatting to asked me it yesterday among other questions. I replied to the others and ignored that. He had the nerve to highlight that I’d “skipped a question” and I referred him to my profile.

He went quiet, sulking I suppose, so I just unmatched with him. He was a very handsome, fit guy with a good job as well but as nice as all that is I just can’t tolerate a bad attitude for superficial things.

I’ve heard a few times that men do very quick swiping, either swiping everyone then seeing who responds then looking at their profile, or else swiping the ones they’re attracted to, seeing who responds then reading their profile.

Either way, I think it’s a rare man who reads the profile before swiping or writing a message.

Teacher was like this, especially during term time , lots of
“I’m now leaving “ or “I’m so stressed “ messages , she was just permanently stressed out really

This is true of PoF as you can see who's actually looked at your profile. The majority of men who've liked me have not read my profile, just clicked like!

Hi, I was wondering how you were!

I think this permanent low level stress is a horrible thing, might it be a kind of ‘I can’t deal with you for whatever reason that I cannot verbalise but it is stressing me out’? Or ‘I made a mistake going on the apps in the first place and had no business swiping you at all’?

Yes I’ve seen it on there too 😁.

I must have swiped on hundreds of profiles, had lots of message exchanges, and gone on 7 first dates in the last 2 months, to end up back where I started.

My subscription to PoF ends today, and I think I'm going to take a break from OLD. While I agree it's a numbers game, it's just so disheartening.

based on my own experience, I would say this is probably quite true and a quite a well used strategy.
Personally I found most women don’t respond, if you messaged 5 times, probably 0 responses, message 10 times, maybe 1 or 2 replies in quite a short timeframe, so swipe 1st, filter 2nd.

filtering 1st would probably end up with 0 responses, 0 chats, 0 dates over a very long time period

Personally I would swipe or like or whatever & wait for the other person to swipe or like or whatever, unsolicited messages were an absolute waste of time

But @NoDatingFor0ldMen just take the time to get over her a bit, just because you like someone a lot does not mean it’s a good match. I blush at the thought of some of the men I really liked, who didn’t want to meet or weren’t even aware of my existence or whatever. It felt all consuming then but after a while the feelings fade.

Ohh. I can say that on PoF you can see (for example) a blurred out photo of someone with an orange t-shirt and a green blur in the corner has swiped you, but you don’t come across that picture when you are swiping. Possibly they are just your type, but because they don’t message you never get to know who they are.

And I heard a story that two women (friends, both gay) sat next to each other in a cafe. One sought out the other’s profile and swiped. The other one did not have that profile shown to her even though they were sat next to each other. They did it to see if the algorithm would help them. It did not!

Tonights date isn't happening.

No idea why. I asked him last night if he was still ok to meet. No response.
So I asked again a few hours ago, 'can you let me know if you still want to meet'

Nothing.
He seemed really keen when we spoke on the phone a few days ago.

People are weird!

Onwards and upwards @NellyTheCake, some people are strange.

One of my dates waited for me to arrive at the venue before he left his house, so I was waiting at the meeting point for almost an hour before he arrived. I was just about to get back on my train to go home when he showed up. Said he'd been stood up by someone previously, so wanted confirmation I was there before leaving home, except he forgot to tell me beforehand!

@GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife 👋
im good thanks, not doing anything much really, was just reading this thread and having a bit of a chuckle to myself about the “men” comments, thinking oh women do most of those things as well ( not the filthy bits..)

annoyingly enough teacher was in contact last week as I had said I would sponsor her for a charity thing and she wanted the money!

And she said she missed me, what can I say - score one for the fat old men 😉!

She misses you? Oh ffs 🤣

And it probably would have been slightly more elegant to just add your sponsorship in herself rather than asking you for it.

Unless…….she’s thinking she was too hasty?

Starseeking
That is very weird! I hope he was worth the wait.

I've had a date hide round the corner, waiting for me to arrive. To see whether or not he wanted to meet me.
Not sure what is weirder - spying on me or admitting it on a 1st date

NellyTheCake

ah that’s so annoying
clearly an avoidant person if he can’t even genuinely cancel and provide a reason

muppet

What an absolute coward. At least have the good manners to reply and say he’s changed his mind.

People are indeed weird. And I think a lot of people are scared of saying no. They just go silent because to them it’s easier. But the long term effect is that people back away from apps, thinking they’re full of time wasters. And then you’re not there when the serious ones are looking, you’ve already deleted the app. It does no one any good.

What?! Could he not have brought a book or something just in case? How annoying.

Yeah good point- I too have heard many swipe for everyone they find remotely attractive and aren’t delving into profiles.

I let men message first after we match then I reply, and I expect them to have a look at my profile once I’ve replied. I think the type of guy who won’t read my profile at any stage probably isn’t suited to me. To be fair many reference a joke I made on my profile about “ the way to my heart” , so at least some are reading it 😆

And if the man earlier had just said “oh my mistake didn’t see that on your profile” and moved on I’d have been fine, but it was the way he abruptly went silent on our conversation seemed a bit off to me.

If I swipe and match I always write first. I never mind doing the first message really, it’s when it’s repeatedly ignored that is a bit disheartening. I once sent one message per day for a month. Not matches, just speculative messages. Not one reply 🤣.

ah that sucks! I think I reply to everyone who messages me after we match, unless they’re being overly crude or odd in their opening messages.

I usually message any matches first.
Although I tend to wait a little while after we match. I don't want to seem too keen.

Still no word from tonight's date that didn't happen. Hasn't blocked me. Hasn't unmatched me. Just silence.

How odd. Has he read your messages? I mean, I’m assuming he’s okay?

@NoDatingFor0ldMen
It's not easy if your a caring person is it?
Early this year I paid for nearly £600 of medical bills for an acquaintance of my then girlfriend also a teacher & a very expensive cottage holiday where we went only to be dumped on the penultimate day!
I know I'm probably a bit too open in my every day life but at the time I felt really hurt.
We are still friends and she is genuinely pleased that I have found a lovely woman who truly appreciates me for who I am but bloody hell it still hurts.