Dating multiple people when trying to find a partner

[Sunshine386]

I'm doing online dating at the moment and I'd like to find a long term partner. The issue I'm facing is interest and dates from multiple men online. This is coupled with the fact that I feel I've gone for some men in the past who have turned out to be emotionally unavailable, so I feel more cautious until I've got to know someone as I've made the wrong decisions in the past.

I dont want to mess people about but at the same time I feel it can take several dates to get to know someone and determine compatibility. After how many dates e.g. coffee, drinks, meals, is it out of order to be dating around?

I am not talking about having sex with different people, to be clear. Just getting to know them, seeing what they want and determining compatibility

It's probably case by case and if you're really into someone it makes the others fade away in my experience. But I would say 5/6 dates is probably enough time to get a sense of whether something might be a feasible longer term thing. That said, k met my partner OLD and we knew right away. Good luck!

I’m surprised you’re finding enough men decent enough to date multiple times, most were a no from me after the first.
I would know after 2-3 dates or if you really like someone just concentrate on one for a few weeks to see how it goes.

Depends on your personal comfort levels, but it seems that lots of people on OLD are happy to multi-date until they explicitly have the exclusivity talk, so I don't think you're messing anyone around if there's no basis for them having an expectation of exclusivity.

And personally I think it takes ages to feel that you know someone well enough that you have some confidence in their words being accurate and not just being them putting forward a good impression of themselves which they may not live up to in reality later, so it sounds a sensible strategy.

I think nowadays most people assume you may be multi-dating until you have 'the talk' - which I generally had if I was going to have sex.

I usually know within 3 dates if I'm interested or not. So I was rarely dating 'multiple' people - 2 at a time is plenty! I did meet lots of men for coffee though. The vast majority of men on OLD are time-wasters of one sort or another, so a quick coffee is an easy weed-out. At least half won't even turn up!

I agree. I only managed a handful of first dates as in single figures in about 2 years on OLD.

And only 2 lead to a second date before i gave up and decided to stay single forever

The standard with OLD is that everyone is dating around unless you have a conversation otherwise. Most people who are looking for a relationship and not just casual or sex, would have that conversation at the stage they start having sex. If you've found men OLD who are good enough to go on multiple dates with, then they will also be going on multiple dates with other women, so I wouldn't worry about their feelings at that stage. I would focus on how to identify men who are emotionally unavailable - what the warning signs and behaviours are of that, so you can try and swerve them as early as possible.

I had 4 dates in a week once, fun . As soon as I met dh deleted the apps in the car park after our first in person meeting!

my advice is not to mess people around but absolutely fine to have first dates with multiple people lined up eg coffee or a quick drink but i always paid my own way

Presume that people on dating sites are dating. It's not like test driving a car and then deciding that's the one you'll go for, or deciding you need to employ an assistant and interviewing for the position, it's an ongoing process of deciding if you're compatible, them feeling the same way and then both continuing to feel compatible as things go forward.

Of course you should be dating multiple people, I'd be very wary of anyone who felt this was an issue.

I think its a sensible route. It's called funneling.

So if you are a person who tends to get very invested in someone quite fast, this is a good way to avoid that from happening, by not focusing on just one person 100%. And therefore you go into the date much more open minded. If you are not impressed then move on, next 😀

But the fact you have a funnel is quite impressive these days....

This is why i hated OLD, I could never get my head around multi-dating. If I liked someone enough to go on a date with them then I stopped all the others until I worked out if it was worth it or where it was going.

To be fair the nice men were hard to find and very limited, and I had a very specific criteria. By the end I took myself off because it wasn't for me and I had met someone who I actually really liked and wanted to work out what we were and if it could go anywhere (it didn't last but it was nice whilst it lasted).

Sounds a good plan.

I think it’s actually a sensible premise to date multiple men and figure out which is most compatible. I think the problem starts if it does become more than dinner and drinks and you’re getting physical with multiple people (unless that is what you want to be doing). because if you are genuinely after a long term fab relationship, it’s unlikely the first date or two are going to be Mr Right. And when physical stuff gets involved it can cloud your judgement or make you more attached or think you are more attached than you are or want to be.

Having said all that, best of luck because it can’t be hard getting one decent date on OLD let alone multiple ones!

It's sensible to funnel men in this way but in practice, it's never worked for me. Most of my dates I didn't want to see again, a couple I did but by the time I had two dates with them, I'd found another one and was much more sure. I wouldn't have 5/6 coffee dates, to be honest, I'd rather be super-fussy at the selecting dates stage (I used Burned Haystacks to weed out the undesirables which was a good 95% of men) and then only go on dates with very good prospects that I'd chatted with on the phone, possibly video and were reasonable texters who were interested in a long term relationship. There are not 100's of these, I would say that out of 400 odd men who 'liked' me, I went on two dates in a month, so that doesn't create such a queue and overlap.

I also wouldn't want to sleep with more than one at a time.

I think the fact some men are flaky is a bit of a red herring here- you could date someone who seems committed, go on 8 dates and then they still decide they don't want a serious relationship.

I think it's better to find a genuinely great few candidates and consider each one in turn, committing to go on, say 2-3 dates. They won't be likely to all turn up in the same week...

Others prefer the quantity approach, there was one woman who dated 100 men i a year and wrote a book about it. I simply couldn't be arsed with this, I bet 95 of them were not worth the bother.

This was how it was for me. I hardly matched with anyone and the ones I did , revealed themselves as unsuitable we even met.

I am 50+ so the pool is very small indeed but I just didn’t find anyone who could communicate well enough to bother meeting up with.

Early 40s here and it’s not much better. I’ve given up on the apps. Not easy to meet anyone in real life though either! Hoping I just stop caring about it at some point.

Exhausted just reading that! Surely something is off when partner selection sounds like a job/recruitment process. Whatever happened to romance and serendipity and happenstance? If this is modern dating count me out!

I am 55. It's not possible to meet men through 'serendipity and happenstance', at least in my social circles pretty much everyone is married and the same is true at my work even though I meet a lot of men through work.

I wish I could just wander around bumping into handsome strangers and having a romance, but chances are most attractive 50-60 year old men are settled down, it's not like in your twenties!

Bumble was fab for me, I've also used Hinge, and my best male friend also found a great partner on Bumble. I don't have any friends who have met anyone just by wandering about in the last decade.

I’m glad the apps have worked for you, but for sooo many people they do not work. Look around and everyone is talking about it! So if you can’t get the apps to work and you can’t meet in every day life, what are people meant to do?

I’m 59 and the apps were a complete washout for my friends and I.

We were just inundated with men wanting casual sex and sending sleazy opening messages. And the handful of dates any of us managed were pretty much a waste of time

As a collective group we’ve all realised that we will probably be single now for life.

It’s ok for us we’ve all done the wife and kids thing but it must be so hard for younger people who do want to meet someone.

I've done two stints on the apps, and one didn't work and the next did, that was the one used Burned Haystack approach and it was much improved on my first attempts. I also did real-life joining of groups, went to a dating group and all kinds. It is hard work, I agree. You can stack your chances though in both setting by having a strategic approach to online (which is a cess-pit and genuinely damaging if you spend much time there) and then going to places where single/divorced men are likely to be (running, walking, climbing have all paid off for my friends, walking especially in older age groups). Sailing, any group with lots of men in it. If you go to yoga, it's vanishingly unlikely, and if you go out with your girlfriends for dinner, men won't approach you- you have to create opportunities for 'serendipity' to happen. There's still plenty of it, like when you see but you can encourage it along the way...

I meant to say 'like when you see someone who doesn't seem to have anything distinctive on their profile or is a bit shorter than the 'ideal' for many women and then you just take a chance'...

I'm getting divorced at the moment and keep seeing this strategy given as standard advice, but i don't know where anyone finds the time or energy. Even when i was a childfree single this would have been challenging around work and hobbies but, now, as a single mum, not a chance.

I am talking about more than first dates. I don't know how many exactly.

For instance, this week I have a second date with one man and a first date with another. The difference is, the one I am having the second date with lives about an hour away, which to be honest would be my maximum, whilst the one I'm having the first date with lives in my town. So I feel I should at least have a date and check him out as it would logistically be easier to date him (I'm not saying that's the most important thing but it can help)

If you’re honest about not being exclusive then you aren’t doing anything wrong.