Online dating and avoiding men after one thing?

[Hypnotic]

I want to start dating soon after a long spell of being single, but how do you avoid men that are just after sex?! I know the obvious ones like men who bring it up straight away, but what I hear from women is this is all men want nowadays. It will be online dating as I don’t get out much socially so will have no choice. I’ve heard of women meeting men them being absolutely lovely no mention of sex then they sleep with them and bam ghosted straight after. I plan to wait as long as possible to sleep with someone to at least rule some of them out. But is it really that hard finding someone that wants a relationship?

That poster is a man who loves lecturing women - best to take no notice

Same, I just get a sense of what they’re like early on.

I manage to filter out the sex pests in the early stages of matching usually and have only had one bad first date. They don’t even get my number unless I’m fairly sure about them.

I figure out quite quickly who’s angling to just have sex and run and who actually might want a relationship. Some are super obvious like once I matched with a guy who suggested that we meet up “tonight” despite the fact it was 10pm 🙄 I’m sure he wanted to us to meet at midnight so we could have a real heart to heart.

I don’t think 3 months is long to wait either and if it’s too long for a man he’s not for me. If you are not comfortable with sleeping around or sleeping with a man just a few dates in then yeah definitely don’t @Hypnotic

I was dating a man for two months early last year, spoke to him every single day and he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to be my boyfriend.

I said sure fine take your time but I’m not keen on having sex with someone that’s not at least my boyfriend and he was outraged.

Honestly the bar is in hell. Women used to require marriage before sex, now if they dare say they only will have sex within a committed relationship they are ridiculed and made to feel unreasonable.

Thank you, I totally agree. I hear things like the 3 date rule (sleeping with a man after 3 dates) and im just like nope! Not for me! Want to spend time getting to know someone and have a nice build up rather than just jumping into bed.

The whole 3 date so called rule - who made that up?

Though I’ve seen women on here saying if you don’t have sex by date 3 then you’re obviously friend zoning because you ‘must’ know by then!

I don’t have any sort of timeframe but I know I can’t just have casual sex. I need to feel an emotional connection. That might take a handful of dates, it might take a couple of months but if a man pushes me then he’s not the one.

I hear it mentioned a lot that sex is expected after 3 dates. No idea where it came from but does seem to be a recent thing.

It’s interesting, I’ve only heard about that 3 date rule here on MN! It’s not something that most, if any, of my friends who date adhere too AFAIK.

But even if everyone is following that rule yeah it’s not for me either. We are all different but usually I just wouldn’t feel safe, close or comfortable enough to have sex that quick.

Keep the messaging to solely on the app for at least two weeks. The ones that are keen to get your number and rush you off the app are also the ones that tend to rush for sex.

Be really clear with you want and expect. Be prepared to block or unmatch with guys who don't accept a boundary around sexual talk early on.

Date them outside. ONS's don't tend to happen in the cinema, on a dinner date, at the theatre, at a gallery, exhibition or comedy show. Don't invite them to your house and don't go to there's.

Ask them outright what their thoughts are on making this a committed relationship and check in with them on this. Some men will just string you along in the hopes of sex maybe in belief of the 3 date rule. Put them on the spot.

Thats really good advice thank you.

I’m married and met my DH in real life and knew him well before any romance, let alone sex. I can’t imagine sleeping with someone I have no other connections with (not a prior friend or colleague) in less than 3 months. This online dating is a whole different world! I’m with you @Hypnotic .

There’s no point pretending it is like when you meet someone randomly and wonder if they might be interested in you or just being friendly. People aren’t on OLD to make friends. Sex is implicit because everyone is there for find an intimate partner. It’s going to help you find what you’re looking for if you are honest about what that is

I dont owe anyone sex i will mention it when it starts to get serious, as someone else said a lot of men would see it as a challenge if I mention it up front

Thank you. Im glad some people agree with me.

If you don’t want to sleep with someone, don’t sleep with them.

The ones who only want sex aren’t going to hang around for ages without it, obviously, so your three-month timescale will indeed filter them out.

However, it will also filter out a lot of the ones who absolutely do want a genuine relationship, but consider sex to be an important part of that. I’m not a man, but speaking as a woman, if I was looking for a long-term relationship I would be very put off by a man who wanted to wait for three months before going to bed with me.

So, basically, do whatever feels right for you, but just be aware that it’s going to narrow your chances of a long term relationship as well as weeding out the ones who just want a shag.

I second checking out Burned Haystack. It's the brainchild of Jennie Young, an academic who specializes in rhetorics. She had a catastrophic dating life until she started analyzing the posts and texts of men for rhetorical patterns that signal misogyny or men who are cocklodgers or creepy controlling types AND the ones that just want to get laid and will say whatever it takes to get that. Each post item and text is actually a thin sliver showing exactly the underlying motivations and true character of the guy.

Classical rhetorical patterns are the Sexual Nonsequitur (shoehorning sex into the most banal of conversations) and the Test and Apologise. Here the guy texts something like "Cute shirt, I wonder what's underneath" (a Sexual Nonsequitur) and then apologises. The test is real - aimed to see what you'll tolerate - but the apology is not. It's a thin sliver showing a man who wants to get into your pants and is happy to breach social conventions of decency to get that. It's also a thin sliver of someone who is happy trying to breach female boundaries.

If profiles or texts show any rhetorical patterns eg Test and Apologise, or I'm The Prize, or Directive/Disciplinary, or Conditional Decency (all very red flags), the guy should be instantly blocked to get him out of your dating pool. It's called Block to Burn. This is the principle of the approach: you see the dating pool as a haystack hiding your needle (green flag LTR candidates) and you burn it off to find your needle. This approach should be applied ruthlessly, and it will leave you with a handful of potential needles.

The method really arms women to protect themselves from the men who just want sex, the creeps, the scary controllers who will wreck your life, the cocklodgers, the men who should work on themselves psychologically, the men who see women as objects. And it teally works with finding your needle: on Jennie's FB page, people are often talking about how they found their needle, and the stories are always so heart warming.

There’s no real way to know what someone really wants because even if you say you want to take it slowly, many men seem to enjoy the idea of wooing someone and playing the long game until the woman becomes attached and sleeps with them, after which they will do a disappearing act regardless. It’s like a power trip for them and a boost to their ego to know they are capable of being loved even if they don’t want a relationship.

That’s one of the reasons I stopped trying to actively date some time ago, as I have no desire to sleep with someone I barely know, I like to take my time in a slow burn type situation, but if you can’t even trust that these days then it’s a non starter for me!

I’ve said this several times but online dating is such crap. No one seems to value genuine connection anymore because of it, everyone is more disposable, there are a lot of people online who are socially awkward/avoidant/serial womanisers over and above the general population.

On top of that, most people seem to view absolutely anything and everything as a red flag 🤣 (partly, I think it’s because people have fewer cues by which to judge on so go with what is little is available).

Good luck, be selective but don’t expect too much from it as you might be disappointed. If you want a meaningful connection, you’re better off just meeting people in real life if possible and just getting to know each other as friends first without the pressure that dating brings.

Great advert, but do you have any advice for the OP?

It's not an advertisement. The information is free to everyone. And the principle of analysing speech/texts for red flags can be applied everywhere, not just dating. It stops women wasting time being nice or excusing people's bad behaviour.

I very much doubt that the ‘women’ in here who preach the 3 date rule are actually women

I’m sorry this is just astoundingly immature. No reasonable person would ‘filter out’ someone that they genuinely wanted a relationship with because they didn’t have sex within a 3 month deadline.

The ones who make lots of comments about appearance, and especially men who open with that. The decent guys I have met OLD haven’t ever done that. But tbh the vast majority are looking for easy sex and don’t try to hide it.

Honestly you can’t avoid them, you just start to ask the questions to weed the obvious ones out. Most guys will be up front when you ask what they are looking for. looking for friends or causal. Some will say they don’t know, I found this was either the guys didn’t know or they didn’t want to say to push people away. I have been told by male friends the opposite sex are just as bad.

Mumsnet will make you believe all guys online are looking for sex, but there are lots of them wanting to settle down. DP told me he didn’t know what he was after when we matched online. Met him and had a feeling he didn’t do causal. He admitted a few dates later his goal to dating was a relationship and had scared people off when he mentioned it as accused of being too keen so acted causal in the first few dates.

just swipe, chat and trust your guts. It’s also ok to want sex too. One of the best date I had was 24 hrs. We met up quickly realised that we fancied each other but not relationship compatible. Had dinner, drinks, sleep over, breakfast and lunch and went on our ways.

OP isn't here for your trauma dump, FFS.

I'm in complete agreement with this. It's not immature (as something above said) to think sex is an important part of a developing relationship. For some people it may not be an issue waiting three or six months, but I'd say for a hefty majority of people looking for a serious relationship, not a ONS, it would be.

There are no guarantees even thr 3 months delay, just don't get have unprotected sex, get pregnant, introduce children or move them into your home. Practice the safety stuff like let someone know where you are, meet in public etc.