@Nosdacariadbrilliant Planes news! He does sound great. And it sounds like he has offered some food reassurance about the ex situation? That's so promising. Imagine - a respectful man who actually listens to your concerns and addresses them, and wants to take you on actual proper dates - can you clone him?
Everyone else - thank you so much for understanding re. Radiators and his kink!
I can understand the benefit of him just mentioning it, so that if it was totally off-putting to me, we would both know there was no future in it....
Actually, while it's not something that has huge appeal, it's probably something I would be willing to try, somewhere down the line, in the context of a strong and mutually enjoyable relationship.
But as somebody else described, it's as if, once he mentioned it, the lid was off the jar and that became the whole focus and point of our interaction. No more chat about books, or travel, or our daily lives. Everything now about his sexual preference.
This may sound extreme, but I almost feel he devceived me by saying he was interested in a full relationship, and the way he behaved on our first date (he was entirely non-sexual then). But iI feel he just did that to get it out of the way, and now he has demonstrated he is not a psycho-killer, it's fine to just focus on the kimk...
And yes, as someone said, it is explorative in a way, even if his kink isn't by nature exploitative (it's almost the opposite in fact!), as he is looking for a woman to fulfil HIS needs, with very little interest in whether they reflect hers. I definitely think he would be interested in ANYBODY willing to perform his kink, as long as he found her moderately physically attractive.
(There was also a bit of attempted physical negging, now I look back. He called me "curvy" A LOT, - said he liked it - but in honesty I am pretty much an exact size 12, average height - nothing wrong with being 'curvy" and no offence to curvier women many of whom are way more attractive than me! - but I think that's normally used for women who are a slightly larger dress size than me? If that makes sense. Certainly I would tend to reflect a partner's own language in this regard - I would only call a guy curvy or refer to his "dad bod" or whatever if I knew those were terms he happily used for himself?
Anyway, enough about Radiators - I shall leave him to his kink! And every connection that doesn't work out teaches us something, I guess.....
Have a gorgeous day, guys, and thanks again for all your supportive words - it helps so much to know others are facing, or have faced, similar.....