Moving on in OLD

[nospam99]

I've been communicating with woman on OLD for a little over two months. Circumstances, superficially legitimate, have delayed our face to face meeting but I expect we will FINALLY meet this week and, having a pretty good sense by now of 'who she IS', I expect I will wish to begin a long-term dating relationship. Not knowing what she is looking for or how she will react to real-life me (come on folks, even though we avoid talking about it we know the ladies care about the guys' looks, too), I'll just guess 50% that she will want to date me, too.

 

During the two months I have continued to 'look around' on OLD. I've made it clear to any of the women I messaged that I was already in contact with this other woman and wouldn't meet as anything other than totally casual friends until I knew where that contact was going. I'm posting now to get your opinions just in case the 50% downside occurs. So I have this 'list of potentials', most of whom I have not yet contacted. I see two options: either contact women from my list one at a time or several (or all) of them at once.

 

One at a time is easy: 'hi, I saw your profile, I like your [xyz, etc], please look at my profile, etc, etc'. And then I wait days for a response. All at once: start with the one at a time message and add some more words about me being 'back on the market' and 'checking out' several women all at once.

 

My own opinion based on ME not wanting to be treated as a 'commodity' is to go the one at a time route and be patient (LOL which will be difficult after being patient for two months and watching a few 'ships pass me in the night'). Opinions from you LS folks? Is there any upside to the all at once approach that overcomes the tackiness?

[choyhtya]

Two months Is a really long time to talk with no meet bro. Are you sure that she isn't stringing you along?

 

If it were me in your shoes and this chick flakes this weekend I would straight up just stop talking to her. It sounds like she flakes a lot, and I would have dropped her after the second flake. One's understandable because they can get nervous meeting someone from the internet, but two means that there's some other issue at play.

 

Also, unless you guys are exclusive, why would you be putting other girls on the back burner? You may as well have other options available in case this one doesn't work out. I met up with a girl on Wednesday and I thought that we connected really well, but I guess I turned beta for a moment of something and she just started ignoring me. But it was a good thing that I had another girl to have fun with that I'd also been seeing.

[nospam99]

Two months Is a really long time to talk with no meet bro. Are you sure that she isn't stringing you along?

 

If it were me in your shoes and this chick flakes this weekend I would straight up just stop talking to her. It sounds like she flakes a lot, and I would have dropped her after the second flake. One's understandable because they can get nervous meeting someone from the internet, but two means that there's some other issue at play.

 

Also, unless you guys are exclusive, why would you be putting other girls on the back burner? You may as well have other options available in case this one doesn't work out. I met up with a girl on Wednesday and I thought that we connected really well, but I guess I turned beta for a moment of something and she just started ignoring me. But it was a good thing that I had another girl to have fun with that I'd also been seeing.

 

Dude,

- Spoke to her Sunday, we have a 'scheduled' meeting on Friday

- I'M exclusive. I don't multidate

- She may be stringing me along. But IMO her 'explanations' (she has shared a lot of personal details that, if true) are legit

- Yes, I'm ready to 'move on' if she and I don't 'click'. The point of my topic was to ask whether to move on one at a time or with a 'mass mailing'. I don't see that you answered that question.

[sdraw108]

I think you're over-thinking everything:

 

 

• Until you meet, it's premature to be thinking in terms of a long term relationship. I've had this experience several times and can tell you that your "feelings" are not real until you've met the other person.
  
• It's not multi-dating until you are actually dating someone. Limiting yourself to arranging dates with one person at a time is restricting yourself too much in my opinion. If you arrange multiple dates and one of them goes well, then you might want to think in terms of sole vs multi dating.
  

So to answer your question, I would contact as many people as possible. If, and only if, you actually start dating one of those people, then you could inform the others that you are no longer available. OLD is simply too much effort and time wasting to focus on only one person at a time when you haven't even made any progress with any one of them.

 

Contacting other women and telling them you are "seeing" someone (who you haven't even in fact met) and that you will only meet them as casual friends, is very counter-productive.

[SevenCity]

Dude you are doing it all wrong.

 

Think of OLD like a daily party. There is a room full of people and you are trying to talk to the women. What you’ve done is talked to one girl and now you are refusing to talk to other women because you “may” end up with this girl.

 

Talking to multiple women does not mean you are multi dating (though it’s a good idea to date multiple as they are likely doing the same).

 

The biggest red flag is it has taken you two months to meet. Not that I would spend that long, but anytime I convo went more than a week before we met it never worked out. They always flaked.

 

The other downside is you build up an image of the person in your head that will likely be shattered in person.

 

I don’t have a great deal of free time. Therefore, I ask them out after a few messages and meet in person as soon as I can.

[PegNosePete]

I've made it clear to any of the women I messaged that I was already in contact with this other woman and wouldn't meet as anything other than totally casual friends until I knew where that contact was going.

Goodness, really? Way to make a girl feel special, dude. You've probably burned those bridges now.

 

If you don't want to meet others then don't message them until you've met this one. If you want to message others then don't talk about other fish you've got on the hooks!

 

You're way too emotionally involved here and it's taken way too long to meet. You need to kick this OLD thing up a notch if you want success.

[Popsicle]

I'm a fan of one at a time.

[nospam99]

I'm a fan of one at a time.

 

LOL@u and me, Pop. Clearly we are a minority.

[browzer]

Dude you are doing it all wrong.

 

Think of OLD like a daily party. There is a room full of people and you are trying to talk to the women. What you’ve done is talked to one girl and now you are refusing to talk to other women because you “may” end up with this girl.

 

Talking to multiple women does not mean you are multi dating (though it’s a good idea to date multiple as they are likely doing the same).

 

The biggest red flag is it has taken you two months to meet.

 

 

Quoted for truth.

 

Spending all your time and energy on ONE internet stranger for TWO months and having all these high hopes for a future long term relationship having never met them is not an effective dating strategy.

[browzer]

Dude,

- Spoke to her Sunday, we have a 'scheduled' meeting on Friday

- I'M exclusive. I don't multidate

- She may be stringing me along. But IMO her 'explanations' (she has shared a lot of personal details that, if true) are legit

- Yes, I'm ready to 'move on' if she and I don't 'click'.

 

And you just wasted 2 months of your life, maybe to you it doesn't matter.

 

My time is valuable. There's too many fakers out there, and there's too many first dates where the person who shows up is nothing at all like what was advertised and even in the rare case they didn't try to fool me with old pictures, it doesn't often click.

 

And anyone who has done a lot of online dating knows exactly what I'm talking about.

 

The naive ones spend weeks or months focusing on one person and building their hopes only to find they've been completely blindsided.

 

There is no "exclusive" with a person you haven't met. Not for all practical purposes, and you will eventually realize it.

 

Probably as soon as your "scheduled date" if it even happens.

[elaine567]

Goodness, really? Way to make a girl feel special, dude. You've probably burned those bridges now.

If you don't want to meet others then don't message them until you've met this one. If you want to message others then don't talk about other fish you've got on the hooks!

 

Exactly.

 

"You just wait around for me dear whilst I see how far I get with this woman I like better, but if she blows me off, you may well be in with a chance..."

SMH...

[nospam99]

Dude you are doing it all wrong.

 

They always flaked.

 

 

Just to be sure I'm on the same page as y'all .... When I see 'flaked', I think

- never agrees to meet

- agrees to meet but no-shows

- ghosts after first meeting (may or may not have agreed to a future date)

- ghosts after a small number of dates

Am I understanding flake? Any other behaviors besides what I've listed?

 

And BTW, thanks everyone for the feedback. Many of you think I've already shot myself in the foot. If so, I've only myself to blame.

[nospam99]

Well, the 'two month lady' and I have met. We had a good time together and some laughs, including a few laughs about the two months. At this point I have to say that she is just as friendly, open, and engaging IRL as she was online and that her behavior belies any remarks about red flags or wasting two months of my life. Perhaps I am just lucky. (I am FEELING VERY lucky.) Perhaps she and I spent enough time and effort in our two months of communication to stack the deck. Or perhaps some of you are unfairly negative and cynical and might benefit by giving people a chance. Neither 'all men are like that' nor 'all women are like that' are necessarily true. We left each other with an agreement to continue dating. There is always the possibility that she will eventually 'flake' on me. However she didn't flake on our long-delayed first meeting and, having now met her, I have even less reason to expect a flake.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

Well, the 'two month lady' and I have met. We had a good time together and some laughs, including a few laughs about the two months. At this point I have to say that she is just as friendly, open, and engaging IRL as she was online and that her behavior belies any remarks about red flags or wasting two months of my life. Perhaps I am just lucky. (I am FEELING VERY lucky.) Perhaps she and I spent enough time and effort in our two months of communication to stack the deck. Or perhaps some of you are unfairly negative and cynical and might benefit by giving people a chance. Neither 'all men are like that' nor 'all women are like that' are necessarily true. We left each other with an agreement to continue dating. There is always the possibility that she will eventually 'flake' on me. However she didn't flake on our long-delayed first meeting and, having now met her, I have even less reason to expect a flake.

 

Great! The last man I dated (for 10 months) was someone I met through OLD and we talked for about a month I think, a LOT, before meeting. I can't remember now why it took so long, but I can assure you I'm no flake . And neither is he.

 

Good luck, NS!