Should I inititate the 2nd date?

[Alpacalia]

40 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

Gosh l feel silly now !! Looking for a hole to hide in, lol

Try not to feel silly.

Isn't this what dating is about?

42 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

This afternoon l asked him what if l had not made that second invitation

You asked a reasonable question and his response gave you the insight you needed to put it dead in its tracks. 👍

[Happy Lemming]

15 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Um...literally any reasonable person. 🤔 And we did, and told her so. I mean he was comparing her to Venus and the divine after the first date.

I'm both a reasonable & intelligent person and I didn't see this "love" stuff coming.

I thought the poetry was weird, but I didn't expect this "love" talk after a second date.

I also didn't expect a guy to reach under her dress (on the second date) or triple text her (after the first date), if she didn't respond within 30 seconds.

This is completely foreign to me.  I really don't understand what has happened to men and their ability to date/form relationships.

[Cookiesandough]

22 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Um...literally any reasonable person. 🤔 And we did, and told her so. I mean he was comparing her to Venus and the divine after the first date.

He was love bombing, trying to get to the finish line (I.e. her being hooked) at mad fast speed before she could figure out there was something really wrong with him. 

The craziest part is they do this stuff  because it can work.,, there’s some crazy chick out there that would have been like “wow 🤩 that’s so sweet…” 

😟

[Gaeta]

30 minutes ago, Happy Lemming said:

These men have no social skills/graces and do not know how to interact with women.

 

I think they know how to interact with women they just don't care to do it. Example The guy that ran his hand under my dress had been married 28 years, he has a sister his age who's his best friend,  he is a nurse working in a hospital filled with women. He knows exactly how to treat women but a lot of women online accept (look for) this behavior so men think they can just take.

[Happy Lemming]

4 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

... but a lot of women online accept (look for) this behavior so men think they can just take.

OK... but isn't that an additional strike against on-line dating sites/apps??

[Gaeta]

Just now, Happy Lemming said:

OK... but isn't that an additional strike against on-line dating sites/apps??

Yes l agree, l'm sure if nurse had approached me at the grocery store he would not have attempted that move.

[Happy Lemming]

@Gaeta  So tell us about this #10 guy...  What do you know, so far??

[Gaeta]

47 minutes ago, Happy Lemming said:

@Gaeta  So tell us about this #10 guy...  What do you know, so far??

Was married 18 years, has an adult son, works in avionics. He had a 1 year re/ship after his divorce, he's single 1 yr.

After 2 days of random texts he started light sexual innuendoes. I wanted to nip it right away because it's a real turn off before we meet. He took it gracefully and stopped. 

We had our 1st phone conversation tonight and it was cool !  Was suppose to be a few minutes and we spoke an hour. He apologized again for the innuendoes. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Gaeta

[Eternal Sunshine]

Unfortunately, even decent men tend to view dating apps as an easy way to get casual sex. They do behave differently if they meet a woman in real life vs on a dating app. This is why online dating is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

[Alpacalia]

43 minutes ago, Eternal Sunshine said:

This is why online dating is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

I don't know.

I can't really speak from experience but a family member, US air force, great guy met his wife on an online dating app and they seem pretty happy.

 

[Shining One]

1 hour ago, Eternal Sunshine said:

Unfortunately, even decent men tend to view dating apps as an easy way to get casual sex. They do behave differently if they meet a woman in real life vs on a dating app. This is why online dating is the absolute bottom of the barrel.

How I behave towards a woman depends on the potential I see in her, now how we meet. I've met casual sex-only women in real life and relationship-potential women on OLD.

[Wiseman2]

5 hours ago, Gaeta said:

I blocked him. 

Good call.

Try not to get too lonely and this bored so that you're just killing time with nutjobs.

[chillii]

5 hours ago, Gaeta said:

I don't want to set the house on fire but after l asked him about the 2nd date he later asked me if there was a problem. I said no just curiosity. He then asked:  do you love me? And something about my energy and he's completely submitted to me.

I blocked him. I'm not giving him any courtesy warning or good bye!!

The guys a fkg moron. Sorry Gaeta.

[lana-banana]

6 hours ago, Shining One said:

How I behave towards a woman depends on the potential I see in her, now how we meet. I've met casual sex-only women in real life and relationship-potential women on OLD.

I sincerely don't understand the idea that only weirdos and freaks meet people online. The percent of people who meet their long-term partner online is anywhere between 30 and 45% and the number keeps climbing. All of these weirdos exist in the real world, too! You are not any more likely to meet a healthy relationship-minded person "in person" than online.

It seems to me like Gaeta is doing just fine.

[Gaeta]

19 minutes ago, lana-banana said:

It seems to me like Gaeta is doing just fine.

People everywhere around me met their SO online including my brother and my daughter. 

I gave poet man a pass on the poems and his insecurities as it never turned sexual and  it came across to me as harmless. 

I read an article advising women to pick men to go on dates amoung those actively pursuing her. These men i'm meeting were showing a lot of interest from the get go. Now, l have plenty of messages stiiting in my dating app from men that replied 2 words after 2 days. I could test one of those.

[introverted1]

 

9 hours ago, Happy Lemming said:

I'm both a reasonable & intelligent person and I didn't see this "love" stuff coming.

I thought the poetry was weird, but I didn't expect this "love" talk after a second date.

I also didn't expect a guy to reach under her dress (on the second date) or triple text her (after the first date), if she didn't respond within 30 seconds.

This is completely foreign to me.  I really don't understand what has happened to men and their ability to date/form relationships.

Guys being way over-invested too early in the game seems to be a recurring pattern in OLD.  Maybe it's the age group.  I've encountered quite a bit of it.

[cleverusername]

Societal norms in "pursuing" are a lot to blame for the dilemma's. Men get to choose who they want, women have to pick from those options.....

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

2 hours ago, cleverusername said:

Societal norms in "pursuing" are a lot to blame for the dilemma's. Men get to choose who they want, women have to pick from those options.....

 

Well, this means we're both choosing, really. What you describe here ^ has been going on for thousands of years, and in fact we have more options to choose today than ever before, at least in some cultures/countries. That includes both women and men. We're not as bound by certain defined restrictions as we once were.

IMO, OLD can yield lots of weirdos simply because it can yield lots of people. I started dating in the late 80s and last dated in 2000. In that time OLD was really just becoming a thing and it was often still an "in-whispers" sort of thing; you did try to hide it. (At least from what I saw. I didn't do a lot of OLD...just a few dates.) But cold approaches, meeting people at parties, through work, through friends, however it happened...still yielded A TON of horror stories.  Seriously. Everybody had at least a handful of "and then she..." or "and then he..." crying-over-ice-cream-or-pizza-with-friends tales.

People are all different and yes, there are and always have been some very damaged people out there, PLUS some people we simply won't be on the same page with...at all. OLD increases the throw of how many people you can "view" and "choose from"...more people = more possibilities for happiness but also more inevitable dating stumbles or even disasters. And the smorgasbord/candy store effect means we may sometimes reach out to people who seem to "check off all the boxes," without really thinking things through. But discretion will always be on us, not the other party. That person needs to choose us with equal care. If we decide not to do that, because somebody's pics look great and s/he says the right things for 50 words' length, then...well, it can easily result in a disaster, just as it could if we didn't bother to vet a person we met organically.

Now there's no debating that socially we've become a little...weird as a society due to constantly being online for this and that; we aren't speaking "to" one another, there is definitely a different mechanism, different feel, etc. to waiting to respond to someone until you're ready and then typing in something that sounds good. So there is that factor. 

ETA: Oh, I forgot. And yes, OLD, or keeping people at a distance in general (being online IS distancing yourself by a step-back or two), has made it easier for people who are not socially skilled to feel confident enough to ask others out whereas they might have been hesitant to do it in person. So you're getting this faction too.

But aside from that, people are just people, we are all VERY unique and therefore MANY people will not be our cup of tea. That's just inevitable.

As far as OLD being this shameful thing to hide...not in my experience, at least not in the past 15 years (easily) or so. Tons of people meet this way and it's not a shocking secret or anything. I mean it's been decades since this started.

JMO!

Edited July 8, 2021 by CaliforniaGirl

[CaliforniaGirl]

5 hours ago, introverted1 said:

 

Guys being way over-invested too early in the game seems to be a recurring pattern in OLD.  Maybe it's the age group.  I've encountered quite a bit of it.

Being in this age group myself, I can say, this could easily be it. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, but I see men in my age group who are divorced and are VERY anxious/eager to hook up and even put a ring on it. I recall some studies that actually backed this up (I was curious and I investigated) and men who are divorced tend to remarry much faster, and as a larger percentage, than women. That was a few years ago so it may have changed, but not from what I'm seeing.

[Gaeta]

I've read a similar study. Men remarry within 3 years, women 8 years. 

[glows]

2 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

I see men in my age group who are divorced and are VERY anxious/eager to hook up and even put a ring on it. I recall some studies that actually backed this up (I was curious and I investigated) and men who are divorced tend to remarry much faster, and as a larger percentage, than women. That was a few years ago so it may have changed, but not from what I'm seeing.

I can't really understand this myself. I stopped seeing someone recently because he was interested in getting married and having kids and it's not something I'm interested in. He was also previously divorced. As far as I understand from past conversations during the divorce process, my ex-husband was also very much interested in remarrying again. This was when we were separated and he was telling me he was still in love with me. 

Best to take your time dating, OLD or otherwise. 

[Cookiesandough]

Many men can’t be alone lol

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[Ami1uwant]

5 hours ago, Gaeta said:

People everywhere around me met their SO online including my brother and my daughter. 

I gave poet man a pass on the poems and his insecurities as it never turned sexual and  it came across to me as harmless. 

I read an article advising women to pick men to go on dates amoung those actively pursuing her. These men i'm meeting were showing a lot of interest from the get go. Now, l have plenty of messages stiiting in my dating app from men that replied 2 words after 2 days. I could test one of those.

How does it fee that the time of this thread makes the top 10 on your list of longest relationship ?😁

[Ami1uwant]

17 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Being in this age group myself, I can say, this could easily be it. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, but I see men in my age group who are divorced and are VERY anxious/eager to hook up and even put a ring on it. I recall some studies that actually backed this up (I was curious and I investigated) and men who are divorced tend to remarry much faster, and as a larger percentage, than women. That was a few years ago so it may have changed, but not from what I'm seeing.

As a man…..

 

if Thry didn’t have kids to care for likely us a big factor in moving on.

 

relationships can be fast past divorce if they already started it before the divorce ( I’m not saying cheating but like dating a coworker or someone you knew already.

[CaliforniaGirl]

6 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Many men can’t be alone lol

My FIL has been married four times. His first marriage ended in divorce way back in the 70s, but the next two wives sadly passed away; the relationships had been happy ones, he's stable, easygoing, self-supporting, etc. He's now married again.

He told us, "I know as soon as I meet a woman that I'm going to marry her." At first I thought that was sweet, but my husband pointed out to me later that my FIL seemed like he was closing a business deal when he said that. As if he met the woman, didn't see any obvious flaws sticking out and decided, "Good. I'm done dating." And...he's right...