Should I inititate the 2nd date?

[AnnieB]

I am sorry about this development, Gaeta. I was really hoping we would all be proven wrong and this would be a great blossoming love story. But alas, on to the next. I've personally shied away from online dating since my last relationship from online dating was the worst one yet. People I've met through real life events or at least something like networking (so the first convos were online) have been better people by a mile. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, Ami1uwant said:

 

 

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.

Here's the thing, though...this could be equally true of women, and women cheat more or less equally (numerically) to men, AFAIK (haven't made a huge study of that, LOL). So the women should also be jumping for the ring, but divorced women are significantly less likely to want to marry or set up a permanent live-in sort of thing, regardless.

Either way I do think it bears saying to Gaeta that she should look out for love bombing in the future. Whatever motivates it, it is definitely a thing. And it seems to have been a thing in this particular case. This guy was grabbing to lock that ish down immediately. And there were signs. After the first date he was sending poems about the goddess of love and divinity and just...bombing her with "romance-type" stuff, not even always listening to what she actually replied, just bulldozing over that to send another hot-and-heavy poem. And then lo and behold, he jumped to wanting to "submit" entirely to her and blah blah...Classic love-bombing. There were signs. This is a good lesson in looking out for those, IMO. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by CaliforniaGirl
"cheat," not "treat," LOL! yikes...

[cleverusername]

37 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

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.

 

Yes, but still think about it. How often do women make the first move and ask out men? Social norms say the woman has to choose from the best potential man that asked her out, even if he may not be the one she is most attracted to....

If men and women equally put in effort, marriages would improve. Social norms and ego protection have ruined and tainted dating. 

[CaliforniaGirl]

6 minutes ago, cleverusername said:

Yes, but still think about it. How often do women make the first move and ask out men? Social norms say the woman has to choose from the best potential man that asked her out, even if he may not be the one she is most attracted to....

If men and women equally put in effort, marriages would improve. Social norms and ego protection have ruined and tainted dating. 

Yes, I agree with you! What I was saying was, this has always been the case. Or at least for thousands of years in a huge number of cultures. So it's not a recent symptom or anything and it's not specifically a symptom of OLD.

As for women having to choose from men who approach...errrrrrrrummmmmmmmmm hmmm. Not exactly...we women have ALWAYS found ways to show attraction and to boost attraction in the men who 'did it' for us, even in cultures and time periods when women were presumably helpless as to whom they chose.  Even in the (outwardly - this is actually a fascinating field of study) staid, proper Victorian era where, in emulation of the Queen - even in the Americas we did this, and across Europe - young girls were not to give gentlemen "any encouragement" lest they be seen as too forward. They weren't even supposed to accept gifts lest they be seen as aggressive somehow.  If they did accept a gift they were NEVER to wear it or show it in public...there are books about this written at the time...

...anyway...even in that period when it would outwardly seem women were to make NO advances and literally choose from the most likely prospect who bothered with her, there were many, many, many ways women and teen girls managed to be in the right place at the right time, figured out ways to strike up the conversation that were "acceptable," to dress to attract, and so on, and so on. 

Women have never been entirely helpless in who WE wanted except for a handful of times in history when either just women, or both men and women were bound by societal norms to, for example, only marry into a certain class or even a certain exact family...and even then there was *some* degree of choice as often as not.

Edited July 8, 2021 by CaliforniaGirl

[Happy Lemming]

5 hours ago, introverted1 said:

Guys being way over-invested too early in the game seems to be a recurring pattern in OLD. 

Here is a working theory...

Without OLD these guys wouldn't (and probably do not) have the courage to talk to a woman in "real life", but with OLD they can hide behind a keyboard/phone until they know they won't be rejected (initially).  And the moment a woman agrees to a date, they want to be in a relationship; so they won't have to ever work up the courage to ask a woman out in a "real life" or public venues.  They can be done with dating and possible rejection.

Moreover, if it weren't for OLD a lot of these "weirdos" would stay in their Mom's basement (become incels) and not date at all, thus a woman's chances of meeting them would be zero.

 

[introverted1]

6 minutes ago, Happy Lemming said:

Here is a working theory...

Without OLD these guys wouldn't (and probably do not) have the courage to talk to a woman in "real life", but with OLD they can hide behind a keyboard/phone until they know they won't be rejected (initially).  And the moment a woman agrees to a date, they want to be in a relationship; so they won't have to ever work up the courage to ask a woman out in a "real life" or public venues.  They can be done with dating and possible rejection.

Moreover, if it weren't for OLD a lot of these "weirdos" would stay in their Mom's basement (become incels) and not date at all, thus a woman's chances of meeting them would be zero.

 

I'm not sure about this.  A lot of the guys I meet seem to have it together -- own their home, have a good job and/or ample retirement income, kids grown, etc.  Definitely no one living in mom's basement.  There just seems to be a big hurry to lock it down. 

Sorry @Gaeta for the TJ. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by introverted1

[Cookiesandough]

That’s possible for some. I think it’s also just the nature of the thing. It’s people shopping. It’s supposed to be fast.  People go on there with a general objective in their mind and it’s usually been one they’ve had for awhile that they haven’t found or haven’t found enough in the wild which led them there  —bf/gf , husband/wife, fwb/fb, more Instagram followers, etc. so when they find a marginally good candidate they tend to go in all guns blazing. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[SumGuy]

19 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Yes, I agree with you! What I was saying was, this has always been the case. Or at least for thousands of years in a huge number of cultures. So it's not a recent symptom or anything and it's not specifically a symptom of OLD....

Agree in part.  At least prior to Christianity in Northern/Western Europe it was not such a cultural norm from what can discern.  The men pursue, women choose...more a Roman thing; a long way of saying 1500 years ago not a cultural thing in the benighted, barbaric, pagan northern Europe  .  Of course I suspect since most lived in small villages you grew up knowing everyone and what "choice" you had was pretty constrained, and social status meaning as much as gender.  For example, look into the types of marriage that existed in ancient/Celtic Ireland. 

[Cookiesandough]

14 minutes ago, introverted1 said:

I'm not sure about this.  A lot of the guys I meet seem to have it together -- own their home, have a good job and/or ample retirement income, kids grown, etc.  Definitely no one living in mom's basement.  There just seems to be a big hurry to lock it down. 

Sorry @Gaeta for the TJ. 

Aw, well, it’s you, Introverted1🥰. So like, of course there is 

 

But yea sorry for  the ‘Jack 

[CaliforniaGirl]

13 minutes ago, SumGuy said:

Agree in part.  At least prior to Christianity in Northern/Western Europe it was not such a cultural norm from what can discern.  The men pursue, women choose...more a Roman thing; a long way of saying 1500 years ago not a cultural thing in the benighted, barbaric, pagan northern Europe  .  Of course I suspect since most lived in small villages you grew up knowing everyone and what "choice" you had was pretty constrained, and social status meaning as much as gender.  For example, look into the types of marriage that existed in ancient/Celtic Ireland. 

Right. Even for those who could choose, choice was limited, and now it's been expanded based on our having the internet, but while the women's choice was limited in bygone days, so too were the men's, as you describe above (small village, etc. - or perhaps even more so, later on, for nobility who had to keep ties to other families). Indeed, this was part of why festivals were such a big deal for so many centuries. You could meet new people, LOL. Going back even farther than that into prehistory it's believed there were gatherings of different groups/clans expressly for the purpose of "exchanging" new blood into an existing smaller collective. But again. They had SOME degree of choice. "Here are three fine girls from my cousin's village! Do you like any of them?" And (this is such a broad topic) girls who didn't want to marry a specific man could certainly plead their suit to their parents in any number of cultures and time periods. And they did.

If there wasn't choice and there weren't love matches then we wouldn't have the wealth of poetry, literature, oral tradition, song and art depicting it down through the centuries. Granted part of that was based on longing - say, NOT being able to get the person one wanted - but it's pretty obvious people did fall in love, actual love.

ETA: I guess the reasonable thing would be to tie this in at least loosely to the actual thread. So I'll say: Gaeta does have a choice, many choices. And she really isn't just restricted to men who "choose her first"...she can strike up a conversation. She doesn't have to jump into the man's lap or anything but yes, she can technically "initiate" in one way or another if she doesn't want to outright ask a man out. Any woman can. And we do.

Edited July 8, 2021 by CaliforniaGirl

[elaine567]

54 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Many men can’t be alone lol

Very many men do very well out of being married.
They may do a lot of complaining and whining about it, but they often do come to realise where their bread is best buttered.
it is usually not in a bachelor apartment with a few weeks worth of takeaways in their living room and dirty cups in the kitchen sink...

[Cookiesandough]

18 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

Very many men do very well out of being married.
They may do a lot of complaining and whining about it, but they often do come to realise where their bread is best buttered.
it is usually not in a bachelor apartment with a few weeks worth of takeaways in their living room and dirty cups in the kitchen sink...

Haha word. If I had a dime for every bachelor pad I went to that was missing very essential hygiene products I’d be a rich lady.  Plus,  they always look so cold and minimalist like out of  American Psycho or they are messy to high heavens. Not trying to judge, but clean or put some succulents in there or something ffs

 

I also read one study that said single women are happier, but single(unmarried) men less happy than their married counterparts. Sorry, guys. Don’t shoot the messenger! 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Haha word. If I had a dime for every bachelor pad I went to that was missing very essential hygiene products I’d be a rich lady.  Plus,  they always look so cold and clinical like out of  American Psycho or they are messy to high heavens. Clean and put some succulents in there or something ffs 

 

I also read one study that said single women are happier, but single(unmarried) men less happy than their married counterparts. Sorry, guys. Don’t shoot the messenger! 

This thread is going down a no-no path, LOL.

But why not...may as well say it for anyone interested: if I were single again, I wouldn't be cleaning anyone's house.  I'd be getting the milk for free rather than buying the cow. I'd want it to be a love match/feelings match, I'm not hyper aggressive or anything, but I sure wouldn't be acting like the wife in a traditional sense.

I think we women sometimes get to a point where we want a true match rather than whatever is said to be the traditional way for each of the partners to "act." This could possibly be part of what keeps women from wanting to get married again. While there are many Renaissance men out there, sometimes we do fall back on how our parents treated relationships, whether we want to or not. And I think women just don't want that anymore. We want to be loved because we're sensual and smart and warm and fun. We want to be loved because we are *us*....not because we can clean things.

Too far afield so I'll just leave off here!

[Cookiesandough]

8 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

 

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[LivingWaterPlease]

19 hours ago, poppyfields said:

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by LivingWaterPlease
Thread has moved passed the issue I was posting about.

[SumGuy]

19 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Haha word. If I had a dime for every bachelor pad I went to that was missing very essential hygiene products I’d be a rich lady.  Plus,  they always look so cold and minimalist like out of  American Psycho or they are messy to high heavens. Not trying to judge, but clean or put some succulents in there or something ffs...

 Have to say young guys out there this is an easy thing to do to impress, also makes for good living.  I used to keep a whole box window full of plants, women loved it.  I did it for me, just bonus they liked it.

Also pretty neat and clean but still with stuff about, always a pile of books reading, or mail, definitively lived in but vacuumed, clean sheets, no dirty dishes (hate that, like my kitchen ready to cook a multi-course meal on a whim).  Careful though, if you are "too neat" they may not be able to fit you in their man-box...heaven forbid if you like art and seem to have no toxic male traits...It may be it if you don't have something they can readily complain about that is a red flag...hence maybe leave a jar or two in your fridge that expired 2 years ago   

[Gaeta]

8 minutes ago, LivingWaterPlease said:

Being in a R with an insecure person takes a lot of emotional and physical effort. If you're up for it,  it may work for you! From reading your posts on LS for quite some time, I do believe you have a lot more emotional and physical energy than I do so, that said, I don't want to discourage you from dating him. Just beware of some things folks have cautioned you about. Those things may not matter to you, and that's fine. We'll all unique.

Thanks LivingWaterPlease, I've blocked him yesterday. 

[Cookiesandough]

@SumGuy I can respect that! I’ve met a few guys who kept their place clean/homey like you, but you’re few and far between(I don’t know if I told you guys  about the OLD guy I met with the mattress straight on the floor.) 😫 Nice touch with the plants

@Gaetaare we on date 11 yet/ is it in the works. ? Looking forward to your dating adventures 

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[Gaeta]

5 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

 

@Gaetaare we on date 11 yet/ is it in the works. ? Looking forward to your dating adventures 

I will meet date-10 probably Saturday. I hope I'll be up for it, I am getting my second shot on that day. 

There is no official man-11 yet. I have several messages waiting for me on the app but I have not logged on for days! 

 

[CaliforniaGirl]

19 minutes ago, SumGuy said:

Careful though, if you are "too neat" they may not be able to fit you in their man-box...heaven forbid if you like art and seem to have no toxic male traits...It may be it if you don't have something they can readily complain about that is a red flag...hence maybe leave a jar or two in your fridge that expired 2 years ago   

I thought we put this to rest...  Obviously there's no one thing that would be outside of a woman's "man-box" (come on now)...to make her have a specific vibe about him. I doubt cleaning up would be part of it, but "don't sit on the couch and don't touch anything in the bathroom" or whatever ultra-obsession would be going a bit too far, sure...for anybody. It would just be weird.

[CaliforniaGirl]

8 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

I will meet date-10 probably Saturday. I hope I'll be up for it, I am getting my second shot on that day. 

There is no official man-11 yet. I have several messages waiting for me on the app but I have not logged on for days! 

 

Did you give him a heads-up that you're getting vaxxed and you're not sure how you'll feel? 

There's an ELEVENTH man? ETA: Oh, sorry. Glasses must be foggy, I see you said there's no official Man #11 yet.

Edited July 8, 2021 by CaliforniaGirl

[SumGuy]

1 hour ago, cleverusername said:

Yes, but still think about it. How often do women make the first move and ask out men? ...

Would it be in line with this thread to discuss this?   

In OLD I would say when mutual matched with someone (by the site algorithm) and someone reached out, at least 75% were women reaching out to me first.  Of those 75% only a third or so was I feeling it and responded.  I felt bad about that, and sought a lot of advice on if should respond back to everyone...because I initially did and it was draining but only got one or two mean responses back.

If they just "liked" my profile and I "liked" back about 30% reached out to me before I got around reaching out to them with a message, in part as I am pretty quick to reach out.  Of those I reach out to first out of the blue (no mutual match), about 50% got back to me IIRC.  If we had mutual matched about 75% I reached out to first got back to me.  Caveat, I am "picky" and very much make choices on profiles re potential compatibilities, which may explain what I believe is a high response rate.  That is I reached out to far fewer women than reached out to me.   

I mean some communication by reaching out, maybe 1 in 4 communications led me or her to ask for a date/first meet. Usually me, but again I am quick to ask if feeling it.

Thus, my expereince is women make a first move fairly often, and experienced having more "moves" made on me than me making moves (which could be totally my pickiness), but perhaps equal of those who moved on me and I was interested in them as well. 

If one means first meeting as a "move," yes pretty much me.  Now second date, I count statements from them like "we should do this again" or "this is really fun" as basically a "move" (I do that move to) and that is usually them that get that out first :), if I said such things first, there is a good 50% chance they actually ask me for the second date then and there, as in proposing a day to meet.   I love that, that is the kind of woman I was after.

Also if a second date happens it is incredibly rare for me it is not tentatively made then and there in person before the end of the first date, or that night via text/message. 

It is also rare for me that I was ever left wondering if there would be a second date, many a first date ended with a conversation we had fun (certainly plenty of laughs and good conversation) but not feeling a chemistry/connection.   

Edited July 8, 2021 by SumGuy

[Gaeta]

14 minutes ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Did you give him a heads-up that you're getting vaxxed and you're not sure how you'll feel? 

There's an ELEVENTH man?

Concerning man-10 when he asked to set a date I told him Friday evening as Saturday noon I am getting my second shot and I don't know how I'll react to that. This morning it dawn on me my oldest daughter told me at the beginning of the week she was coming for dinner and sleeping over Friday. I don't get to see her often so I will reschedule with man-10 as soon as he contacts me later today. 

There is no eleventh man yet. 

[Ami1uwant]

2 hours ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

Here's the thing, though...this could be equally true of women, and women cheat more or less equally (numerically) to men, AFAIK (haven't made a huge study of that, LOL). So the women should also be jumping for the ring, but divorced women are significantly less likely to want to marry or set up a permanent live-in sort of thing, regardless.

Either way I do think it bears saying to Gaeta that she should look out for love bombing in the future. Whatever motivates it, it is definitely a thing. And it seems to have been a thing in this particular case. This guy was grabbing to lock that ish down immediately. And there were signs. After the first date he was sending poems about the goddess of love and divinity and just...bombing her with "romance-type" stuff, not even always listening to what she actually replied, just bulldozing over that to send another hot-and-heavy poem. And then lo and behold, he jumped to wanting to "submit" entirely to her and blah blah...Classic love-bombing. There were signs. This is a good lesson in looking out for those, IMO. 

 

what I’m saying…if kids were involved in the marriage it’s far more common for the mom to get primary custody of the kids.

with the day to day responsibility takes away the rime to try to date.

there are also protective instincts in wait to introduce the kids to new partner. Thus factor coukd delay natural relationship progression possibly derailing it early.

The spouse who didn’t get the kids is more open to dating where they might not have the child responsibility but it still depends on the situation.

 

with both …it depends on the person….some people feel the need to not be alone and strive to have relationships while others don’t have that need and can handle being single just fine.

[Ami1uwant]

4 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

Concerning man-10 when he asked to set a date I told him Friday evening as Saturday noon I am getting my second shot and I don't know how I'll react to that. This morning it dawn on me my oldest daughter told me at the beginning of the week she was coming for dinner and sleeping over Friday. I don't get to see her often so I will reschedule with man-10 as soon as he contacts me later today. 

There is no eleventh man yet. 

when I got shot 2 I was run over a bus for 12-36 hrs after getting the shot.