Perspective

[ZA Dater]

35 minutes ago, smackie9 said:

If it were me I would throw my line out there to multiple people and let it ride without any expectation. 

Probably a good approach too if you can find enough suitable candidates.

[BaileyB]

46 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

I never actually do this because I am never really that interested in the first place.

That’s because you overthink everything, you have unrealistic expectations, and you have a self-defeating approach to dating. 

Throw your line out there without any expectation, when someone replies to your message chat for a bit and if there are no obvious red flags/something that interests you, ask for a meeting - and see what happens. It doesn’t have to be difficult… just recognize, it’s going to fail way more times than it works because you are basically meeting strangers with whom you may/may not have anything in common. It’s the nature of the platform… not necessarily a reflection of your self worth or that of the women you are meeting. 

Edited March 6 by BaileyB

[Alpacalia]

Then you've solved your own quandary. You're not interested and she takes too long to respond to you.

If you're just chatting for the sake of chatting why does it matter anyways how long it takes her to respond, unless of course you're really hoping for something more at a later date.

Then you've got to do the math and figure out what her response times mean to you. I think you've just mentally backed yourself into thinking you're not interested, when in fact you are.

Well, at least on some level you still are.

[ZA Dater]

7 hours ago, Alpacalia said:

Then you've solved your own quandary. You're not interested and she takes too long to respond to you.

If you're just chatting for the sake of chatting why does it matter anyways how long it takes her to respond, unless of course you're really hoping for something more at a later date.

Then you've got to do the math and figure out what her response times mean to you. I think you've just mentally backed yourself into thinking you're not interested, when in fact you are.

Well, at least on some level you still are.

Some truth to this. At the moment there is one particular person I am interested in but good grief I can sometimes wait a week for a response and I reckon that might be too long and perhaps shows a lack of interest on her part. Or she is extremely busy but oddly the last time I did get a response it was very late at night.

The other people I have no real interest in but they respond a bit quicker.

[ExpatInItaly]

1 hour ago, ZA Dater said:

there is one particular person I am interested in but good grief I can sometimes wait a week for a response and I reckon that might be too long and perhaps definitely shows a lack of interest on her part

Fixed that for you. 

[ZA Dater]

11 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

Fixed that for you. 

Which was confirmed a few minutes ago.

[ExpatInItaly]

27 minutes ago, ZA Dater said:

Which was confirmed a few minutes ago.

What do you mean? 

[ZA Dater]

10 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

What do you mean? 

When you invite someone to meet up and "well I do not know I have friends arriving" and it takes them a week to confirm that they cannot make it. The obvious conclusion is something better cropped up.

Then again this entire interaction was just strange from the start. 

[FredEire]

Good rule of thumb, if the interaction is totally weird, chances are something is weird between you as well. Whether that's just a lack of interest or attraction or seeing you as a plan B/C. If someone's really interested there's usually a consistent effort to get to know you and ask questions, if you only see excuses ans short answers shes probably not that into you.

[ZA Dater]

11 minutes ago, FredEire said:

Good rule of thumb, if the interaction is totally weird, chances are something is weird between you as well. Whether that's just a lack of interest or attraction or seeing you as a plan B/C. If someone's really interested there's usually a consistent effort to get to know you and ask questions, if you only see excuses ans short answers shes probably not that into you.

The problem was in person a lot of effort was put in to get to know me and very personal questions were asked. To what end these questions were asked I have no idea, this being one of te few times I felt suitably engaged to open up, show personality and heck even some vulnerability. Text conversation was pretty short and to the point though. 

Again I suppose if text conversation is slow and delayed what happened in person is irrelevant, maybe I should have made a stronger move but I suspect the disappointment would have been even more acute had I done that. 

Again lot of wisdom here in terms of communication equaling interest.  

[Alpacalia]

17 hours ago, ZA Dater said:

When you invite someone to meet up and "well I do not know I have friends arriving" and it takes them a week to confirm that they cannot make it. The obvious conclusion is something better cropped up.

Then again this entire interaction was just strange from the start. 

In this case, someone taking a week to confirm that they cannot make it is definitely a sign that they likely had something else come up that was more important to them. The delay in responding and the vagueness of their initial response are both insight that they may not have been interested in meeting up in the first place. It's best to accept their response and move on to making plans with someone who is more interested and enthusiastic about spending time with you.

[ZA Dater]

2 hours ago, Alpacalia said:

In this case, someone taking a week to confirm that they cannot make it is definitely a sign that they likely had something else come up that was more important to them. The delay in responding and the vagueness of their initial response are both insight that they may not have been interested in meeting up in the first place. It's best to accept their response and move on to making plans with someone who is more interested and enthusiastic about spending time with you.

Yeah I think after this I am just going to forget about it. Irritated with myself as much as I am irritated with the person. 

[ZA Dater]

Probably an obtuse question, what makes a date any different to meeting someone random in say a coffee shop and having a nice engaging conversation? I might be wrong but surely a date is a sort of "well let me get to know you" but a conversation can be that too? Quite possibly I am overthinking this but I had the strangest exchange today with someone I had not communicated with for quite some time, she was sharing everything in her life, asking me how I was asking about things she knows I enjoy. It was quite odd, especially because I had not heard from her for a while.

Not sure there much dating potential here, I'd love to date her but I suspect she would be very unlikely do date me.

I suppose this exchange made me re look at what I share when I have been on dates. How much do you "open up" on your life and what degree of vulnerability do you show on an initial date?

Me, I am probably guilty of not opening up much and showing very little vulnerability I do remember when I met this particular person I did feel comfortable enough to share.

 

[Wiseman2]

How did you get in touch with her? Social media or just running into each other? It seems like she has excellent interpersonal skills and knows how to be engaging and polite. 

[ZA Dater]

Just now, Wiseman2 said:

How did you get in touch with her? Social media or just running into each other? It seems like she has excellent interpersonal skills and knows how to be engaging and polite. 

Actually not OLD, met here at an event I was invited to. Had run into her periodically for a number of months before then. Indeed she is very good at communicating.

[Gaeta]

What kind o f sharing are we talking about?

On a first date I stick with being on the surface of subjects. I talk about what my work is, my family & friends dynamics, what I enjoy in life. I never say anything negative about anyone.

[ZA Dater]

5 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

What kind o f sharing are we talking about?

On a first date I stick with being on the surface of subjects. I talk about what my work is, my family & friends dynamics, what I enjoy in life. I never say anything negative about anyone.

Pretty much what I try to do. Maybe I found this interaction odd simply because she actually lead the conversation at certain points and perhaps unsurprisingly considering her job, her communication skills are superlative. It was nice to have an engaging conversation where some interest was taken.

Unless I find the person engaging I am going to share very little of the topics you mention above.

[Alpacalia]

What's she talking about, wet dreams she's having or did a pot plant die in her flat!

So, you've either found her style of communication enjoyable or you don't. Open up depending once again if you enjoyed her style of chat.

Edited March 11 by Alpacalia

[Wiseman2]

Charming small talk is not therapy. There's no deep dark secrets to "share".  It's just being personable and approachable. Showing an interest in others rather than just being absorbed in oneself.  Unless they're nosy questions, it's just the usual cocktail party chitchat. 

[FredEire]

On 2/13/2024 at 6:10 AM, ZA Dater said:

I am quite happy with who I am as a person, sure I'd like to find confidence but I have been looking for that for years. Its about as easy to find as oil in the Sahara. Sure, I agree its part of life and its easy to look at it that way, everyone around me has the same view, I am just working on accepting some people get it right and others do not. The simple reason I am bothering here is there is zero indication of interest, as with every single time I have tried this, its a case of "well he is good enough for helping me with XYZ  but too unattractive to date" and the rejection arrives like a smack to the face and frankly I'd rather not experience that.....again. 

My judgement is poor which does not help either, for example and thank goodness I did ask this forum, I thought about sending her a gift for valentines day, in my mind this was an acceptable kind gesture, thanks to the super helpful people here I was corrected and that idea was scrapped. I then think why I even thought the idea was a good one, how many other ideas of mine are fundamentally poor? 

What I would like is to take her to an out of town dinner event I am having, my idea is to just book two rooms and invite her to join me. She likes the group of people and has mentioned she would be keen, again this is probably a bad idea but my motivation here is to share something I enjoy and I think she would enjoy too. 

Let me guess this is a poor idea?

The root of the issue here is every time you feel like you could date someone the end result in your head is always failure.

If you think about this logically, it means there's no point even trying, and consequently there's no point even stressing over and committing your energy to something so pointless.

I think you have two options: either work on changing your mindset to recognise your potential for success, or put all this aside for a while to concentrate on activities which build your confidence, until you have enough of this to make option one possible.

[FredEire]

She may have been more open and personable than most people, you meet individuals like this on occasion and as others have met it could indicate good social skills as she is confident about navigating more personal topics of conversation.

In general if someone is sharing a lot of negative information/complaining it indicates low interest to me as with someone they're genuinely interested in I feel they'd do their best to show their more upbeat/positive side. It could just indicate poor communication/social skills also though.

[Weezy1973]

I don’t think there’s a rule per se on how much to share, but generally the first interaction is pretty general and often doesn’t involve as much personal info and then as trust is established over time and with subsequent meetings each person shares a bit more personal info. It’s usually a back and forth. This isn’t just in dating; friendships form pretty much the same way. 

[ShyViolet]

If the person is going into all of their problems and the conversation starts to sound more like a therapy session, then that is inappropriate for the first few dates and will be a huge turn-off for most people.  Oversharing is not a good thing.

What exactly was so strange about your conversation with this woman?

[ZA Dater]

Its was just nice to experience someone who is good at communicating I guess and being friendly, even if some of the topics and questions were quite personal. Its a change from the usual struggle to have a conversation people I am used to trying to communicate with. Maybe good communication could be deemed an attractive quality.

[Wiseman2]

Definitely good communication could be deemed an attractive quality. So why not take your cue from this person and focus on better communication and interpersonal skills?