The Vagaries of Dating The Vagaries of Dating

eh i could just as easily go the other way and say not having "the conversation" is a sign that u are not really prepared to communicate honestly and openly.

you could! differing perceptions of the same thing

I guess for me stuff is always implicit - for others not so much

it's just pers experience really, a lot if times i thought something was implicit in a relationship it turned out to be something we needed to talk about--now i feel like i know better.

But hey, if the internet has already decreed that this dude is an emotionally stunted commitmentphobe, so be it.

Not entirely sure if that has been decreed. My point was really that if "boyfriend" is what he feels like to ljubljana, then chances are that's how he sees himself as well. "Boyfriend" hardly denotes ring-on-finger-level-commitment, does it? Why would he be afraid of it?

LJ - yes, definitely chemistry. Conversation spilling on and on - check. Genuine tenderness? Check, though tender not lovey-dovey, and tempered with a LOT of caution - a lid is being kept on it. Also forgot to mention pillow talk a couple of times along the lines of 'I'm getting into this a bit quickly'.

Matt DC - he's definitely not a commitmentphobe. I do believe in such a thing as bad times. I also believe that if the thang is really, really good, it'll transcend them. But I think you have to have a lot of patience, understanding and self-belief to make that happen, and I am not full of these qualities so am trying very hard. I also believe that all this patient understanding can easily mask 'he's just not that into you'. So of course I'm veering between believing he's JNTIM and believing it's worth at least a shot at just being understanding and patient.

Did I mention we met on OKC? I don't think either of us expected to meet anyone we liked so much so quickly on there. We were both anticipating more a strung-out series of 'social' dates, make new friends, hope something works out eventually.

I think it goes...

Patient waiting phase till mid-October (to allow for post-deadline recovery phase, sleeping, catching up with friends etc.)
Catching up phase till mid-November, hoping that things get clearer
Moment!
Moment didn't get you anywhere? Conversation! (on a different occasion)
Key part: *accept whatever happens from there and don't whinge* (except on here)

Jesus, I'm bad at living with uncertainty.

wait, so this guy is just getting out of a serious relationship? I doubt he's a commitment-phobe since he was married. He probably wants some time and space to figure things out before jumping into another serious relationship ...

He was married, she left over two years ago, but it was a drawn-out split in a number of ways. Actual decree nisi came through a week or so before I met him.

I am going away for the w/end now but please carry on without me and feel free to amend my timeline above :-)

I do have to say that my "commitmentophobe" comments were prefaced with an "IF"

Mainly in defense against those people who were trying to say that there don't exist guys who will try and say all "you're not my GIRLFRIEND" to the person they are shagging. Because it's certainly happened to me.

Or perhaps a healthy dose of projection as I totally am a commitmentophobe through and through and I'll say all "bad time..." and all that, but the truth is, there is never going to be a "good" time again.

i hooked up with this girl and we added each other on facebook. i check out her photos and i find out a few years back she used to be rather chubby. (which for me is cool, you know max r is like sir-mixalot in that respect) no big deal. then i log on the next day and 2 pages of her late-teens chubster pics have vanished... i think this is a good sign, you know how paranoid girls are about weight. i feel like feedin her up, she looked good!

classy

ok question answered, and I didn't even have to ask it :-( At least he manned up and told me

Told you what? What happened?

Just Not That Into Me. Fin.

Oh, I'm so sorry. This is rubbish, but at least you know, and you can stop WONDERING which is the killing part.

Yeah, that's true. At the moment though I just want to stay in bed and cry for three days. Falling hard for people is my speciality. I don't do it often but when I do it, I'm thorough.

Oh god, I know that feeling. Give yourself a couple of days, allow yourself to grieve - make yourself sad mixtapes and eat ice cream and watch movies that make you OK to bawl like a child. Get it out of your system. (So long as you make sure you know when to come out of it.)

yep I think you're right. Got a friend who is *actually* grieving right now though and trying to support her so dunno how that's going to go this weekend, I'll have to leave her to her parents I think.

off to drag myself to work now I think

Oh no, the wrong sort of thing :(

Sorry to hear that ljub, hope you get through the next few days okay.

Thanks, and I was still gonna use your line if this hadn't happened.

1. Drop the phrase 'my boyfriend' or 'your girlfriend' offhand into the most casual of conversation with him.

Not passive aggressive imo. Wouldn't have worked on my guy but might have worked on some

aww :( well trite as it is, better luck next time! i mean, obviously something will happen in the heretofore, but i hope it's with someone you share an intimate connection with

i had a date tonight! it was fun. we got on, and will probably do dinner and drinks again at some stage...life and its options

thanks lj!

drunk and in 'f**k you' stage, hoorah, will not last but enjoying it for now.

*I used Nick's line retrospectively!!* To explain what I was thinking over the last month.

ok ilx, i said yes to a date with someone i'm probably not interested in (but figured give him a chance and maybe my mind will change, the reason i'm always single is that i always say no unless i'm really into the person already)...is this a terrible thing to do? if at the end of said date i figure out that i'm not, what do i say?

Well, it depends how you view the experience. If you think of it as a practice date, where you just get used to the idea of dating and learning how to do it, then I think it's fine. It's just trouble lies ahead when you get to the point where all you ever go on is practice dates with guys you're not that into and start to lose faith in the whole process.

I'm not so much worried about it from my side, I just don't want to be a bitch if it turns out he's interested and I'm not, especially as he's a friend of some of my friends. Advice?

oh this is not a bad thing! come saturday i'm going on a second date with a girl i'm not at all head over heels with, although she is very friendly and talkative. that said atm dating is about all i have time for, so i'm able to go on these chilled dates without feeling any pressure to force an issue. treat your own one like this and it'll be fine :) maybe better than fine!

this makes sense. i figure that is how it should be, that is how casual dating works, right? the problem is just that most of my circle tends to date friends, so it escalates immediately to "relationship," and i'm not sure how to not have that happen.

Don't drink too much - that's the easiest way to stop things from escalating into full-blown "relationship" if you know what I mean.

I know this problem. I'm convinced I know straight away if I'm interested in someone or not, which means if I don't think I want to date them, it means I don't. But of course I could be missing out on a lot by not trying. And it means that if I date someone I'm already taking it very very very seriously, even if I don't tell the person that.

Yeah I am generally the same! I decided to break the mold this time on grounds that I probably do miss out on a lot by not trying, and now I'm really nervous because frankly, we probably know ourselves best. (And of course I'm projecting my own psychology onto him, because if I asked someone out it would be because I really liked them, even though I don't know enough about this guy to assume that.)

Okay date is in an hour! What do I do/say at the end if I'm not interested in another one? (i ask this as a worst case scenario because i think i know what to do in all other scenarios, haha)

"Good luck with that!"

'it's been real, cowboy, but i'm takin' the low road'

"all signs point to negative poppage"

'i wanted Kid A, you were only MPP'

please let us not let the pitchfork decade poll infect every thread on ilx!

'i wanted an MP, you were only a kid'

it's like some zombie virus.

totally

Him: 'shall we do this again sometime?'
You: 'yyyeeeeeeehhhhhhh...'

Don't contact him. If he contacts you, say you would love to hang out again (pause) just as friends, if that's ok?

yeah...that's pretty much how it went down. *sigh* thanks for listening.

But next time it might go down differently. But yeah, dates like that feel all wrong to me too.

Us clueless guys never being able to interpret whether the woman wants to go out again. Some women are honest and just say 'no' or 'yes'; that's better than the "yeahhhh, maybe, contact me (but then later ignoring e-mails or calls).

Being a divorced 40-something parent and dating is no fun. Trying to schedule dates with other divorced parents is always difficult because your non-parenting nights never seem to match up. Never married 40-somethings either want to have kids, or have schedules that somehow manage to be even busier than those of a parent. I had been seeing someone for years but that fizzled out and now I'm in the wonderful world of internet dating. Ugh.

I know this problem. I'm convinced I know straight away if I'm interested in someone or not, which means if I don't think I want to date them, it means I don't. But of course I could be missing out on a lot by not trying. And it means that if I date someone I'm already taking it very very very seriously, even if I don't tell the person that.

― ljubljana, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 8:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wow this is crazy

sorry that sounds mean.

which part do you think is crazy? there's a few different statements there

well, if i only dated ppl i was already into, i would be dating a hell of a lot less often & be meeting v. few interesting people, be many friends shorter & two relationships shorter than i am now.

i mean i guess the line could be at varying places -- its not like im dating ppl im not attracted to or something -- but part of the fun/risk of dating is getting to know people

i don't really understand the concern about rejecting someone ... you're afraid you'll end up in a relationship you dont want to be in? "oops!" you can say no & make an excuse at basically any point on the ride, would much rather do that than miss out on someone who is potentially really cool (or more likely, at least a decent person to know).