Just when you thought it was safe - OK CUPID PART 3: The Return of the WOO!

I'm not sure how I feel about talking about past relationships--especially so early on in a relationship. In one way, it's a way to get to know each other better, but if it's a kind of solace seeking thing (where feelings are still raw) I think it's a bit misguided, and can put a cloud over what should be a fun new time. I haven't been in a relationship for so long now that for me to talk about anything would be really theoretical, like talking about my youth or adolescence, ie not bound up with any present feelings--I think in that case it's fine. But it's still not something I seek to introduce into conversations.

Also, if someone has had 13 bad experiences, you have to start to wonder if they are somehow contributing to or seeking out bad experiences or at the very least not judging correctly or failing to protect themself. There's bad luck, which happens to everyone, and then there's patterns. And yes, no on should have to feel like they have to differentiate themselves from previous people--that's too much pressure! I think it also introduces the seed of the idea to be a douche, when in reality that idea wasnt there in the first place.

"potential douche number 14"

think I am going to make a nametag that says this

Fairly certain I have considerably more than 13 failed relationships. I should clearly be banned from life, let alone dating!

the number 13 was arbitrary, dont know what the actual number is!

also i meant it to refer specifically to okcupid things as it was sort of being discussed in terms of that, and where these people came from - i got the feeling the non-okc ones were fine!

i dont really have any need to talk about past things with a new person, i mean if they want to then sure, and like if it was a serious thing then i understand needing to tell about it, but a series of failures that basically seem to be a case of bad judgement, im not sure what to do with that information exactly! it does serve as kind of a warning of "dont be like these people", which ok but that feels like it carries implicit assumption that im one of those people too

maybe i am!

Well, yeah, all of our relationships are "failed" to the extent that they are not still going on...But i mean if you blame it on 13 douches...if they really were douches, why were you opening yourself up to douches over and over again? I dont know, I'm pretty independent, I don't really feel like I need anybody per se, I'd rather do my own thing, rather than playing douche roulette.

idk is this the thing where a person whips out a bunch of semi-comical 'omg cray dates' stories as all their stories because they don't have any stories of their own?

.if they really were douches, why were you opening yourself up to douches over and over again?

this is a good question! i think a case of questionable judgement and going too fast....i think the 'serious' past relationships are not being counted as failures, more the 'are they/arent they' ones from okc

i dont think all ended relationships are failures!

and not all ongoing ones are successes

Of course you're one of those people...we're all one of those people! You don't intend to be...but the chance that someone is not going to get hurt in a relationship seems very rare to me. You can't ask for a guarantee at the beginning: "Please dont hurt me." It doesn't work that way. I think it create the opposite effect. Instead of enjoying the relationship, you might start wondering when you are going to let her down.

"douche roulette" A+

You can't ask for a guarantee at the beginning: "Please dont hurt me." It doesn't work that way. I think it create the opposite effect. Instead of enjoying the relationship, you might start wondering when you are going to let her down.

yes exactly, goes back to what WCC was saying to trayce, i dont think this is the best policy

Oh, I don't think of any of my past relationships as failures, actually, I was just responding to WCC''s comment about 13 "failed" relationships.

I read that.

and not all ongoing ones are successes

― in charge of refreshments tonight is (Abbbottt),

absolutely!

No, you're absolutely right. All those failed relationships are a sign that I am a terrible person with absolutely horrible patterns and poor taste in partners. I don't date anyway, and I haven't done in a number of years. I don't really know what I'm doing on this thread anyway. I think I was just trying to make Trayce feel less bad about this bloke's disappointing behaviour, but clearly that didn't work either.

im unable to tell if the 13 okcupids (or whatever number it is) really WERE douches to her or not but its kind of like well whether a) bad luck in successive douches, b) bad judgement in making a pattern of douche dating, or c) is just being melodramatic and none of them were douches, or d) combination of above

i cant really do anything about them, other than have subconscious thought that im one too!

All those failed relationships are a sign that I am a terrible person with absolutely horrible patterns and poor taste in partners.

Don't fall into the trap of binary thinking like this! If they were all really douchebags, then either all men are douchebags, you're seeking out a certain type that has issues, or something in the relationships is causing them to end in ways you feel are failures, not natural breaks.

I had a pretty short-lived relationship to the tune of a few months that the other person ended. At the time, I was kind of a neurotic seasonally-depressed person, but I still recognized that we did have some differences and extenuating factors that made the relationship one that probably wouldn't go on indefinitely, anyway. That didn't stop me from being a weirdo a few months later who *had* to talk to her on the phone and meet up when she obviously was not interested. That was a problem on my part, and I learned a lot about how to be in relationships, and deal with my own shit, and I look back at the time we spent together fondly. So, no failures on anyone's part.

The only real failures I'd chalk up are the ones where both people knew it was over, whether it was mutual or one person obviously wasn't into it, and we tried to drag it out regardless.

WCC, that is not to say I thought you were thinking in a binary matter, but if you're not getting anything out of these relationships and you think they're failures, I don't think being sarcastic about your own self esteem is going to help. They're maybe not a sign of anything.

I'm not being sarcastic now. I've been functionally asexual for several years now. It's pointless to keep bashing your head against something that's clearly not working.

Well, I hope you're able to drop some of the bile about it eventually! Seems like you could be happy while not seeking others.

Ppl often think I'm being serious when I'm being facetious and I'm being sarcastic when I'm being completely serious. I wish the Internet would develop some kind of blinking sarcasm font. :-(

Or indeed think I'm talking "bile" when I'm trying to be honest and dispassionate. Clearly I fail repeatedly at elementary communication.

This fucking site.

oh geez i feel like i kicked something off that I didnt mean to, Ive had a couple of okc crapouts but I didnt mean to turn it into a thing.

i'm more bummed than i expected about the "i don't think i can fall in love with you" guy...i mean i don't expect everyone to be able to fall in love with me, but it still kind of stings. and i guess the fact that it's been a few years since anyone has been in love with me feels pretty lousy.

i mostly don't get it! what does it take to be lovable? i think i am pretty awesome.

Well I think you're super hot and have great style, so there's that.

The thing is, that guy isn't saying anything meaningful about you when he says that. He can't fall in love because he's too fucking busy thinking about himself. Not because you're not loveable.

^^ yes on what laurel says.

Where does this guy come from? I've heard of, "I'm sorry, I've fallen out of love with you" or "i just I don't love you anymore" but I've never heard of this preemptive "I can't fall in love you." unless its a story of an marriage proposal or an arranged marriage or something.

I find you quite lovable, b_g!

yeah, "i can't fall in love with you" is dumb. trayce and bell, the guys in question are being dumb.

aw laurel (and everyone else), thanks.

i agree it's weird! i feel like he doesn't know enough about me to know if he can love me yet, which makes me think there is just something that is an obvious barrier to loving me :/

sounds like it's just something that came out of his mouth, like "you're too short for me" - it doesn't really have to make sense!

which is to say that you can't take a comment like that at face value, as tempting as it is because you like/d this person.

Who can quantify romantic attraction, really? He wasn't feeling it for whatever reason. I am sure someone will.

WCC, please get this through your head: fat ≠ disgusting

Lee, you are preaching to the converted and I am the number one proponent of this idea on vast swathes of this board.

But my body issues and historical general floating gender dysphoria are way outside the remit of this thread or indeed ILX.

so i'm meeting up with that guy who couldn't fall in love with me tonight, i am feeling pretty calm about it and ready to accept it and move on. i really don't think that there's anything he could say to make me feel worse, so i guess i'm looking forward to talking more and maybe finding a way to feel better about the situation.

2 cents from an internet stranger: you should erase him from your life entirely. his breakup line is one of the most toxic and cruel things i have heard.

On board with that.

Really? Do we now owe something to people who say, in effect, "It's not me--it's you"?

lindz, you can do so much better imo.

the important think to keep in mind is that this whole endeavor is something of a crapshoot.

(I'm not esp good at doing that, which is why I essentially don't date)

seconding or thirding bene_gesserit's awesomeness

i'm skipping the thirding or fourthing and going straight for eighthing

From thehairpin.com:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/okc.jpg

aw, you guys!

i guess i didn't think of it as cruel, but just honest, but i guess it kind of was cruel. i'm glad that i am not a space alien for believing that love is something that develops over time through shared experiences and not some mystical thing that you just know right off the bat.

p.s. set me up on datessssssssss

linds i will set you up with my friend abe if you want.
also, i don't know about cruelty vs honesty but it's certainly tactless & thoughtless to say and maybe indicative of a lack of empathy on his part.

People are so bad at interpreting and communicating their feelings (in general) that to identify that comment as "being honest" is giving that dude more credit than I think he deserves. Lacks fundamental diplomacy, indicates extreme self-centeredness. I've been told any array of similar things over the years and in retrospect, have wondered why I ever gave them credence at all.

I hope you don't spend one more second feeling bad about this, b_g.

honestly, I keep rereading the chain of comments and thinking that while telling a woman that I "wasn't really feeling it" was honest, it probably could have been better-phrased

He may also be from a conservative Christian background and have the whole "dating is for finding the woman I want to marry and anything else is Satan's trap" floating around in in the back of his brain, even if he thinks differently now.

No. He's just a secret jerk.