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

"responds selectively" isn't a bad thing!

your problem is you're putting "some of the women" on a pedastal, and yourself as one of the dozens competing for a reply - when you should be equals. it also sounds like you are just throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks - are your eg 10 messages similar? this kind of approach is always going to result in a lower %

No one is saying you are or aren't a nice guy, its just at this is at best a) like saying, "Hey, I got shoes, I wear shoes, 3 pairs" and at worst b) "I'm nice ok, don't let anyone tell you different, I don't hit anyone - I got ZERO issues. Nice. with a capital N, got it?"

I maybe got it wrong, I only got your words to go on but there's a lot of "which is fine", and "I'm just saying" and "I have no real complaints" which kinda reads like frustration + the scattershot approach suggests impatience which maybe not a good combo

sorry if i got it wrong i don't mean to be a dick

ok who just visited my profile? Curious.

(hands up)

Your profile seems to paint an accurate picture of you, fwiw. To the extent that the ILX you is the real you. It's a favorable portrayal, is what I'm saying here.

thanks! :)

Also anyone who worked out what my username was from what i said earlier is win :)

trayce are you from portland? i have to admit i did the search you suggested. if that's you, our music tastes are pretty similar! would you guys find me if you searched for bali + waterproof ipod + hardboiled wonderland? i can't tell, my internet is being super patchy right now.

so yeah, sure, i may very well be coming off as insecure, here anyway. maybe in real life too, i suppose. probably! i made a decision sometime last year to stop being so player-y, stop dating loads of women casually all at once and concentrate on finding A Woman Of Quality who i could have a long term relationship with, maybe get married and have kids and stuff. obviously as soon as i tried to do that (and i've never been the kind of guy who couldn't get dates) BAM! it was like a desert. it was spooky! i've spent the better part of a year trying to get my mojo back, and it's only been over the last month or 2 i've been getting any attention from the opposite sex again. i still feel a bit spooked too.

really i don't know what i was thinking! i've always, ALWAYS done better when i've just embraced my inner nymphomaniac, it's somehow my best look <shrugs> in the past, when i've just let it all hang out, eventually i meet someone cool. hopefully that'll happen this time as well...

hahah no I'm australian!

messiawannabe it sounds like its best if you're just yourself and don't try and look for something different

perhaps it is time for messiahwannabe to shrug off the shackles of restraint and become messiah

:)

i totally have a plan to be the new messiah, but i need about 3 million dollars to pull it off i think. it's a very specific plan, but i recon it would work if the stars aligned correctly. and if i had approximately 3 million dollars. i also have a plan to make the 3 million dollars, which isn't really completely implausible! i need to get on that actually.

it would be nice to find a mz. messiah to be in my corner along for the ride and stuff.

I have faith in you, you can do it for less than half of that

Um. Wow. I am going to try really hard not to give unsolicited advice, because I hate when it's done to me (as it's usually completely off base) but I really think things might work out better for you if you stop trying to think about things in terms of "I've stopped playing and I'm looking for Mrs Me now!" like you have this five-year-plan for A Woman Of Quality and you. And just try to work on meeting women and interacting with them on their own terms and seeing where their ideas intersect with yours. Because that's a heck of a lot of expectations for any one woman to have to measure up to.

Maybe that's just me. But if any guy said to me "I am looking for a Woman Of Quality" I'd be all "Look! Over there! Behind that tree!" and run in the opposite direction because who knows what kind of expectations that entails.

Yeah, I generally try to avoid wasting the time of anyone who doesn't at least implicitly suggest that they're okay with slightly-damaged goods.

Well, it's partly that. But it's also.. I'm me. I have my own hopes and dreams. I'd like someone we could build a new plan together and work out what we want from each other, once we know each other. Not someone who wants to slot me into this pre-conceived idea of "now I'm done with being a player, I am looking for a wife and mother of my children."

I remain convinced that the #1 reason why this dating/relationship shit keeps blowing up in my face is the cognitive dissonance that develops in the ever-widening schism between someone's idealized notion of who I am (or, conversely, some fantastical and increasingly-negative notion of who I am) and, y'know, the person I actually am in real life. Which is massively confounding, given that I think I'm pretty honest and WYSIWYG. So I definitely sympathize with that.

Maybe that's just me. But if any guy said to me "I am looking for a Woman Of Quality" I'd be all "Look! Over there! Behind that tree!" and run in the opposite direction because who knows what kind of expectations that entails.

me too. i'd love to find someone to date, but it's more impt to find someone i can connect with generally. i had a phone call with a guy who was Interviewing To Be My Boyfriend, and it was just WEIRD and ick. i just want to get to know people, and see how that goes.

there's one okc guy i'm talking to on skype. he knows i'm hesitant about meeting in person, and hasn't brought it up past my first mention of it. so we just keep on skyping. he hasn't hit on me, told me i'm beautiful, any of that shit. he just talks to me! like i'm a person! and i like talking to him, tho i'm unsure whether i'm attracted to him romantically. i'll probably meet him soon, and i'll figure it out.

i keep debating about temporarily shutting down my acct b/c i can't handle messaging anyone lately. feels like a lot of pressure and expectation and i'm just not in the right headspace to cope with it. this shit is exhausting.

I went out with the music teacher from last week again. Super fun! Oh heck. We walked around downtown and watched trains from a parking garage, got some sushi, and played a totally ridiculous game that started out 'hey let's doodle with colored pencils' and ended up turning into a set of very complicated rules. He played Bad Romance and a bunch of traditional songs on the balalaika. Whoever on here said this guy was Michael Cera – I could not stop thinking 'Michael Cera aw shit' when he was sitting around in my barrel chair playing the Parks & Rec theme on a balalaika. Also he dresses like Michael Cera (as George Michael...oh well). Anyway I think this guy is a keeper.

yay Abbs!

people definitely put too much pressure on themselves (and others!), and it can be hard not to do

imo a good way of taking the pressure out, is to almost specifically say, you know what lets just scrap this date rubbish and just hang out

Julia, it sounds like the second person (the skype one) is good, does it necessarily matter if you are attracted to him romantically? you like talking to each other and there's no pressure, do you have to decide right now what "it" is, or could you just go hang out grab a beer?

wait, xposts but - a BETTER way of taking the pressure out is to just do the following

"walked around downtown and watched trains from a parking garage, got some sushi, and played a totally ridiculous game that started out 'hey let's doodle with colored pencils' and ended up turning into a set of very complicated rules"

that just sounds like a really fun day, honestly dont think a person could ask for more!

I mean i know i'm not the cleanest of fuels these days, and I'm not trying to lobby for any kind of deregulation here or get into anyones good books, but seriously, Julia (or anyone!), thats a good low pressure fun day where it doesnt matter what "it" is

Yay Beckotts!

Am meeting someone for dinner. After weird psycho-shit with awful neighbour, I nearly cancelled but this thread has reminded me there are good things in life.

That early 30s shit was awful, all the EXPECTATIONS and the PRESSURE and the "ARE YOU GONNA BE MY LIFE PARTNER" and the one nice thing about being in your 40s is there's a lot less of that and a lot more of "are you just someone I can chill with?"

imo a good way of taking the pressure out, is to almost specifically say, you know what lets just scrap this date rubbish and just hang out

I flat-out state this in my OKC profile. Like, let's just hang out and maybe decide at some point down the road whether legit dating is a good use of our collective time. Rather than you deciding after a date or two that we should jump straight into "Serious 'N' Steady" (as has happened to me several times via OKC, to my eternal befuddlement).

There is so much bullshit pressure that is thrown at women to Have A Boyfriend and if you don't Have A Boyfriend you might as well not exist and you must put all your effort into FINDING ONE that I completely understand why people act like that. I went through a totally manic and out of character period in my early 30s which was just traumatic and awful for everyone concerned. But it's hard to turn off the internalised pressure once it's been turned on.

(That said, men get so skittish that even questions like "Are we gonna have sex again?" just so one can figure out, say, one's birth control and toothbrush needs can led to guys going OMG YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SERIOUS AND STEADY WITH ME AFTER THE SECOND DATE!!!! Like, no, I'm just trying to figure out if I need to bring condoms and a toothbrush next time I come round.)

xp

yr right, coal, i don't have to decide. i'm overthinking.

there are enough msgs from Srs Ppl who aim Relationships that it feels overwhelming.

so this skype guy seems really weird because he's no-pressure and cool!

(and yaaay abbbottt!) :D

messiah: I'm single, let's mingle. I like balding overweight guys in bands.

That said, men get so skittish that even questions like "Are we gonna have sex again?" just so one can figure out, say, one's birth control and toothbrush needs can led to guys going OMG YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SERIOUS AND STEADY WITH ME AFTER THE SECOND DATE!!!!

By the time I was out of my 20s and no longer so spooked by the idea of Serious Business, I eventually found myself happily ensconced in a series of serious/semi-serious situations with ladies I liked a great deal and who seemed to like me a great deal and with whom I seemed to be on the same page for a while but with whom things ultimately imploded at least partly because they decided against the level of commitment we were collectively approaching. And which has resulted in my becoming more gunshy towards LTRs than at any other point in my adult life thus far, unfortunately (more to the extent that it's gonna take a herculean effort to ever trust someone with my heart to that extent again). So I've learned that people of all stripes can be and are commitmentphobes, for perhaps a variety of reasons.

The solution, WCC, is to always have a condom and toothbrush on your person at all times. Don't keep them in your breast pocket though.

Also, Trayce you need to find the profile called flowered_knife_shadows it is obv. your soulmate.

I am about to meet someone from OKC! Technically.

so against my better judgement and the advice of this thread i had been (non-exclusively) still dating that guy who dumped me last month, who begged me to take him back a week later, and he dumped me again last night. i had sort of prepared myself for this but what really blew my mind was his emotional selfishness. i was like "well, i can't say i wasn't expecting it, but it sucks and i'm sad" and he said he was sad too. and i was just like, wtf you are not allowed to be sad, this was your decision!! and then he started crying and kind of tried to sleep with me but i asked him to leave.

anywayssssssssssssss yeah.

where does one find non-selfish non-emotional vampires in this city, i would like to know. i think this dude was too self absorbed to ever realize i had feelings. and the one before too.

Ugh, that's awful. If I get the sense that someone doesn't know themself or what they're looking for in a partner or the level of seriousness they prefer, it's just about my biggest dealbreaker anymore.

And it's really just an extension of that old "if you can't love yourself you can't love someone else" saw.

yeah i mean, in his grand tradition of saying things that made me feel pretty awful, he said that last saturday when we were sleeping in his bed together (i almost never sleep over, because he lives with a family who has kids, but they were out of town, and he never sleeps at my place because he has a dog) he just felt anxious and terrible the entire night, and had wanted to talk to me about it that morning but didn't. who tells someone that? now i am mortified that i was sleeping in bed next to someone that totally didn't want me there and was having a terrible time. and to me it was just a lovely evening and i have no clue what i did to make him have these feelings.

who tells someone that?

Someone who shouldn't be sharing a bed with anyone until they've undergone extensive therapy?

I guess the important thing to tell yourself re: your justifiable mortification is that not everyone is so emotionally unstable. And I say this as someone who has been in pretty much that exact situation (first night of an increasingly-serious dating sitch wherein, after spending several nights at hers, she almost spent her first night at my place but ultimately, after tossing and turning wide-eyed in the dark, told me she felt weird and anxious and left in the middle of the night...which you can imagine I felt pretty great about).

Of course, this is the same person who, within the span of a couple weeks, freaked out at the imagined expectation of hypercommitment in my offhand remark about how I liked the idea of introducing her to my mom and then freaked out again because I spent an entire two nights sleeping alone in my own bed rather than with her at her place. Hence my pretty severe lack of patience with people who jump into an exclusive dating thing with abandon but without having any idea of what they really even want.

now i am mortified that i was sleeping in bed next to someone that totally didn't want me there and was having a terrible time. and to me it was just a lovely evening and i have no clue what i did to make him have these feelings.

Can I...just? You didn't do anything to make him have those feelings. The man is, as you said, a vampire. If he was lying awake, it was probably with GLEE, thinking about how he was going to tell you all about it later and watch you deflate and feel terrible. Manipulative little shit.

I had a nice daet w a nice person, we talked hyperexcitedly for several hours, we like all the same things on paper, he is totally smart, and we interacted in a completely non date-like way with no looks and no flirting and no twinkle in the eye and no touching and so I am feeling nuthin for him. Will go out again obvs, to do a bike ride daytime thing and see if being able to properly see each other in daylight helps.

sometimes it is good to be just friendly at first? sometimes people don't make moves make moves until they get to know you a bit better? even if it is a date date?

i'm glad you're going to go out again to see :)

imo a good way of taking the pressure out, is to almost specifically say, you know what lets just scrap this date rubbish and just hang out

So true. All of my best relationships in the past were with women I wasn't particularly attracted to when we first met, but developed feeling for once I got to know her better.

And yet, there have been many times where thinking that way for too long resulted in thinking of her (or her of me) as someone who's nice to chill with, but not someone i/she wants to be in a relationship with. There must be a happy medium, but I keep missing it....

Dates, in my head, have a different script than hanging out does, a script that has a bit of coyness in it and hones my conversational swords for crossing, and ends with making out. I realize dating people who play along with that script hasn't worked out that well so I'm open to trying something new, it's just that's where my frisson comes from. Otherwise it seems like we might as well read off lists of personal characteristics, down 3 beers each, and call it a night.

I need to learn that script sometime. My dates often have the bit of coyness, but at least of late, haven't ended with us making out. Not sure what honing conversational swords for crossing entails

i have a date scheduled tonight with a hot metal guy! well he likes lots of death/black metal and dresses metal (which is v.v. hot but also a little exotic to me) but also pulp and jamc and stuff like that. he seems really cool. i'm excited.

Lol, I definitely removed the fact that I don't listen to metal from my profile after noticing several v.v. hot but also a little exotic metal chicks.

I vacillate between lamenting my perpetual lack of a hook and being perfectly okay with not having a hook (at least to the extent that some people are like, "I date ______ dudes!", as if people within a particular subculture are pretty much interchangeable).

well now i'm slightly annoyed because he suggested something in his neighborhood that is a pain in the ass for me to get to on the subway (i have to go into manhattan) and back to brooklyn. is a romance with someone off the Q train doomed from the start?

B_G that previous guy was a douche. I am just reiterating this, even though you know this. I had forgotten there even was such a thing as a Q train so I don't know how geographically undesirable this new dude may be. But perhaps there will be making out which makes any geography acceptable.

I am... confused. I think I have completely forgotten how to be sexual. If I ever knew how to be sexual without alcohol in the first place. Have just had an amazing evening with a person who still completely wows me. And I cannot read if they have the slightest interest in me. (Or indeed if I have in them.) I feel like it's so long since I did this that I have lost the ability to tell.

do we ever learn this for sure? & million love songs later... Nope