Graduate Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I'd really appreciate your feedback on this. I am not really a multidater, I mean, I can go out with various guys if we are just hanging out as friends and it all stays platonic, but as soon as we even kiss, I can't date anyone else anymore. I'd feel like I'd be cheating. And the thought of kissing a guy one day and then seeing him holding hands with someone else the next is really painful. So here is my dilemma with OLD. When I open up a profile, I usually get a dozens messages during the first week or so before it quiets down. Out of those messages there are a few inappropriate ones, a few I would never date due to age, distance, etc, but there are also at least 20 or so from guys who sound nice. I don't expect too much from a profile, so if the guy sounds decent and sends a nice message, I usually reply. As a consequence I am often exchanging emails with at least 10 guys. After a few emails they usually ask to meet in person. If I think he sounds nice I usually agree for a coffee meet and we set it up. So I might have about 3 coffee-dates in one week. After the first meet about half end there, either him or I are no longer interested. So that leaves about 5, who are mutually interested in meeting again. The second meet is usually still casual, and consists of a movie, bowling, going for a hike, or some other low-key activity. But at the latest date three usually ends up being more 'romantic' and often the guy wants to kiss me at the end of it. So here is my dilemma, from experience I know that if I kiss him back and we exchange more than a peck on the lips, I am pretty much attached and want to concentrate on him exclusively. (Which I don't tell him, don't want to scare him off) BUT, at that point I often don't know him well enough to really decide whether I want a relationship with him, or whether of the guys I am dating he is the one I am having the deepest connection with. My last boyfriend kissed me and asked me for exclusivity on date 2! At that time I barely knew him (we only had one prior coffee-date) but I liked him and did not want to reject him, so I agreed and cancelled my dates with the other two guys I was seeing. Of course, a few weeks later he dumped me. The boyfriend before that, he asked me for exclusivity after a week and I agreed. It lasted a few months, but after a few weeks I knew that we were not really compatible, only I did not want to give up at that point but tried to work on it and see if we could work on our differences. In the past I have often said yes to a guy who asked for exclusivity, but only because he was the first to ask, not necessarily because he was the one I liked the most, BECAUSE I BARELY KNEW HIM AT THE TIME. So, how do you handle it? TL, DR: How do you react when a guy asks you for exclusivity after a few dates, but you don't know him well enough yet to decide if he is the one you like best? And how do you act when you date more than one guy and they all want to kiss you?
Noproblem Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I really can't help you, but I can always say don't burn all your cards for a possibility of a distant winning ...Even if you think you are into him, no need to kick the others away, why should you?
todreaminblue Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 (edited) i am not good at online dating....i get scared off pretty quick ....i dont multi date either.......its a hard forum to adjust too......as most multi date....... so i date one at a time any way i meet them.......that way i dont have to worry about kissing more than one...doesnt feel right to me....if one doesnt work out i take some time out and try again in a couple of years....smilin ...i am kidding about the years part i take time out in between if it doesnt work if it does work out and the feelings are progressing and they want to be exclusive i go exclusive.........but i dont normally date guys i dont like.....unless i am drunk so that doesnt happen anymore because i dont drink havent for years.....so ....ill only date guys who like me and who i like and see where it goes one on one style...i do bond with intimacy and i am unlikely to do that while i am dating more than one...so i just dont do it...its wrong for me.....deb Edited April 2, 2013 by todreaminblue
Author Graduate Posted April 2, 2013 Author Posted April 2, 2013 Id say dont put all your eggs in one basket. I find only after months of dating someone (particularly someone online) you find out what they are REALLY like and their "best behavior" goes away I agree, my question is how do you handle a situation where a guy asks you to be exclusive after only a few dates? Do you say yes, no, I am not ready, etc. ? And also, if someone wants to kiss you after a date, do you kiss him back, but then go out with another guy a few days later and maybe also kiss him?
iris219 Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I don't do OLD, but I've never multidated. I have no interest in it. How hard is it to go out with one guy once, twice, three times? That's how long it would take me to discover if I wanted to continue dating him. If I did, I would date just him. If it didn't work out or I decided I didn't want to date him, I'd move on. Multidating has always seemed more difficult than just focusing on one person for a short period in order to decide how you feel. I don't want to compare people. I want to decide if I like a man for who he is, not because he's a little better than someone else. 3
iris219 Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I agree, my question is how do you handle a situation where a guy asks you to be exclusive after only a few dates? Do you say yes, no, I am not ready, etc. ? You do what you feel is right. Do you want to be exclusive? If so, do it. If not, don't. And also, if someone wants to kiss you after a date, do you kiss him back, but then go out with another guy a few days later and maybe also kiss him? Again, it's up to you. Do you want to kiss the guy? For me, it comes down to whether or not I like him enough to continue dating him. If I do, I date just him. Often after kissing someone, I learn that I feel nothing for him. In that case, I stop dating him and date someone else.
pyramid Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I agree, my question is how do you handle a situation where a guy asks you to be exclusive after only a few dates? Do you say yes, no, I am not ready, etc. ? I've only had this happen once, and I said yes, and wished I had said I wasn't ready. The relationship moved way too fast, I felt smothered, and bailed after like 6 weeks. And also, if someone wants to kiss you after a date, do you kiss him back, but then go out with another guy a few days later and maybe also kiss him? Yep. I am ok with kissing two guys, but this is a totally personal thing. If it feels like cheating, then you know it's time to either choose or slow things way down.
Jane2011 Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 I online dated for a good stretch of time, and "multi-dating" was never a problem for me. I'm discriminate, and it just never happens (or would happen, in my opinion) that I actually like two guys enough (at the same time) to be dating them both. I am *lucky* if I am attracted to one guy from OLD.
Author Graduate Posted April 2, 2013 Author Posted April 2, 2013 Thank you for your posts, they really help! Anybody else who uses online dating?
sabre80 Posted April 2, 2013 Posted April 2, 2013 Grduate, I appreciate your current outlook. I do not multidate past the second date. I feel I do both of us a disservice when I go on anything past a first meet over coffee/drinks when I have another date lined up the next night. I found I was not fully invested or interested in my date when I knew I had another date. I know you take a greater risk this way but I think with greater risk comes greater reward. If I was multidating I may not have ended up with my current girlfriend. I was not insanely attracted to my girlfriend when we first met (She was/is beautiful but I did not feel that initial spark). However I had a great time with her. I kept asking her out though and she kept saying yes and I figured I KNEW I was going to have a good time with her vs the possibility of a terrible time with a stranger. I am glad I took the time to just focus on her because attraction grew and grew and the spark is irresistible now. If I had not focused on the now and was focused on the what if meat market I would have seriously missed out. A piece of advice if you do choose to multidate. Do not announce that you are multidating. A sane man will just assume that you are seeing as it is OLD. I found it really unclassy when a woman would tell me she is seeing other guys or has a date lined up an hour after ours.
Author Graduate Posted April 2, 2013 Author Posted April 2, 2013 I know you take a greater risk this way but I think with greater risk comes greater reward. If I was multidating I may not have ended up with my current girlfriend. I was not insanely attracted to my girlfriend when we first met (She was/is beautiful but I did not feel that initial spark). However I had a great time with her. I kept asking her out though and she kept saying yes and I figured I KNEW I was going to have a good time with her vs the possibility of a terrible time with a stranger. Did you meet her online? I appreciate your input, but I think it is a bit different for women. For one, if you are the man, you are in the position of actively pursuing/asking out a woman. If you decide to focus on one woman, you can just stop asking others out. In a woman's case, it is us who get approached and receive emails from various men who all seem decent. For me it is impossible to make an assessment about how much I like someone from an email, so we have to meet in person. Now, if 5 guys who all seem nice ask me out, should I just accept the invite of the first who asks and say no to the others until I met this one guy and found out whether we gel and are both interested in seeing each other romantically? Which might take me a few dates (i.e. weeks) to determine? I guess my problem is that it is the vary rare case where I can say after one or two dates that I really like one guy and want to pursue a relationship with him. I like to take it slow. If I met him in real life we would just continue dating for a few weeks - if we are both interested - and then over time we would see if there is something real here. But with OLD I feel rushed to make a decision if I don't want to lead anybody on or hurt their feelings. I just think that if a guy asks me to be exclusive or wants to kiss after the 2nd date and I say I am not ready, he might feel hurt and rejected and stop seeing me. But if we continued seeing each other something real could develop. In the last couple years my pattern seems to be that I say yes to the first guy who asks to be exclusive, even though I am not really ready at that point because being exclusive is a form of commitment for me, even though I know it only means that you are agreeing to not go out with anybody else. But since most of those relationships have ended after a few weeks or months, I guess I will have to change my pattern and say 'No' if I am not ready, even though that might mean that I loose a great guy. (Sorry, I realize I have been self-analyzing a bit here). Any other women in a similar situation?
sabre80 Posted April 3, 2013 Posted April 3, 2013 Did you meet her online? I appreciate your input, but I think it is a bit different for women. For one, if you are the man, you are in the position of actively pursuing/asking out a woman. If you decide to focus on one woman, you can just stop asking others out. In a woman's case, it is us who get approached and receive emails from various men who all seem decent. For me it is impossible to make an assessment about how much I like someone from an email, so we have to meet in person. Now, if 5 guys who all seem nice ask me out, should I just accept the invite of the first who asks and say no to the others until I met this one guy and found out whether we gel and are both interested in seeing each other romantically? Which might take me a few dates (i.e. weeks) to determine? I guess my problem is that it is the vary rare case where I can say after one or two dates that I really like one guy and want to pursue a relationship with him. I like to take it slow. If I met him in real life we would just continue dating for a few weeks - if we are both interested - and then over time we would see if there is something real here. But with OLD I feel rushed to make a decision if I don't want to lead anybody on or hurt their feelings. I just think that if a guy asks me to be exclusive or wants to kiss after the 2nd date and I say I am not ready, he might feel hurt and rejected and stop seeing me. But if we continued seeing each other something real could develop. In the last couple years my pattern seems to be that I say yes to the first guy who asks to be exclusive, even though I am not really ready at that point because being exclusive is a form of commitment for me, even though I know it only means that you are agreeing to not go out with anybody else. But since most of those relationships have ended after a few weeks or months, I guess I will have to change my pattern and say 'No' if I am not ready, even though that might mean that I loose a great guy. (Sorry, I realize I have been self-analyzing a bit here). Any other women in a similar situation? I did meet her online. I cannot speak to the women's perspective. And I am not really supporting a position one way or another just expressing my take on it. I did both really. When I first started OLD I actually took on too much. My thought process at the time was that if date A flaked on me I did not want the wasted weekend with no date. Problem was it started feeling so impersonal. I had to have a calendar with links to profile and an excel spreadsheet with little notes so I did not get my dates messed up. I get the feeling of not wanting to be rushed into a relationship. But on the flip side there is a subtle rush to needing to date everything as well. I noticed that I met far more women I would never ask on a second date than women I wanted a second date with. And I also noticed the longer I was on OLD the same faces were still there and the meat market did not seem so large in the long run. So I started reigning in my net once I had a couple people chatting with me. I stopped fishing completely temporarily once I had a date lined up. I still would get a couple dates queued up due to the nature of talking with a couple people online at a time but once I had one date lined up I would take a break from shooting out messages. Lucy aka OLDgirl123 will most likely still be online if my date does not pan out. When I stopped casting such a huge net OLD became a much more pleasant experience for me. Granted there was a weekend here and there that I did not have a date but it was rare. And as I said before if I had been multi-dating I may not have given my current girlfriend a serious chance. It really boiled down to I had fun so I kept asking her out and she kept saying yes. At the least I knew we were going to hit it off as good friends. But things might have been different if I had decided to go out with OLDGirl887 with the aerial shot of cleavage shot with a cellphone in a dirty bathroom mirror who's clever photographing skills only showed how big her boobs were but not how huge the rest of her was and upon meeting she is not only nothing like her picture but nothing like her profile and messages led me to believe. Whatever you do, do not take it to serious. As I guy I would respect and appreciate if a woman I was trying to "lockdown" told me hey I like dating you but I am just not ready to commit yet. If you start getting burnt out pull back a bit. You do not have to reply to every email nor immediately. Good luck 2
truth_seeker Posted April 3, 2013 Posted April 3, 2013 Multi-dating is really screwing up our culture. With so many options, it makes it harder and harder to build a bond with another person. Too many people looking for a quick fix and not put in the effort to actually get to know someone. 1
RedRobin Posted April 3, 2013 Posted April 3, 2013 If you don't like multidating, then I'd suggest not doing OLD.
Michelle83 Posted April 4, 2013 Posted April 4, 2013 I feel much the same as you and have experienced similar things and don't really like the idea of multidating. Back a while ago when I was doing OLD, I had 4 guys I had been out with and by the time the second requested a more romantic date, I felt really bad about scheduling second dates with the other one (the other two I didn't feel the connection with). I broke things off with him and after that second date with the other guy, my interest faded completely. So it's a hard situation to be in for sure if you don't like to multidate. What I've decided next time I do it, assuming I do, I'll just message only one guy at a time. Meet him very early on so as to not waste time messaging endlessly back and forth and just be pickier. If I don't feel it after 2-3 dates, move on and start taking to the next. I think the key is not messaging other guys at the same. If you message them, eventually they will want to meet. Of course you'll reduce your chances simply because they could be out meeting other people while you wait...but that's your trade-off if you don't want to multi-date. Personally I think this strategy will be much less stressful. 1
Recommended Posts