Silence

[act00]

My flaw...I don't remember names well or situations specifically in this type of environment, so I wish I remembered previous posts better.

 

So what other people have said, you don't make your preferences and boundaries known from the start, but you wait until you've gone out 2-3 times and then plant a bomb. Is this OLD, where you can put this information in your profile, but you don't?

 

Celibacy and dating/relationship/religious expectations is certainly something you can present on a first date, despite how awkward it is, or communication ahead of time (phone call/text). It's a lot to plop in a stranger's lap, but if you have these very strong convictions, you really have to lay it out on the table right away and suffer consequences for it...someone will stick...you don't want the ones who don't stick. What you don't want to do is string someone along for two, three, or four dates and then say, "Oh, by the way..."

[so gutted]

He was from a similar culture and understood all this only too well. We both indicated we were after long term. I meant it, I think he wants long term a few years later. Also his work schedule doesn't permit much. If he was using me for company during his trip, he could have seen me once only.

 

The lunch invitation was on thurs. he returns home tomorrow and there has been no contact.

[MidwestUSA]

He was from a similar culture and understood all this only too well. We both indicated we were after long term. I meant it, I think he wants long term a few years later. Also his work schedule doesn't permit much. If he was using me for company during his trip, he could have seen me once only.

 

The lunch invitation was on thurs. he returns home tomorrow and there has been no contact.

 

 

Have you reached out to him since declining his lunch invitation? If not, why not? Is that prohibited by your culture?

[kendahke]

OP:

 

First things first: you need to get over the notion that you're owed a relationship just because you have interest. You're not. The man has every right to his full autonomy--and if he feels after knowing you 2 dates totaling 12 hours that you are not his preference, that's his right to not want to keep going. It's yours, too, if you meet someone who doesn't meet your preferences and you've more than exercised that prerogative if one is to go from past threads you've started here.

 

He may have meant it at the time that he thought he wanted to get to know you, but after reconsidering, he decided that he didn't. Again, that's his right. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt, but there is absolutely no investment here on either of your parts outside of 1/2 a day---only what is going on in your imagination. Perhaps you were too busy constructing your future with him on your second date that you didn't pay enough attention to the present?

 

"He said... he said"... he can say whatever til he's blue in the face, but without action to buttress it, it's just words to fill dead space, not a contract that he's obligated to fulfill. He made no declaration to you of his intent to enter into a committed relationship with you, did he?

 

If I trotted along to his lunch he would have tried it on and disappeared.

You don't know what his intentions were because you didn't counter-offer to meet him in a public place. You instead chose to indulge indignance at the impromptu invitation, which is your right, but you have to also accept the consequences of doing so because it was done based on supposition, speculation and judgement without actual information.

 

Unrealistic expectations are resentments under construction.

 

I have started meeting men that are visiting on a regular basis for work...

This is the type of arrangements that escort services generally provide. Are you aware of this? It could be that the men you meet this way meet you because of what this type of arrangement usually entails. You might want to change your tack on this if you don't want to be misunderstood.

[TheFinalWord]

You met a guy & went on 2 dates. You haven't known each other long. He asked for a 3rd date to fit into the very limited time he still has in your country but you declined on the grounds that you didn't have enough notice. The Rules are made to be broken. He wasn't asking on short notice because he had no respect. He was asking on short notice because there was no other time.

 

Your expectations are unrealistic. The guy only had less than 2-3 DAYS left where you are. He still had to pack & get organized to go home on an international trip. He offered you what little time & space he had -- lunch in his present location where presumably he could pack, eat & spend time with you. There wasn't time to ask you on the date in advance nor was there time to for him to leave the house, travel to you, spend time, travel back & still get organized for his move.

 

Yes, the offer to go to his house might have been a request for sex. Yes, this might have been a holiday fling for him, but I doubt it since he's relocating here in a year. You two probably could have sustained an LDR.

 

When you declined, knowing his was short on time & rebuffing his offer to spend what precious little time he had, he took your actions as rejection.

 

Either way, after only 2 dates, you need to control your emotions. The amount of hurt & rejection you are feeling is more akin to the demise of a significant long term relationship. You need to address why you get so attached so quickly & stop.

 

This.

 

Imagine the reverse, if you were in his home country, you made an attempt to fit in a final date, and he said no and made no counter. As the initiator, what would go through your mind? I can tell you what would go through mine, the person had low interest, or has so little flexibility in their schedule this will never work anyway. Barely knowing you, I would move on. I'm sorry you're hurt, but you are the one that rejected his offer. You could have countered with another setting or time.

[healing light]

I guess I really don't understand why so many posters write in about a "disappearing man" when it has only been one or two days after a date/contact?

 

I would run screaming into the night if someone that was a virtual stranger was hitting me up every day, multiple times a day (or expected that from me), unless I really liked them in the beginning. Even then, people have other areas of their life to tend to--especially when traveling.

[Redhead14]

This is a common theme on these boards. It's stunning to me how many women are struggling with low-esteem and desperation and having so much expectation from a guy they only just met. There are so many on here who seem to think that just because a guy asks them for a date, it means they are all in from the get go and seem to think it's about an instant relationship and that a guy should be treating them like a girlfriend after only a date or two.

 

These boards are only a relatively small sample of what's going on out there. Other dating advice sites are fraught with this kind of thing.

 

There is a sociological phenomenon happening that is, in no small part, attributable to the changing family structure where parents are so distracted and pulled in so many directions and not as focused on their parental responsibilities and legacy beyond the material and superficial.

[basil67]

I had had lunch and it was late afternoon. Also, it was an unplanned invite and I did think that it was a bit forward.

 

I find it interesting that what you see as 'forward' I see as 'spontaneous'. You see a negative and I see a positive.

 

Life is truly what you make of it. If you interpret life with negativity, you will only receive negative outcomes.