Should you tell an OLD match you've gone on a few dates with someone else?

[Miss Spider]

That’s completely crazy to me. He owes nothing to this girl he’s been on 3 dates with either! ?  Unless they discussed it.  For all he knows he’s a back burner guy for her. Why wouldn’t he still be looking at others on the site. They are not a couple. He is a single guy 

[Trail Blazer]

4 hours ago, Cookiesandough said:

That’s completely crazy to me. He owes nothing to this girl he’s been on 3 dates with either! ?  Unless they discussed it.  For all he knows he’s a back burner guy for her. Why wouldn’t he still be looking at others on the site. They are not a couple. He is a single guy 

How long does it take to figure out whether you'd like to pursue something ongoing with another person?

If you haven't figured out after the third date whether you see a potential future with somebody, then you already have your answer.

OP doesn't see a future with this girl, despite not only wanting a relationship, but someone with whom he can marry!

Why continue dating someone if you're looking for a better option?  I do not understand that mentality.  It seems incredibly selfish.

Sure, nobody owes anyone anything!  However, the way we choose to treat others speaks volumes about our character.

 

[Daisydooks]

On 1/13/2020 at 8:59 PM, max3732 said:

Others have said everyone is multi-dating unless you have conversation about being exclusive. That's my question here. When do you become exclusive? Some here have said if you have a conversation about it or are sleeping together.

For me personally,  I have never done this when I was OLD. I ended one thing before finding another. I dated, kept the app open so as not to seem crazy or involved too soon, but only SAW one man at  a time. Even if I was the only one who knew that. Haha 

I didnt go out with multiple men at the same time. Too much to keep up with by dating multiple men for me! Lol!!! One was enough for me at a time. Not everyone is dating 2+ women/men at the same time. I found it inconsiderate of me to and like I wasnt giving someone a fair shot if I were to date around because my attention was divided. Not sure what the men were doing between dates 1 and 3, but I didnt date around until something was over. So what I would do in this situation is end it with the first, and then take the second on a date or avoid dating the second, until you know the first has fizzled out and not worth persuing. I am not saying you should do what I would do, but that's what I did and would do, especially if you're looking for marriage. Dont muck up a great thing with wife material by running the risk of her finding out you're dating her, Tiffany and Andrea! Lol!! 

With this said, I am a woman and maybe have more trouble separating things like you are.  I have also been cheated on and that sucked the life out of me so I may be more prone to sticking to one man at a time, but didnt feel I could really buckle down and get to know John if I was out with Paul last night and planning a date tomorrow with Frank. Lol. I wanted to be invested where I was trying to meet someone I could marry, too. I was looking for marriage and was not looking for anything else. So I played the part because I wanted someone to be with me forever, not just for now. I certainly didnt want to run the risk of hurting Mr Right anyway. 

When TALKING on the app, sure, I spoke to numerous men at the same time and had a number of conversations going. I got tons of messages daily. I genuinely gave my attention to the man I agreed to go on a date with though and once we agreed to and stuck to a date night, I stopped replying to others on the app/looking for more men to date. If that didnt work out, back on the app I went and all was fair game.p 

When it came to actually meeting someone, I exclusively dated them until we came to the conclusion this wasnt going further. I felt it was safest that way and my brain wasnt fogged up by multiple men. I didnt want to be in a fog about one man while on a date with another. If you like the first one, will you actually give the second a fair shot? I probably wouldn't, so that's why I stand where I do here. Hope that helps!!! 

[max3732]

55 minutes ago, Trail Blazer said:

How long does it take to figure out whether you'd like to pursue something ongoing with another person?

If you haven't figured out after the third date whether you see a potential future with somebody, then you already have your answer.

OP doesn't see a future with this girl, despite not only wanting a relationship, but someone with whom he can marry!

Why continue dating someone if you're looking for a better option?  I do not understand that mentality.  It seems incredibly selfish.

Sure, nobody owes anyone anything!  However, the way we choose to treat others speaks volumes about our character.

 

On the contrary I may have a future with the woman I've gone on 3 dates with, but I don't know. There are still big deal breaking topics we haven't discussed and a lot we don't know about each other. If I didn't see a future with her I would break it off. I would like to continue learning more about her to see if we have a future or not!

In the meantime though are you saying I should cancel my online dating accounts and only talk to her? If I had done that with the other woman I'd gone on 3 dates with I wouldn't have met this one!

My goal is to get married and have a family and I want to find the right woman for that. If we had a conversation and decided to become exclusive of course I'd not see anyone else, but this is kind of an awkward phase where we know each other more than meeting for a 1st date, but still don't know each other all that well. Deciding what to do now is a tough decision for me

[max3732]

21 minutes ago, Daisydooks said:

For me personally,  I have never done this when I was OLD. I ended one thing before finding another. I dated, kept the app open so as not to seem crazy or involved too soon, but only SAW one man at  a time. Even if I was the only one who knew that. Haha 

I didnt go out with multiple men at the same time. Too much to keep up with by dating multiple men for me! Lol!!! One was enough for me at a time. Not everyone is dating 2+ women/men at the same time. I found it inconsiderate of me to and like I wasnt giving someone a fair shot if I were to date around because my attention was divided. Not sure what the men were doing between dates 1 and 3, but I didnt date around until something was over. So what I would do in this situation is end it with the first, and then take the second on a date or avoid dating the second, until you know the first has fizzled out and not worth persuing. I am not saying you should do what I would do, but that's what I did and would do, especially if you're looking for marriage. Dont muck up a great thing with wife material by running the risk of her finding out you're dating her, Tiffany and Andrea! Lol!! 

With this said, I am a woman and maybe have more trouble separating things like you are.  I have also been cheated on and that sucked the life out of me so I may be more prone to sticking to one man at a time, but didnt feel I could really buckle down and get to know John if I was out with Paul last night and planning a date tomorrow with Frank. Lol. I wanted to be invested where I was trying to meet someone I could marry, too. I was looking for marriage and was not looking for anything else. So I played the part because I wanted someone to be with me forever, not just for now. I certainly didnt want to run the risk of hurting Mr Right anyway. 

When TALKING on the app, sure, I spoke to numerous men at the same time and had a number of conversations going. I got tons of messages daily. I genuinely gave my attention to the man I agreed to go on a date with though and once we agreed to and stuck to a date night, I stopped replying to others on the app/looking for more men to date. If that didnt work out, back on the app I went and all was fair game.p 

When it came to actually meeting someone, I exclusively dated them until we came to the conclusion this wasnt going further. I felt it was safest that way and my brain wasnt fogged up by multiple men. I didnt want to be in a fog about one man while on a date with another. If you like the first one, will you actually give the second a fair shot? I probably wouldn't, so that's why I stand where I do here. Hope that helps!!! 

I really appreciate your story. I'm very much a 1 woman man, but also really want to find the right person and don't want to miss someone because I was talking to someone else who may not even care about me. 

You said you were messaging multiple guys at once. What if you checked your messages and there are 3 guys who all seem like good matches that ask you out at the same time? You wouldn't meet all of them? If you meet one and then see him once a week or every couple weeks and decide after a month he's not right maybe the other 2 are gone. 

Although it does bother me to go out with more than 1 woman during the week. I don't know. I just feel so conflicted. I really like the 1st one I went out with, but there are also some red flags and I'd really have to get to know her better before I can decide

[Daisydooks]

16 minutes ago, max3732 said:

I really appreciate your story. I'm very much a 1 woman man, but also really want to find the right person and don't want to miss someone because I was talking to someone else who may not even care about me.

 

You said you were messaging multiple guys at once. What if you checked your messages and there are 3 guys who all seem like good matches that ask you out at the same time? You wouldn't meet all of them? If you meet one and then see him once a week or every couple weeks and decide after a month he's not right maybe the other 2 are gone. 

 

I was quick to meet men simply because I had no desire to chat or text for 3 months and men dont typically fly off the shelves on online dating in my experience. 

I would say yes to the one I was most attracted to and see where it went in the scenario you gave and take my chances on the others being there if I returned. Rarely did I go on more than 2 or 3 dates with anyone online before moving on until I met my fiance. Something always made me wary right off the bat or we didnt click at all. If there were red flags 3 dates in, I didnt need to find out about more red flags 4 or 5 dates in. My biggest pet peeve was men who lied about their height. My fiance is 5'9'' so I wasnt exactly striving for tall, but men lied about  height and I could never figure out why it was THAT one feature. It was so extremely noticable, yet unimportant. By date 2 or 3, more things came out. Little fibs and lies and weird traits oh my. Lol.

By saying this, I don't think it is wrong or bad to date around. I have zero judgement on how others date, but I aim not to hurt anyone or be inconsiderate where my behaviour could confuse a potential mate. This is just how I personally utilized online dating. I have never been inherently good at dividing my attention among men. 

When I met my fiance online, I hand picked him down to his desire for marriage/kids, height, build, astrological sign, hair colour... everything I could be really picky about, I was. I was so picky he was 1 of 2 men who showed up in my filtered search. 33 to 35 years old, 5'9'-5'11", brown eyes, brown hair, caucasian, husky build, fire sign... every feature I could choose, I was picky about it.  I was being silly, really just out of utter frustration with the men I had found so far. 

I added him as a favourite. He got an email at 2am. I worked weird hours so I was up at weird hours and wanted to message him the next morning like a normal human being and not a crazy woman at 2am on a school night but he took the initiative and messaged me at 730 the next morning. He said "Hey there! I got an email notification at 2am last night that you added me as a favourite. In the event you werent horribly mistaken or drunk, I would absolutely love to speak with you and get to know you. I've seen your profile, but never in a million years would have messaged you as you because you're out of my league entirely. I sure hope to hear back, but understand if I dont. It would be a pleasure to get to know you better" There was a silliness and shyness about him I really liked. We took it offline immediately and started talking. We shut our accounts down the night we met physically, not when we started talking. We had left them open and for all I know he had gone on dates between the time I gave him my # and the day we met, (I didnt ask. I may not have liked the answer. The answer wouldnt change anything.) I am sure he thought I was dating around before we physically met. 

I do not remember a single guy online after I found him, so I didnt leave anyone hanging that would have been of any interest to me. 

Once we met, we were together. Lol! There was no one else after that. We got engaged Christmas Day 2018, 5 years after we met, on our first Christmas together in the house. It was fast and fierce, but we tried not to rush into all the big stuff. We dated in different cities for 4 years before having the big move chat! We are 35 and 41 if it makes any difference. No kiddos (open to it if we are blessed with one.)

[Andy_K]

  

On 1/16/2020 at 12:01 AM, max3732 said:

On the contrary I may have a future with the woman I've gone on 3 dates with, but I don't know. There are still big deal breaking topics we haven't discussed and a lot we don't know about each other. If I didn't see a future with her I would break it off. I would like to continue learning more about her to see if we have a future or not!

And in another month, there will still be a whole ton of things you don't know about her. Why not sleep with a bunch of different women for months while you get to know them better? At what point does it become sleazy? What about all the other women on the site? Shouldn't you try to date all of them? You don't want to miss out! 

It just feels to me like the more people you're dating, the sooner you need to be cutting them off in order to avoid messing people around. That's the trade off. But if the whole reason you're doing it is because you need more time to decide if you like one... well then you can see where I'm going with this. You're just tying yourself in circles.

I can understand this is a bit different for women, because typically they will get messaged and asked out frequently, so if they don't want to ignore/reject, they need to go on more dates. But for guys doing the pursuing, it's pretty easy. If you want to see where things go with one, you can just not ask anyone else out. Simple!

[max3732]

1 hour ago, Andy_K said:

  

And in another month, there will still be a whole ton of things you don't know about her. Why not sleep with a bunch of different women for months while you get to know them better? At what point does it become sleazy? What about all the other women on the site? Shouldn't you try to date all of them? You don't want to miss out! 

It just feels to me like the more people you're dating, the sooner you need to be cutting them off in order to avoid messing people around. That's the trade off. But if the whole reason you're doing it is because you need more time to decide if you like one... well then you can see where I'm going with this. You're just tying yourself in circles.

I can understand this is a bit different for women, because typically they will get messaged and asked out frequently, so if they don't want to ignore/reject, they need to go on more dates. But for guys doing the pursuing, it's pretty easy. If you want to see where things go with one, you can just not ask anyone else out. Simple!

I see your point. I guess the thing with me is that it's so rare for me to find someone I'm interested in who is also interested in me that I don't want to lose out on one for someone who may or may not have any interest in me. After 3 dates I don't think either one of us can make a determination if we want to keep seeing each other. After 2 months for sure we're getting serious and I would cut off other communication. Also I haven't ever slept with anyone and that's not something I'd do with multiple people.

What happened with this woman is she started talking about all kinds of deal breakers that she has as far as political opinions and put me on the spot. I didn't agree with most of them and told her as much. So that isn't going anywhere and I wasted 5 dates and a lot of time on her.

The other woman I messaged and had plans to meet was a no show and then closed out my profile. Really great of her to talk to me on the phone, agree to meet at a place and time and then just stop answering. It's experiences like this that also make me not want to put all my eggs in one basket until I have established some kind of real rapport and relationship.

So now I'm back alone with no prospects.

[Andy_K]

7 hours ago, max3732 said:

I see your point. I guess the thing with me is that it's so rare for me to find someone I'm interested in who is also interested in me that I don't want to lose out on one for someone who may or may not have any interest in me. After 3 dates I don't think either one of us can make a determination if we want to keep seeing each other. After 2 months for sure we're getting serious and I would cut off other communication. Also I haven't ever slept with anyone and that's not something I'd do with multiple people.

What happened with this woman is she started talking about all kinds of deal breakers that she has as far as political opinions and put me on the spot. I didn't agree with most of them and told her as much. So that isn't going anywhere and I wasted 5 dates and a lot of time on her.

The other woman I messaged and had plans to meet was a no show and then closed out my profile. Really great of her to talk to me on the phone, agree to meet at a place and time and then just stop answering. It's experiences like this that also make me not want to put all my eggs in one basket until I have established some kind of real rapport and relationship.

So now I'm back alone with no prospects.

That's unfortunate. I'd consider anyone zealous enough to have political opinion deal-breakers, likely to be stubborn enough themselves that having them is a deal breaker  People who are less uptight are way easier to date and have relationships with. You spent 5 dates on this one. Would you have spent more if she'd been just as strict but you'd been on the right side of her tolerances? If so, I think maybe you're missing the forest for the trees. It's not the exact details of people you need to be finding out early, it's just the sort of person they are.

How long do you think it takes you to establish a real rapport and a solid opinion of someone? I can't say my opinion of anyone I've dates has changed significantly after the first 3-4 dates, with perhaps maybe one or two rare exceptions. Most people show you exactly who they are, if you pay attention. 

Disappearing is sadly par for the course... with OLD I find that if I haven't actually physically met someone in person, there's about a 60%+ chance they won't turn up to the first date. People rarely mess you around after you've met though. It's almost like they consider you a real person at that point

 

[elaine567]

10 hours ago, max3732 said:

What happened with this woman is she started talking about all kinds of deal breakers that she has as far as political opinions and put me on the spot. I didn't agree with most of them and told her as much. So that isn't going anywhere and I wasted 5 dates and a lot of time on her.

Obviously as you are on one side of the fence politically, then maybe you need to bring up politics fairly quickly instead of waiting 5 dates to mention it.
Anyone who has decided values and opinions needs to suss out where the other stands pretty early on as  otherwise it can be a waste of time.
I know politics is sometimes seen as a taboo subject but a person's political standing does tend to be an good indicator of their core values.
I am not suggesting you turn the first date into a huge political debate, but a few leading questions and an analysis of the answers given may save a lot of your time.

[max3732]

7 hours ago, Andy_K said:

That's unfortunate. I'd consider anyone zealous enough to have political opinion deal-breakers, likely to be stubborn enough themselves that having them is a deal breaker  People who are less uptight are way easier to date and have relationships with. You spent 5 dates on this one. Would you have spent more if she'd been just as strict but you'd been on the right side of her tolerances? If so, I think maybe you're missing the forest for the trees. It's not the exact details of people you need to be finding out early, it's just the sort of person they are.

How long do you think it takes you to establish a real rapport and a solid opinion of someone? I can't say my opinion of anyone I've dates has changed significantly after the first 3-4 dates, with perhaps maybe one or two rare exceptions. Most people show you exactly who they are, if you pay attention. 

Disappearing is sadly par for the course... with OLD I find that if I haven't actually physically met someone in person, there's about a 60%+ chance they won't turn up to the first date. People rarely mess you around after you've met though. It's almost like they consider you a real person at that point

 

What was a bit odd is we were having a fun conversation and then she starts going through a checklist of attributes and views she wants her boyfriend/husband to have. We saw eye to eye on most of them, but then when she went into the political ones I told her I didn't agree and shared my opinion. I don't think I would have wanted to continue even if I was on the right side of her tolerances simply because she was so strict about so many minor things. So it's good we had that conversation or I never would have known how strict she is.

 Honestly I don't know how long it takes to establish real rapport and a solid opinion of someone. My last real girlfriend I saw nearly everyday for months before we started dating and then when we started dating I saw her in a different light. When going on dates I definitely don't have a good feeling from the 1st date with anyone. I would say at least 2 or 3 to see unless we are so incompatible that it's obvious. 

[max3732]

5 hours ago, elaine567 said:

Obviously as you are on one side of the fence politically, then maybe you need to bring up politics fairly quickly instead of waiting 5 dates to mention it.
Anyone who has decided values and opinions needs to suss out where the other stands pretty early on as  otherwise it can be a waste of time.
I know politics is sometimes seen as a taboo subject but a person's political standing does tend to be an good indicator of their core values.
I am not suggesting you turn the first date into a huge political debate, but a few leading questions and an analysis of the answers given may save a lot of your time.

I've definitely got strong political opinions and follow it very closely, but on some issues I don't need my girlfriend/wife to be on the same side. It seems like it will be impossible to find someone who shares 100% of your opinions, but you're right I need to find someone with same basic values. On my profile I put my political affiliation but don't talk about specific issues. Where I live I'm in the definite minority even though I'm with a major political party and not a smaller 3rd party.

I've been on the fence about messaging people of the opposing party. On the one hand there are several hot button issues I don't care about. On the other hand during the election year I think it would be tough to have her support someone different from me. Most people don't have their political party listed so I'd have to figure it out. What do you mean by a few leading questions?