DW Community Catch-up Thread
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My friend and her now husband met through match or something similar. They had gone on a date or two and she didn’t know if she was interested. Then bam. Her brother died. Her now husband gave her space while also checking in and after some of the dust settled, pursued her again. This is all before I met them. But from what I understand and through conversations, the way he backed off and was understanding of her grief changer her mind about him. He went from a most likely no to a yes. They’ve been married 9 years or so.
So @copa, I wouldn’t write him off completely yet. The death is still fresh. I think you can reach out in a few days and check in.
@hfantods We’re not exclusive or serious, but I’m not seeing anyone else. Usually I know if I want to continue seeing someone in the short-term after 1-2 dates, and when I meet someone I’d like to get to know more, I suck at playing the field. I went on a first date with another guy a few weeks ago (around the 2-3 date mark with this guy), and we were not a match. Like, at all. I can open my options back up, and that might be a smart thing to do at this point, but I was actually pretty optimistic about this guy and it’s disappointing. I felt so sure after our marathon date that interest was definitely mutual, because who spends over 12 hours with someone they don’t like?
@ktfran Thanks for sharing. He’s been responsive to my check-in texts, which is good — I was actually expecting him to take a couple days to respond to my last check-in (or not respond at all), but I heard from him later that day. I’m not sure if I mentioned this anywhere else on this thread, but a little under two weeks ago (same day his uncle was admitted to hospice), Taco Guy’s boss, who brought Taco Guy into the company about six months ago, was fired. And Taco Guy was a bit concerned he’d be the next to go. So, he has a lot going on right now. But, I guess I’m just trying to make sure I’m not making excuses for why a guy doesn’t like me, because I know in the past I’ve convinced myself that someone was still interested, just oh-so-very-busy.In other news, I went to a MeetUp Book Club last night and was super attracted to one of the guys who showed up. Physically, he’s not my normal type — like, at all — but something about him was super intriguing. I’m debating sending him a message but am unsure if that’s super creepy? (I’ve been asked out on MeetUp before. I thought it was weird, but never by anyone I’d met at an event.) Or I may just wait for next month’s book club and hope he shows again.
Unpopular opinion, I know, but I think ghosting has unfortunately become the norm, and it doesn’t necessarily indicate that the person doesn’t like you, what I think is going on is they just want to keep their options open. Because they can, and because the new dating technology makes it so easy to see exactly what their options are. They may be more likely to ghost when they sense that you’re not keeping your options open and are more than casual. Or just because they have a lot of irons in the fire. I think the way to adapt (this is the unpopular part) is to get better at playing the field, so it’s more normal for you to have a few things going on at once.
Or, put another way, people used to be pretty quick to leave the dating market once they found someone they liked. Now I think they’re much slower / more reluctant to do so. They like you, but instead of being like, let’s shut down our profiles and see where this goes, they’re still looking to date other people. They fall off the face of the earth, or fade way out for a while, then show up again. They are not looking to cash in their chips.
ETA, dating is not unlike job searching. My resume gets hits, I do phone screens, I go for a first round of interviews, then a second. Obviously they like me and think I’m a well-qualified candidate. So why are they suddenly going dark, or they’ll reply to my message just to say they’re still working on it or whatever? Well (and I am able to get insight via recruiters or people I know), it’s because they either have another candidate who has a slight edge… say that candidate is from a company that this company partners with, is an internal referral so no recruiter fee, or it’s someone they made an offer to 3 months ago but she had a problem with her non-compete and now suddenly she’s back and it’s all good. Or sometimes they leave you hanging for weeks because they’re trying to work out some piece of strategy. It’s not personal, it’s not that they don’t like you or you wouldn’t be a good fit, it’s just… there are a lot of other candidates and a lot of uncertainty. The way to not have it be a crushing blow each time is to keep looking and keep applying and keep interviewing.
I’m not immune to the shopping mentality of online dating, or thinking the next guy will be better, but the more I meet people who all seem so frustrated by the online dating process, the more it surprises me that I can make it past the first date or two and STILL end up in this situation. I know I’m more mindful about giving second dates if the first date was nice but not wonderful. I don’t feel enough of a connection with most men I meet to warrant more than two dates, and I feel like at the 3-4 date mark, you’ve signaled to the other person that yes, you’re interested. So, I don’t even know what to think about the process anymore.
It’s not even that I think that Taco Guy and I should be exclusive. I assume everyone I meet, particularly if I meet them online, is keeping their options open and actively meeting other people. Just because I hate playing the field doesn’t mean other people do. I’d just like to know if he’s no longer thinking of me as an option at all.
And the thing is, without recruiters and “bridge people,” with dating you just often don’t know what the hell happened.
Yeah. So. In any case, will start dating others and maybe throw another feeler out there with Taco Guy in a few more days in case he really does just need space and time to process his life. And then moving on, because at this point he knows I care and am still interested. And if he wants to reciprocate, cool. If not, sucks but I suppose there are other fish in the sea just waiting to ghost me.
I dated a different guy for about 5-6 months last fall, but he was a consultant and traveled an absurd amount and I just felt like our initial connection couldn’t be maintained with the distance. So we amicably stopped seeing one another. I sometimes think about reaching out to him to see if his work schedule has become more forgiving, but that seems counter-productive.
Oh, also, tangent: I went to a book club Meetup last night and the book of the month was Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance. We discussed the book a bit, but it was interesting to hear everyone’s dating war stories because most people who showed up are young, single professionals, and everyone seems to have the same complaints.
I like the sound of the intriguing man!!
My husband was not at all what I thought my type was…but I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Personally I’d be wary of sending a message through meetup. So many people have inappropriately used it as a dating service and you don’t know if he’s actually available or what the group’s rules are about messaging because of that. I know a lot of the groups I’ve been in have an instant ban for any dating messages. You could hope to catch him at the next one or at the very least send a really innocuous message that has nothing to do with a date but then you’d probably be better off chatting in person and moving it to that stage anyway.
Yeah, I quickly decided against that route. He did say he’s single (the book topic led easily to people talking about their romantic lives), but I decided it’s too weird and I’ll just see if we bump into one another again next month, and if I still find him dreamy then. Haha.
