DW Community Catch-up Thread
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@kmtthat To your point, the only real success I’ve had with online dating is an LTR that ended a few years ago. He was the first person I ever met from the Internet. It just worked, at least for awhile. I got lucky that time. It made me think online dating was easy. Hahaha.
@Fydor could be right. I really had to re-examine what I wanted.
My criteria for men was:
1) A good person. Not just in words but actually showing me their morality. Good to waitress etc, considerate behaviour to me and others. Spoke highly of his family/friends.
2) When I french kissed him after the first date ( I didn’t kiss men who I wasn’t at least willing to go on a second date with), that I enjoyed it. It honestly saved me a lot of time in terms of compatibility. ( Millionaire Matchmaker tip. Only one I did strictly obey; as I certainly wasn’t doing hair extensions or killer high heels or actually looking for a millionaire.)
3) Had the same politics as me. Liberal.
4) Wanted the same type of relationship. Kids, marriage & loyalty. Talk around the subject if don’t want to lay it on thick, an example is by talking of friends who are getting married and how you admire their relationship… Though I personally, just said with the right man I wanted to settle down and have a kid, but that’s me on the 4rd date.
5) Had a compatible sense of humour.
6) Had a good steady job and seemed to enjoy it and/or had ambitions to improve it.
7) Raised no Red Flags.
8) Comparable hobbies/interests. Didn’t need to interested in everything he did & vice versa, but we need to be able to happily join in sometimes and not frown at the other person’s hobby.
I also decided not to care about looks. By that I mean as long as they looked average or above & didn’t repulse me, and they gave good chat to get on a date with me in the first place, then… I did have a particular type too, before. But that hadn’t done me much good, so why limit myself by that?!
I met my bf on Tinder! We started messaging last Christmas Eve and our first date was the day after Christmas. Up to that point, I had been doing online/app dating since around spring of ’15, so roughly 1.5 years. I did eharmony for about 6 months (and went out with maybe 6 different people); coffee meets bagel (which, numbers-wise I had the best success and went on a lot of first dates- maybe 20-30? but few follow ups); tinder (a few dates but a couple of casual hookups but I was also really picky); bumble (one date, very little interactions otherwise); hinge for a hot second (nope don’t do it)… Whew. haha.
I definitely took a lot of breaks. I had to for my own sanity, and also so that I would feel refreshed for when I *did* want to go out with someone. And even with my bf, I was really unsure of where it was going to go and how I felt about it for the first few weeks. I remember telling my friend that I thought he was an odd duck but that there was something about him that I liked.
Also, YES to weekends in. I love a free evening spent organizing my apartment/cleaning/doing nothing in particular.
With my therapist, I made a list similar to Heatherly’s. It was focused on the kind of person I wanted, i.e., personality traits. I still have that list and this is what I wrote:
Reliable
Good physical relationship (I wrote this because the ex-fiance, I never wanted to have sex with him, but the man I dated after, it was all sex but he was a jerk, so, there’s that).
Goofy
Comfort
Similar moral compass, and this comes from similar upbringings
Unspoken understanding in that we can each do what we want/have our own lives, but at the end of the day, we’re there for each other, so I guess maintaining our own independence
Trust each others words
Likes outdoor activities
Good with children, even though by that time I knew I didn’t want them
I didn’t care so much about occupation, or looks, but attraction did have to play a part. I also decided not to care what others think. Anyway, I pulled out the list when I was writing my vows and the husband has all of these traits in spades.
@Heatherly If I wrote out a list, it’d probably be similar to yours. Number five — humor — is actually really important to me. I wouldn’t necessarily say I care about looks — I care more about attraction, if that makes sense. Like the guy who just dumped me. I’d say he’s a little better than average looking — not ugly, not a babe — but I was super attracted to him once I realized how much we had in common and how natural it felt/easy it was to be with him in all kinds of scenarios. (On which note, the number one thing I look for on a first date is a natural sense of ease. Usually I feel that with people early, or I don’t. Same is true for friendships.)
@Moneypenny Hinge crashes on my phone every time I try to open it. I know I have an account with them, but have never actively used it. What did you dislike about it?
Copa, I tried Hinge around… 2014 I think? When it first came out. And I liked the format of the app- easy to use, you got a few options but not too many, etc. Then I tried it more recently after they redid the format and I just found it really clunky and ultimately annoying to use. On top of that, I would always get “likes” (or hearts or whatever they use) but no comments and nobody responded to any of my comments. It just felt like a waste of time and energy so I deleted it.
Reading this, I feel doomed. I haven’t gone back to dating but I dread it hearing about all these experiences-
Oh trust me, Kate. That feeling of doom is real and it takes over. You can’t help it, with the way dating goes these days.
Tinder was fun at first but I seriously think it ruined dating.
The feeling may be real, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. I also hear enough stories about people meeting their long term people on Tinder or Bumble, ahem- you, that I can’t believe it’s truly ruined dating. Though I do understand the issues.
Which equilibrium would most people choose (numbers pulled out of my a*s)
A pre-online scenario where you have a 50 percent chance of meeting someone who is a good match but you have to go out with 25 people first.
A tinder-age scenario where you have a 75 percent chance of meeting someone who is a good match but you have to make contact with 400 people and go out with 100. At least 100 of the 400 contacts will say something gross or insulting. At least 15 of the dates will be terrible and another 15 will involve people you really like ghosting you.
You are all totally right re: the shut-in weekend thing. It WAS social media making me feel bad. I was seeing posts about Halloween parties and great comedy shows and costumes and I was at home hanging out with my dog, cleaning, working out, cooking, reading, and catching up on TV. I actually spent a lot of quiet time participating in my faith and re-connecting there, which was awesome.
I also had a great therapy session this morning where my therapist definitely encouraged me and said my weekend sounded pretty damn awesome as a result of all those things, and he didn’t think it was unhealthy at all. So…good! I know I will definitely long for the time I have alone when I am in a relationship/married and perhaps have a family.
Online dating can feel…dooming. Really really frustrating. Particularly because it seems like people are so quick to throw each other away either in hope of something “better” or from not being willing/able to invest in a relationship. I’m hoping (HOPING) that as I get older, perhaps the men will mature a bit more and want to invest in relationships more. MAYBE.
