Copa

@MissDre – What did he do/say that made him seem insecure? I’ve dated a couple insecure guys and it can be tedious, so if I were getting those vibes early on, I’d at at best feel someone out warily. Depending on how it was manifesting, I might cut and run without feeling it out. It can be a huge turn-off.

Oh no, kmt! 🙁 I just got caught up on all of this and since I’ve met you, I can say you’re a like a total babe! And not just because of your appearance — you’re also kind, funny, outgoing, and make amazing faces if I do recall correctly!

I’m sure this is true for more than just cheat-y situations, but I think with cheating in particular it can be really, REALLY hard to get emotions caught up with logic and wind up in that unfortunate “I wasn’t/am not X enough” mindset. Or, at least, I’ve struggled with this in the past and still sometimes today. But like everyone else has said, looks have nothing to do with cheating or relationship happiness. That said, I do think it’s fine to want to look good and honestly think it’s fine if you want to look good for others as well as yourself. Just as long as it’s not SOLELY for others or in the hopes of being more date-able.

I hope when you’re feeling bad about someone (anyone) not wanting to date you for no real reason at all that you can at least remember a few perfectly love guys you didn’t want to be with through no fault of their own. Most guys I have rejected have been kind, good men with absolutely nothing wrong — I just didn’t feel they were the right match for me. I try to keep this in mind when I get rejected.

A dating hiatus may be good for you, but I do think everyone is different in that regard. I usually take pretty significant breaks between relationships (like 6 months+), but a lot of that has been having literally zero desire to meet new people or put myself out there afterward. Eventually, I’ll feel ready again and I think I’ve gotten better at knowing when I feel good about getting out in the dating world again and when I can handle apps. My last serious relationship ended 2 years ago in a sad (for me), super-cheat-y super-lie-y clusterfuck and I started dating again way, way too soon because I didn’t want the experience to impact me more than it needed to. He was fine and I wanted to be, too. Buuuut in my effort to move on just as quickly I completely overlooked that I WAS affected more deeply than I wanted to be, not ready to be dating, and doing myself a disservice. And eventually wound up taking a dating break way after-the-fact and it was what I needed. Maybe you’d benefit from that, too, even if my experience doesn’t resonate with yours.

And yeah, add me to the list of people who thinks it’s harder to overlook looks when online dating. I’ve been trying to be more mindful of that myself but I feel ya, it’s hard!

You don’t need to feel bad, @kmtthat. Lots of guys are going to fall into the “He’s Great, But…” camp. And I get why you might feel a twinge of guilt since it’s a stigmatized thing here, but there’s nothing wrong with your deal breakers.

So. I mentioned on this thread about asking a date to reschedule and him getting upset about it. (He turned it into a dramatic “you don’t wanna meet me! you’re leading me on!” thing, even though I was 1) sincere, 2) apologetic, and 3) actively trying to reschedule.) He ended up popping back up later this week and we made a plan for tonight. This morning I tried to confirm and he asked if we could meet earlier. I asked what time. HOURS went by and finally at 4 he asks if we can meet at 5 (to walk his dog). I didn’t see it until 6, at which point I told him I assumed we were no longer meeting because I hadn’t heard from him, and that asking me at 4 to meet at 5 doesn’t work. He then turned it into an second “if you don’t wanna meet me, I’m not going to force it!” ordeal. (HOW is it that I say, “I didn’t hear from you so I assumed we weren’t meeting” but what he HEARS is, “I don’t want to meet you!”) So after some texting about the poor communication, I told him I don’t think it’s a good idea to meet up. He blew up my phone with texts about how I’m OBSESSED with blaming him, and does that make me feel empowered?, and telling me I’m a miserable bitch and GOOD LUCK FINDING SOMEONE TO DEAL WITH ME. I told him to get a self-esteem counselor and blocked him.

So. Saturday night and I’m now date-less and plan-less.

Slight deviation: has anyone here who uses Tinder tried the group option before? One of my friends forced me into a group with him and it actually seems like it could be fun to try for real (or at LEAST lead to a funny story).

A seemingly-nice, good-looking-but-not-my-usual-type guy and I are setting up a first date for sometime next weekend when he returns home from vacation.

@kmtthat Honestly, it was kind of interesting to talk to him about it. I’m sure I’ve blabbed all over this site that I’ve had issues with being cheated on, so it was nice to hear the guy’s perspective on it. Like he acknowledged that cheating was him dealing with some relationship issues in a horrible way (which is, in my opinion, what cheating almost always is) and still feels guilty about it. He did defend himself a little bit (“X was an issue, though!” And I’m like, “OK, but that doesn’t mean you look elsewhere!”), but knows he messed up. But yeah, we’re DEFINITELY looking for different things. He’s 32 and dating college-aged girls, my guess is because he knows those relationships have like a 99% chance that they won’t go anywhere. (And even a 20-year-old called him out on his emotional unavailability. So.)

I do think his honesty is rare, though. I dated the same guy all throughout my early 20s and he’d had one serious prior relationship that he’d told me ended because of distance. Our breakup went something like: he spent a couple months lining up his next girlfriend (just the emotional stuff), eventually started *actually* cheating if you don’t consider the emotional stuff to be cheating, then broke up with me when he knew he no longer had any use for me, I guess? (I found out about a lot of this stuff a couple days after getting dumped.) It turned out, this was actually his pattern. He’d done the EXACT same thing to his last serious girlfriend. I think the distance certainly contributed to how he treated his girlfriend before me, but once I heard that story it was like, “Hm, no, it wasn’t the distance. It’s that you’re a jerk who would rather hurt someone than be alone.” So I guess this is a super roundabout way of saying that I think most people would rather cast themselves in a better light with half-truths, cliches, or at LEAST justifications.