Match.com (Volume 6)

[Blown2CV]

feef said:

Blown2CV said:

feef said:

putonghua73 said:

feef said:

Jaded? Perhaps I am.

Picky? Why shouldn't I be... I've been single for 7 years, I'm 45 next month and I'm tired of games

Couple of observations:

1. Your post sounds jaded
2. If you have been activately dating for 7 years and are still single then either your technique is horribly wrong, you have unrealistic expectations, or have just finished Skyrim
3. Online dating results in diminishing returns in your late 30s and beyond

'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.', ...

I met my partner 6 years ago after on/off online dating over the years, and between relationships. I met her how I met almost of my previous relationships via language / activity exchange i.e. in a non-dating context. Whilst there were moments I did enjoy online dating, those moments were brief - it never really worked out for me. I fully admit that I'm picky i.e. I recently spent 2 minutes flicking left through my friend's Tinder results, and not once ever thought about flicking right - I simply handed the phone back, bored, and was really, really glad that I do not have to put up with that st anymore.

If online dating is not working for all, I'd suspend / delete all of my profiles and focus my energies on other parts of my life for the time being - but put time aside to put yourself in social situations e.g. Meet-Up activities, etc where you can meet women in a non-dating context. It's also much better for your mental health.

If you want instant gratification / teenage kicks (not actual teenage kicks), then Tinder is where the action is. There are other more adult apps, but let's not dredge those at this time. If you want something more meaningful, then ditch the dating apps and go back to basics i.e. meeting people [women] in a relaxed social situation.

You also need a certain amount of introspection and [female] perspective to provide indications on what you are doing that may unintentionally be putting people off i.e. the way that you dress, body language and signals - eye contact or lack thereof, defensive body posture, vocal tone, etc - and whether you are creating an opening for anyone to display interest.

I've not been 'actively dating' as such for those 7 years... my lifestyle doesn't really lend itself to those relaxed social environments where I might meet women, and I think it's that realisation that I've come to terms with.

Realistically, I don't want to change my lifestyle and/or social life for the sole purpose of meeting someone. That doesn't mean it wouldn't change IF I met someone.

I'm not looking for just 'kicks' either, and I've been down the rabbit-hole with some of those other apps, and found the whole thing rather empty and disappointing.

In terms of what does put off many of those that I have spoken to, met and dated on occasion, it boils down to 2 major factors:

1 : Apparently they have decided that I don't have enough time for a relationship due to all my activities, hobbies and whatnot.

2 : I'm good friends with my ex/son's mother. We run a business together and I see her most days. Despite not being together, we try and operate as some form of family for the sake of him. She's since got married and has another child with her husband, so it's not like there's any 'threat', but that relationship tends to put the vast majority off.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you know relationships aren't just about what you want, don't you? There is another person who wants things too? Some of the things you've said above would just make a woman walk.

I think my point was missed... it's not that I don't have time for a relationship, I certainly would have time, and make time for the right person.

I know it's very much a two way street, I just feel that I'm not even getting a look in as to what they want when I'm being dismissed out of hand due to assumptions about my time and prejudice against my familial circumstances.

Look I appreciate I do not understand your life, but from the above it sounds like you need to step back a bit and look at your reasoning:

• you don't want to change anything about my life, which apparently is full of lots of hobbies and things for you alone, and you won't budge on those
• you have (what sounds like) a very weird situation with your ex that takes up a lot of your time and you pretend to still be a family with her.. surprisingly any of your new partners do not like this and think it is a bit odd. Be under no illusion - it is odd, and totally incompatible with your ambition for a partner.
• you have been dumped in the past (and more than once, it sounds like) because of a combination of the two points above, probably because you spend 50% of time on what is justifiably seen as selfish activities and 50% of time with your ex, leaving a grand total of zero for anyone else.

and yet you think it's the partners' fault?? you think you are some kind of catch... or what?

[feef]

Blown2CV said:

Look I appreciate I do not understand your life, but from the above it sounds like you need to step back a bit and look at your reasoning:

• you don't want to change anything about my life, which apparently is full of lots of hobbies and things for you alone, and you won't budge on those
• you have (what sounds like) a very weird situation with your ex that takes up a lot of your time and you pretend to still be a family with her.. surprisingly any of your new partners do not like this and think it is a bit odd. Be under no illusion - it is odd, and totally incompatible with your ambition for a partner.
• you have been dumped in the past (and more than once, it sounds like) because of a combination of the two points above, probably because you spend 50% of time on what is justifiably seen as selfish activities and 50% of time with your ex, leaving a grand total of zero for anyone else.

and yet you think it's the partners' fault?? you think you are some kind of catch... or what?

I'm happy to change my life if I meet someone.. but I'm not gong to deliberately leave gaps of spare time free right now just so I can demonstrate that I have the time.... I'll fill my time with whatever I enjoy, and I'd hope that some of that time will be filled by sharing stuff with a partner.

There's no pretence that we are a family. As far as my son is concerned, he has a mother and father who don't live together, share his care equally. We get on well enough that we can do things together, like shopping for stuff for him, or taking him to out-of-school activities because we want to be a part of his life, not because we want to pretend everything is hunky dory. It's not like we have a collective social life.

And no, I've not been "dumped" for those points... what I'm saying is that it's not even to a date and then not got past the first date, with words like "i don't think you have time for me" or most recently a sarcastic "that's cosy" when I simply stated that I'm on good terms with his mum and we have a business together : no more detail than that.

[Dromedary66]

feef said:

then not got past the first date, with words like "i don't think you have time for me" or most recently a sarcastic "that's cosy" when I simply stated that I'm on good terms with his mum and we have a business together : no more detail than that.

Perhaps these are convenient excuses for them to not see you again, rather than the actual reason.

[Blown2CV]

feef said:

Blown2CV said:

Look I appreciate I do not understand your life, but from the above it sounds like you need to step back a bit and look at your reasoning:

• you don't want to change anything about my life, which apparently is full of lots of hobbies and things for you alone, and you won't budge on those
• you have (what sounds like) a very weird situation with your ex that takes up a lot of your time and you pretend to still be a family with her.. surprisingly any of your new partners do not like this and think it is a bit odd. Be under no illusion - it is odd, and totally incompatible with your ambition for a partner.
• you have been dumped in the past (and more than once, it sounds like) because of a combination of the two points above, probably because you spend 50% of time on what is justifiably seen as selfish activities and 50% of time with your ex, leaving a grand total of zero for anyone else.

and yet you think it's the partners' fault?? you think you are some kind of catch... or what?

I'm happy to change my life if I meet someone.. but I'm not gong to deliberately leave gaps of spare time free right now just so I can demonstrate that I have the time.... I'll fill my time with whatever I enjoy, and I'd hope that some of that time will be filled by sharing stuff with a partner.

There's no pretence that we are a family. As far as my son is concerned, he has a mother and father who don't live together, share his care equally. We get on well enough that we can do things together, like shopping for stuff for him, or taking him to out-of-school activities because we want to be a part of his life, not because we want to pretend everything is hunky dory. It's not like we have a collective social life.

And no, I've not been "dumped" for those points... what I'm saying is that it's not even to a date and then not got past the first date, with words like "i don't think you have time for me" or most recently a sarcastic "that's cosy" when I simply stated that I'm on good terms with his mum and we have a business together : no more detail than that.

come on man FFS - look i am only going from what you have written about yourself, as someone who has been single for years and years and evidently doesn't want to be in some way. I was merely saying to you, admittedly in a blunt way but who the fk has time to massage egos when the message may not be an easy one... you need some perspective.

feef said:

Apparently they have decided that I don't have enough time for a relationship due to all my activities, hobbies and whatnot

Firstly, the above quote makes it sound like you have had the opportunity in previous relationships to reduce time spent on 'feef activities' in order to actually have some time to have a relationship and either refused to do so, or refused to do so enough to make it work. Secondly the above also makes you sound like you got dumped numerous times. Why word it like that if you were the one making the decision to part?

feef said:

We run a business together and I see her most days. Despite not being together, we try and operate as some form of family

I'm not sure why you are saying you don't act like a family... not sure what the above means then. You might try and justify it, and it may feel normal to you, but it isn't. Whether there is anything in it e.g. you secretly want to get back with your ex, or you get the emotional value from her therefore you don't need any from a prospective new partner... or just fear of the unknown and why would anyone trust that this was OK in someone they just me... Any new person who finds this out about you would freak out and disappear. It gives massive alarm bells.

Some people are just destined to never get with someone despite wanting to... they just don't want to make the adjustments require to make it a success. One of Mrs 2CV's mates is like this and is currently going through artificial insemination because she "just can't find a boyfriend" but in reality is putting people off by being batst mental and full on because she wants a family and to settle down so badly. OK so that's a different situation, but the similarity is that she has no insight or perspective on how the way she acts affects her chances and opportunities.

[slipstream 1985]

Trolling through pof. 90% of the profiles I click on the girl has a cat. I'm not gonna lie that is a bigger put off than almost anything else. (i'm alergic to cats)

[Gretchen]

JuniorD said:

If you don't mind me asking, what do you look for in a "friend with benefits", criteria wise?

And why is your "friend with benefits" not more than just a friend with benefits.

He’s not clingy. He has his own money, house, cars. We have mutual friends. It’s a great place to party. I’m older than he is.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That’s suits me. I spend my time there. Tend to leave before breakfast. Or after depending on what’s on the menu.

[OzzyR1]

Gretchen said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That’s suits me. I spend my time there. Tend to leave before breakfast. Or after depending on what’s on the menu.

If you don't mind me saying Tonker, you post smacks of "because I've never had this situation myself, it can possibly happen to other people and be as simple as they make out".

Sometimes it is, I met a girl when I was sixteen through my girlfriend at the time. Our friendship continued after I split up with the girl I was seeing and nothing happened between us till some years later in our early 20's when we both found ourselves single at the same time and established a "friends with benefits" situation.

There was a mutual physical attraction but we both knew we were better off as friends rather than being in a full-blown relationship, we just don't click in that way. After 6 months, I met another girl and the fwb situation stopped and reverted to just friends again. We both went through a series of relationships over the next 10 or so years and nothing ever happened between us when one or the other had a boy/girl-friend respectively.

When times coincided that we were both single however, we picked up the fwb thing again as it suited us both, it happened several times into our early/mid 30's.

I then met the girl who I am now married to. My ex-FWB was at our wedding as any long-term friend should be and I had fully disclosed the nature of our previous relationship to my wife who understood and accepted it.

We are still good friends now and speak most weeks, she and her partner (if she has one at the time) come and stay with my wife and I regularly and vice versa as we live in different areas of the UK now. If I am in her neck of the woods on my own through work, I will call in to see her, sometimes staying overnight in her spare room. My wife knows this and also knows that nothing will happen as I am committed to her and neither the ex-fwb nor I would dream of doing anything while one of us is in a relationship, we never have in nearly 25 years of knowing each other.

These things can, and do, happen.

[Condi]

I was most upset when not invited to my (old) FWB's wedding.

Sadly, before she got with her current husband, he was one of her friends and he heard a lot of her stories at work of what we got up to. She wanted there but my invite was veto'd.


But yeah, we were great friends and she was fantastic in bed. Neither of us wanted anything more and that was cool for 2 years until she got into a relationship.

Edited by Condi on Saturday 6th October 21:41

[davhill]

Wimmin eh? Can't live with 'em, can't fit 'em all under the patio.
I tried paying for Match for a month, for seven times the square root of fk all.
So, I've taken my profile off them all, Piece of Fish, Tinderbox, Humble, you name it,
I'm off it.

I must admit that I find it all really false. gf No.1 hurled herself at me in college,
gf No.2 (2 years) was a matchmaking exercise by a female friend, wife 1 was
another self-hurler and wife 2 was a FriendsReunited re-meet.

I wrote to a good number of women at the sites. I was always complimentary,
honest, mildly cheeky in places and...zip. Thing is, I'n neither Shrek nor Norman Bates.
Is it just me or is this lack of communication downright rudeness or just higgerance?

Since wife 2 practically skinned me alive financially, I can think of better things
to do with my life. If a meeting lies in the realm of providence, so be it but I won't
doing any breath-holding.

[FN2TypeR]

davhill said:

Wimmin eh? Can't live with 'em, can't fit 'em all under the patio.
I tried paying for Match for a month, for seven times the square root of fk all.
So, I've taken my profile off them all, Piece of Fish, Tinderbox, Humble, you name it,
I'm off it.

I must admit that I find it all really false. gf No.1 hurled herself at me in college,
gf No.2 (2 years) was a matchmaking exercise by a female friend, wife 1 was
another self-hurler and wife 2 was a FriendsReunited re-meet.

I wrote to a good number of women at the sites. [b]I was always complimentary,
honest, mildly cheeky in places[/b] and...zip. Thing is, I'n neither Shrek nor Norman Bates.
Is it just me or is this lack of communication downright rudeness or just higgerance?

Since wife 2 practically skinned me alive financially, I can think of better things
to do with my life. If a meeting lies in the realm of providence, so be it but I won't
doing any breath-holding.

of course you were

[Plate spinner]

Women are inundated on those apps by everything from normal guys to the freaks and weirdos.
Just meet women in real life instead, it’s hardly rocket science if you are normal and have the ability to say ‘hello’

[davhill]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Chill out Davhill
If you’re anything like this with your ‘online daying’ It’s no wonder it’s a struggle.

Alarm bells ring and there’s that many other potential men - they’ll jog on by.

Btw a tenner says you’ll be back on those sites within a month.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/relationships/...

Thanks but I'm not in the least unchilled, so to speak.

[PAUL500]

Your experience Davhill is the norm for most people I have spoken to who won't resort to fishing at the depths of all those sites in order to get catches.

It was great a few years ago, easy enough to filter out the loons and meet up with similar people, but these days the odds are not great.

Match sent me a £5 for a month offer a few weeks ago out of the blue, so I took another look, even that place has gone the way of the free sites, its dire.

I would say the current format of net dating will die off soon enough, Bumble is the weirdest one, why have the gender that very rarely ever makes the first move be the only one who can make the first move!!!! if someone could develop an online process that somehow has a better filtering/matching process they would be onto an instant winner. The market is still very much there.

davhill said:

Wimmin eh? Can't live with 'em, can't fit 'em all under the patio.
I tried paying for Match for a month, for seven times the square root of fk all.
So, I've taken my profile off them all, Piece of Fish, Tinderbox, Humble, you name it,
I'm off it.

I must admit that I find it all really false. gf No.1 hurled herself at me in college,
gf No.2 (2 years) was a matchmaking exercise by a female friend, wife 1 was
another self-hurler and wife 2 was a FriendsReunited re-meet.

I wrote to a good number of women at the sites. I was always complimentary,
honest, mildly cheeky in places and...zip. Thing is, I'n neither Shrek nor Norman Bates.
Is it just me or is this lack of communication downright rudeness or just higgerance?

Since wife 2 practically skinned me alive financially, I can think of better things
to do with my life. If a meeting lies in the realm of providence, so be it but I won't
doing any breath-holding.

[mcdjl]

PAUL500 said:

Bumble is the weirdest one, why have the gender that very rarely ever makes the first move be the only one who can make the first move!!!!

Nope, thats great, it filters out the idiots. Then you just treat it like tinder but with less effort for the man. It did make me laugh though, the number of profiles along the lines of 'why do i not get any messages when we match.....'

[Saleen836]

mcdjl said:

PAUL500 said:

Bumble is the weirdest one, why have the gender that very rarely ever makes the first move be the only one who can make the first move!!!!

Nope, thats great, it filters out the idiots. Then you just treat it like tinder but with less effort for the man. It did make me laugh though, the number of profiles along the lines of 'why do i not get any messages when we match.....'

Copied and pasted from every other dating site they have registered on looking for the Unicorn

[PAUL500]

I don't even think they are looking for the unicorn anymore as they rarely contact/reply to anyone.

Its purely window shopping for the majority now it seems on these places, just a big ego trip looking at the list of blokes that in their minds they could have if they wanted, but will never do anything about it.

[Blown2CV]

PAUL500 said:

I don't even think they are looking for the unicorn anymore as they rarely contact/reply to anyone.

Its purely window shopping for the majority now it seems on these places, just a big ego trip looking at the list of blokes that in their minds they could have if they wanted, but will never do anything about it.

it's a bit like instagram likes. Any woman can start posting pictures of herself and will end up with 10k+ followers commenting on every photo. If she's hot then she gets all the blokes. If she's fat and/or ugly then she gets all the weirdo fetishist blokes. Either way I am sure it props up the egos of the women that partake.

[Blown2CV]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Bitter much guys ?

I can't report the same as you.....

It’s actually true.

[Brigand]

About four years ago I ended a near three- year stint of online dating. I was in my late twenties and hadn't done it before. During that time I had a lot of dates, more than I can remember, but I didn't often get a second one. Overall though I managed to bed eight women in that time period, not something I'd planned on doing but there were almost eight times where a relationship formed but fell apart at the seven week point for a variety of reasons. It's crude, but I measure my "success" on that site by those eight women.

I gave it up as the grind of it all wore me down, and I managed to meet my ex of three years "in the real world" soon after. That was great, the relationship felt much stronger and better as I'd had to spend time flirting, chatting her up, going on dates, it felt I'd won the battle for her. (Online dating feels almost like box ticking exercises, there's no scope for winning a lady over with charm and humour; if she doesn't like the look of you you'll never hear from her). The ex then moved back home to Ireland and that was that, singledom resumed.

I have been online dating for a year now in my mid-thirties, and the successes of my late-twenties are long forgotten. In this year I've had eight dates, one of which turned to a second date but went no further. A couple of the ladies have said they didn't feel a spark and didn't want to meet again, and I'd agree. Of the eight only one I felt I had a spark with, we both had a lot in common, same personalities, same quirks and routines, I really thought I'd found a good one, but despite proclaiming she'd loved the date and would love to meet again, I was ghosted from the next day onwards.

Someone here mentioned that online dating in your mid-thirties onwards is an exercise in diminishing returns and I'm inclined to agree. I could message a dozen women and hear nothing back; I could get a reply but the lady in question only answers my questions rather than asking any back and forming a conversation so that peters out; I could get a good conversation going, exchange phone numbers, agree to a date but then find I'm met with weeks of excuses why she can't meet up (so the conversation peters out again) or I could get a date then find despite being able to make her laugh, twizzle her hair (supposed to be a good sign isn't it?) and say she's thoroughly enjoyed herself, she sadly doesn't feel a spark so doesn't want to see me again.

It feels like an exercise in futility trying to meet people online now so I deleted my profile last week. It's nice not to be checking for messages and trying to start conversations, but I'm sure I'll be back on there in several weeks though.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that it not only feels like dating (online at least) is a lot harder now I'm mid-thirties, but that the world of online dating seems to have changed a lot too in the past few years. I get he impression there's a lot of fake profiles, bots (if I logged on late at night I'd normally get a flurry of messages from female profiles with scantily clad single images and a bio with just a webcam site listed - all would then be deleted by the website automatically within a moment) and just those window shopping I suppose. Someone who wants the conversations but not the meetings.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Brigand said:

I measure my "success" on that site by those eight women.

You make some very good points in your post and I have some sympathy with your situation. However, and whilst sorry to focus on the crude bit, 8 shags in 3 years is a pretty poor show isn't it?

I'm not trying to come across all Capt Flasheart, but I suspect there might be an elephant in the room that needs addressing if that's the most success you had at your peak.