ethics of dating 2 women at once

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t get a lot of options with women, and like the mighty camel when I am presented with a water source I drink that fucker up before the next dry spell. So I currently have 2 women I am talking with, both of whom seem interested in me (I met both around the same time). I don’t want to drop either, but I don’t feel comfortable doing this with both at the same time. This is the first time this has happened, normally my relationships with women involve me crying in the fetal position while they make fun of me with their friends.

How could I let one or the other down, while still keeping that door open for later if we are both available? Or is that rude? I don’t know how I’d feel if someone did that to me, I’d feel like a backup.

2

If you’re just starting to date them, it’s okay to see both. When it gets serious, you need to let them know. Heck, two or three dates in you may find you just don’t get along with one of them.

3

First of all, it’s perfectly okay to “talk to” or even casually date more than one person at a time. You should always have a conversation with the person that you want to get serious with clarifying that you’d like to be monogamous with them, so that there’s no confusion and all expectations are made clear. For some people, that time comes when sex is introduced into the relationship, but still, the conversation should be had. If someone that you’re dating gets mad if they find out you’re seeing other people before you’ve had sex or an agreement to be monogamous, then you should run away from them, fast and far.

4

This was my assumption, but I’m fairly new to this stuff and don’t know if it is considered to be stringing people along. I hope not.

5

I think this is exactly right.

Enjoy it. Dating two women at the same time is probably the best situation to be in; any more and they get too hard to juggle, but with two you can approach dates with just the right amount of aloofness because you know you’ve got another one in the bullpen.

6

For whatever reason, this always what happens to me when I begin seeing someone. I can have a drought for years, then if I meet someone, I tend to also meet someone else within a few days. I’ve never felt guilty about it; as ReticulatingSplines notes, it allows me to stay a bit aloof for a while. I don’t fall head-over-heels for someone in the process, and can make a more reasonable, rational decision about whom I’m more compatible with.

7

Why only two? :dubious: :confused:

8

As long as you aren’t telling either one of them that you aren’t seeing anyone else you aren’t doing anything wrong.
Dating multiple people isn’t wrong, lying about it is.

Do you think you are the only man they are talking to?

Have fun, get to know them, that is the point of dating.

9

Because I can’t reach it with my mouth so I only have 2 partners right now.

10

As long as you are dating and not sleeping with both of them, I don’t see a problem. When you get to the point you want to have sex…ok, wait, you’re a guy…when one or both of these women get to the point that they indicate they would like to have sex with you, then you need to make some decisions and choices. But dating is the process of spending time with someone to get to know them well enough to decide if you want to get to know them on a more serious level. Back in the day, a girl could go out with a different boy every weekend and no one thought it odd. Once she and a boy started to care for each other and “go steady” then dating around was frowned on. But it used to be fun to go out with a different guy every week.

11

We’ve shifted away from dating and towards a “hook up, then be assumed exclusive until something goes wrong” model, and I really don’t think it’s a great change. Dating is awesome- it takes away a lot of the pressure of early relationships, and gives you more options to choose a truly compatible companion to move forward with.

Eventually you’ll need to either choose or make it clear that you do not intend to be exclusive. But it’s certainly not the time for that yet. It’s true that this move sometimes comes when things get intimate, though personally I think nobody should assume anything about a relationship’s exclusivity until it’s been explicitly discussed.

12

Why would sleeping with both of them be a problem? Assuming no lies were told?

13

From age 18 to about 22, I slept with every girl I could find, but one stood out as my girlfriend towards the end there. I began seeing fewer and fewer girls on the side; she suspected as much, but we both ignored the subject.

Then I met my wife. Cute, hot, funny, boobs almost as big as my GF’s! I started dating her, not telling either one the other existed. In time, they both came to know the other existed, but both thought the other was A) in the past, and B) not that important.

Truth is I loved them both dearly, and was in way too deep to break it off with either without hurting them a great deal. And I was a coward who enjoyed awesome daily sex.

Eventually my wife answered my phone at my apartment while waiting on me to arrive one day, and the last 3 years of deceit came to light as she and other GF compared notes.

Took me all day to talk my way out of that one.

Then, GF1 gave me an ultimatum. Get married or she’s gone. I chose gone, and she left, leaving me with GF2 by default. And in a couple of years, when she said it’s time to get married, we did.

Come September, it will be 24 years.

I’ve told this to my kids as a cautionary tale.

I was very selfish, deceitful, and hurt 2 girls I loved a great deal. It’s easy to see that and say that from the distance of time and maturity, but not so easy when you’re in the middle of it.

I’ve told my kids in no uncertain terms never to do this kind of thing to anyone, because no good can ever come of it. You pick someone, it works or it doesn’t, and you keep on going.

I think juggling is OK, but only if everyone knows what’s going on, so they can make their own decisions.
YMMV.

14

Well, one or both of them should be opening up the “so, are you fucking anyone else…?” conversation at that point to avoid misconceptions, at the very least. So I personally wouldn’t think it’s a problem as long as everyone is informed as to the situation, but it falls on both people to be proactive in talking about it, no assumptions.

15

I’ve noticed this trend among people younger than me, and it’s trickled up to single people in my age group (late 30s). The last two girls I dated, I was the first guy to ever take them on dates. Both had been in relationships before (and were in casual relationships when I met them), both had even been engaged before… but everything had been conducted before in hook-up culture where, essentially, if two sexually compatible people in a circle of friends are single, they get together, and the start/finish to any given relationship is vaguely defined. Weird to me, and they thought my approach was weird as well (typically people in a group of friends are off limits, partners are sought out from outside, a relationship doesn’t start until compatibility is found during dating, and a new relationship or dating doesn’t begin until the old one ends).

Thankfully, they enjoyed the act of dating, and it all turned out to be fun… and after we parted, they found hooking-up to be pretty bland. They wanted to date and meet new people.

16

While I can agree that dating two women for three years is *beyond *excessive (without the permission of everyone involved), your lies were the real problem. There’s nothing wrong with “juggling,” as long as you end it once you get serious with one or the other. Discussions of exclusivity usually happen around the one-month mark, in my experience. There’s no need to explain on a first or second date that you’re dating other people, because it’s assumed you will be.

17

We only want to be your one and only when we know there is a chance we are your one of many. Hedge your bets my friend! Play the numbers even if it goes against your nature. We talk a lot of shit about settling down and commitment but if you show up on the 3rd date in a UHaul we start looking for someone else to commit to.

We suck.

We’re fickle and irrational about love and pretty much everything Oscar Wilde wrote about women and relationships was gospel.

FORCE yourself to keep both going until one shows herself as the stand out. Otherwise you’re going off your own instinct and men have no instinct whatsoever.

Let us know what you do!

18

This right here ought to cover it.

19

my head hurts :frowning:

i wonder what oscar wilde had to say about that

20

Since you’re looking for advice, moved to IMHO (from MPSIMS).