New to Internet dating, Why is this happening?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am new to this and I am trying to figure out if it is just one big joke to everyone out there.
This past Sunday I got burned for the 8TH time.

To start let me say I am gay so maybe this only applies to gay people and not straight people…But here goes…

I placed some ads on several sites. So far I have only met 1 person out of the eight. Everyone else has either given me a fake address or doesn’t answer the door when I show up.

The one person that DID answer, I swear, that was not him in the picture. And if it WAS it must’ve been taken 10 years ago. Fine not totally honest but that I can deal with.

So this last time I met a really nice guy (as they say). So before I went trotting off to get stood up…I made sure he gave me a verifable phone number. I reversed it and was the address he gave. I emailed and talked to him over the phone for two weeks. We got on great. I then googled his name on the internet. I know he coaches at a high school. I searched the high school site and there were photos of the faculty. The picture he sent me matched the one on the school site. It said School Faculty 2003-2004.

So I am thinking OK, I got smart. I will do all I can to make sure he is legit. I know where he lives…I know that IS his picture…I know it is recent. So I figure OK all that is left is real life chemistry.

So we made a date for 9pm. I have to travel o an el and a bus (I’m in Chicago). I leave my apt at 7:45p call him to make sure we’re still on. He says he’s looking forward to it. It is 5 degrees…OK…I ring the intercom. It is one of those where you let people in thru the phone. It guess it rings the phone. No answer and the buzzer thing is going into Voice Mail… I was so mad. I travel in the freezing whether for what, nothing?

It gets better…I’m thinking OK maybe he in the bathroom or something. So I am waiting like a half an hour. It’s mighty cold. I was in the hall area. So the security guy sees me and says “What’s up.” I explain I was supposed to meet my friend here. He says maybe something is off on the intercom. He then tells me he will escort me to the apartment to knock on the door.

I knock on the door…NOTHING No answer. Strange cause this man has a dog. You think the dog would bark or something right.

So the security guy says “why don’t you wait in the lobby.” So after about another 15 minutes I get ready to leave. The security guy says "Let me go knock on his door again.
He goes up, comes back down…Sorry no answer.

So I leave and I walk back up to the el and I call his number. Thinking maybe it is the intercom. It rings out goes to voice mail.

So I left a message “thanks a lot for making a fool out of me. I hope it was at least fun for you.”

Does anyone have ANY idea what this is all about. What kind of satisfaction can anyone get out of this stuff? Is it a sexual thing?

This is a man who I called right before I left the house and he answered. I called to make sure he was there. He answered. Now either way he either had to run out of his house or be sitting there in the dark holding his dogs mouth shut.

He can’t be outside watching as he’d be freezing to death, plus I can see everone.

I am just really interested in knowing why? So I got burned chalk it up to life I guess.

I reckoned if it was legitimate this last guy would have called or emailed me back on Mon or Tue saying “sorry I had to leave…” Right?

I was checking my messages on the internet site and I see he hasn’t logged back in that site (It tells you the last time the member was online.) since that Sunday we should have met.

Is internet dating a joke? What else could I have done? Any tips? Has anyone done this?

I mean you know what I look like, we talked for 2
weeks, we were just gonna go out for coffee so it’s not like even if you hated me you’d waste more than 30 minutes. I could understand if you didn’t know what I looked like and you maybe looked thru the peephole and didn’t know what I looked like and said “this guy’s ugly” and didn’t answer the door. But my picture is legit.

I thought I was mad at the guy but I’m really mad at this whole situation. I mean 1 out of 8 guys actually shows. This is too wierd

If anyone has pulled this prank I am interested to know why? Like this last guy. If it was a prank he invested A LOT OF TIME in it. We talked for hours on the phone.

2

Can’t speak for the guy, of course, but maybe he was just nervous and/or scared?

The internet gives you a level of anonimity that can build confidence; you begin to take more risks and reveal more of yourself than you’d be willing to in person. Once that starts to break down, though, you can feel threatened and doubt yourself, and fall back into your old habits. If you’re shy and reclusive by nature, then you can revert to that.

While I’ve never done anything like what you describe, I can definitely say that I’ve said things to people online and over e-mail that I would never be able to say in person. I would imagine that the same thing is going on there.

If you spend any amount of time on the internet, you learn that people are just plain weird. And a lot of people are just plain assholes. There’s no getting around it. But still, I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that it’s a prank, or a joke, or interpret it as a personal slight against you in any way – I’d guess it’s far more likely that you’re dealing with guys who are either too insecure to live up to their promises online, or that they get off on the idea of meeting someone but can’t do it in person.

It sounds like there’s nothing more you can be doing, other than remembering that it’s not necessarily you that has the problem (I don’t know you, but hey, I’m assuming here). Be careful to protect yourself, but don’t let it go all the way towards paranoia.

3

1 out of 8? And you’re complaining? :smiley:

4

I’m a middle-aged heterosexual female with some familiarity with online dating. My first thought was WTF are you doing at his house? It’s usual in my experience to pick a neutral, public place for the first meeting. This won’t necessarily save you from getting stood up, but if you pick the public place properly (I prefer B&N or Borders, so there’s books to look at before or after coffe), at least it won’t be a total waste of your time.

5

I agree with twickster. What you describe doesn’t sound like dating, it sounds like casual sex. Nothing wrong with casual sex, but it is completely different.

6

I agree with twickster too. I am a het male and I’ve met five women over the internet…and I’ve made sure we’ve met in a public place, usually a restaurant. They don’t know my past, I don’t know theirs.

Despite the fact that your date was a high school coach and “checked out,” you don’t know what this guy does when nobody’s watching. Showing up at someone’s doorstep when you really don’t know the guy could be dangerous.

7

Markxxx, I’m afraid I have nothing to offer but my sympathy and the admittedly obvious suggestion that you’re simply on a run of maddeningly bad luck with these ding-dongs. I will say that whenever I tried to meet someone on the Net, the more thought I put into it, that is, the more deliberate I was in my attempts, the more fruitless my efforts were. I had two very pleasant Internet encounters that occurred when I wasn’t even thinking about it- one of the casual sex type, and one meeting that evolved into a very cool friendship. Maybe it’s best at this point, hard as it may be, to adopt a fuck-it attitude and not expect too much to come of these communications. Then sooner or later you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and, with luck, never hideously disappointed.

By the way, the way you described your experience with that last guy was disturbingly similar to an excellent short story by Shirley Jackson called “The Daemon Lover.” Very eerie, almost surreal.

8

I met up with a guy once.

Him: Let’s meet at the fountain.
Me: Ok. [time passes] I’m at the fountain.
Him: What’re you wearing?
Me: Navy blue shirt with white number 19. [time passes] Where are you?
Him: I can’t do it. I have a reputation to uphold.

Some people are just jerks. Some people go through the motions because there’s nothing better to do. Some people aren’t sure so they don’t say no until it’s too late. Some people get scared. Some people get a call from someone else and decide that’s a better offer. Some people like to jerk others around (like prank calls).

My flatmate met a chick online and they ended up moving in together for a year or so.

9

Oh, the conversation was SMS (mobile phone text message).