The Ongoing Online Dating Advice Thread

In My Humble Opinion
1322

Now that I think about it (and tell me if this sounds like a good idea or not). I think my plan will be that if the match girl seems to be working out, I’ll do my best to keep the EH girl strictly on EH. When my subscription is nearing it’s end I’ll let her know that I enjoyed talking to her, but I’ve just met one of my other matches offline and I’d like to see how it goes with her. I’d then let her know that my subscription is ending and I don’t plan to renew it but here’s my email address and if she’d like to give me hers I’d like to email her if things don’t work out with the first one.

Does that sound good? Any tips on wording?

Who knows, the EH girl and I might never get past the initial questions…Match and I might hate each other at first sight.

I always feel a bit odd just emailing more then one person at a time, I really don’t want to be meeting two people IRL at the same time.

On preview, I see that Lindsey already replied, but I’ll post this anyways.

Also, another match, from quite a while ago disappeared on me for a while, then showed back up and emailed me again. She said she met someone off line and when she meets someone IRL, she stops talking to all her matches online. She said she didn’t think she could give the IRL guy a fair chance otherwise. I really respected her for that. Of course, it was a slightly different situation (It was a girl saying it to a guy, she told me after the fact, we hadn’t met IRL etc…)

1323

This is the crux of my argument. No sense in waiting; see them both now. You might hate one and love the other and you don’t want the one you could love to be swept away by someone else.

Don’t feel odd. I don’t think you should *sleep *with two people at the same time, but dating? I’m definitely conservative on this issue too; most people don’t think their relationship is exclusive until a conversation is had about it.

Seriously, don’t admire her. If anything it shows rigidity and inflexibility. Almost all women want exclusivity, but you can’t just outright have a stake on someone’s via email. You could really miss someone beautiful and smart who likes your daughter…all while you refused to answer their email just because you were on a date with a substitute 3rd grade teacher with a bad mullet and thunder thighs.

Just sayin’ :wink:

ETA: FWIW, these last two posts have you reminding me of my guy friends with similar outlooks, who are just “too nice” - either by being burned by other women or it’s just their nature. It never helps them.

1324

I agree with 99% of what **lindsay **said. However:

IMO, never, ever, ever, *ever, **ever ***lie to someone you’re dating. Obviously this doesn’t include “white lies.” I’m talking about the stuff that matters. The important distinction is, to me: is this lie a selfish one that only helps you and possibly hurts them? If so, don’t tell it. And lying about seeing another person is a selfish lie.

Is it silly if the woman you’re dating gets angry because you’re also seeing someone else, before you’re having sex or you’ve come to any sort of agreement regarding exclusivity? Absolutely. Is it her prerogative to be silly about you dating anyone else? Yes; if that ends up to her breaking up with you or vice versa, them’s the breaks. Don’t try to control people’s reactions by lying to them. I certainly wouldn’t suggest *advertising *that you’re dating more than one person, but never, ever *lie *about it. To me, it betrays a fundamental lack of respect for the other person and sets the stage for even worse lies down the road.

1325

Actually, you’re right. If she’s asking in the first place on the first date or two, she’s probably insecure. It would be good to be honest because 1) obviously honesty is better and 2) her reaction will tell you a lot about her personality/expectations/control issues. You mentioned your ex was controlling - that’s obviously going to be important to you going forward.

Good luck, and obviously keep us posted :smiley:

1326

Could be insecure, could be looking for the chance to tell the other person that she’s seeing other people.
Either way, I guess I’ll just continue to move forward with both of them and see what happens. I guess it’s probably safe to assume that in meatspace, like cyberspace, that these relationships have a habit of fizzling out fairly quickly. If either of them ask, I’ll tell the truth, if they don’t I’ll keep my mouth shut and we’ll go from there.
My other concern is that if I get to the point of having sex with EH girl, I’ll end up making a stupid facebook comment about getting my tires rotated by a red headed woman.

1327

I did? Geesh, I don’t remember saying that, but, you’ve been remembered other things I’ve said in the past and I don’t feel like going back though all these posts looking for it.

Wonder what I was talking about.

1328

It was about you smoking - she’d go through your car, your pockets, all your shit and throw out your cigarettes or present them to you. She’d go to bars with you to make sure you “stayed good”. Stuff like that.

It’s okay to kiss and tell to strangers. You always have to be more careful in IRL (which facebook is in terms of communication).

1329

Right, I forgot about that. I guess I didn’t see that as ‘controlling’ as much as I did “obnoxious” and “hypocritical” (she spent plenty of time and money in tanning booths). The other reason it wasn’t ‘controlling’ is because it was passive aggressive. She wouldn’t present them to me, I’d be on my way to work, reach for my pack and it wouldn’t be there anymore. She’d never say a word about it, it would just be gone. Of course, I never confronted her about it either…but that’s all in the past…

For anyone that didn’t catch the reference, here’s a crappy quality video.

1330

Okay, had my date with Match last night. It was fine. On one hand, I’d have no problem seeing her again, OTOH, I don’t see myself going out of my way to do it. In ended with a hug, where I’d rather a date would end with me racking my brain trying thing of something to do to extend it. That is, we had dinner at a restaurant, and I didn’t see myself wondering if I should see if she was up for a drink or a movie or, I don’t know it’s 15 degrees out our choices are a bit limited, but I was perfectly okay when we got to our cars, hugged and she said 'goodnight, gimme a call sometime next week". Also, there’s a lot of kids involved. I’m child-free 3 nights a week, she doesn’t have her kidS every other week. Which would mean until it got to the point where kids met, we would likely only see each other, after work, 3 days a week, every other week. That might be tough. But hey, if we decided to see each other again, and the spark is there, I’d give it a go, but without that spark, 6 nights a month would would likely be a waste of time for both of us.

As for EH girl. Let’s see, I sent her 5 Closed Ended (multiple choice) questions, she responded, She send me 5 closed ended questions I responded. That’s step 1.
She then started step 2. She sent me her must haves/can’t stands, I sent her mine. So far so good.
She started Step 3. She sent me three open questions (essay type, with a character limit). I answered. I sent her three questions (two from the choices EH gave me, one that I made up). That was on Jan 12th. From what I can tell, she looked at them last night. Waiting to see if she responds. My membership expires on the 22. If I don’t hear back from her by then, I’ll see if there’s any way EH will let me send her an ‘open communications’ letter and I’ll let her know my membership is ending and give her my email address (and OKCupid profile…no probably not). If she writes back, I’ll go from there. I don’t want to rush her into anything, apperently EH is designed for people who want to move rather slowly, but I don’t want to lose out on someone over my membership running out and I refuse to give EH anymore money. In the mean time, I’m trying not to sit here thinking ‘things were going so well, I probably wrote too much about movies, maybe I should have commented more about this or that, I hope she knows there’s a character limit and I really had to fight for space. For the love of god, it wasn’t a typo, I had to write to instead of too to make everything fit. It was late when she looked at my profile, later then she’s normally online. She was probably just getting home from being out, she’ll reply today when she has time’

Whatever, we’ll sit back and see what happens.

1331

Sounds like a good first date! Question, in regards to the 6 nights/month: why couldn’t you or her get a sitter for the night? You could still spend time with your kids from the end of school till your date (or after work for a few hours) and then get a sitter. Seems logical, especially for her. Also, if your daughter is young, she goes to bed at what, 8? You could have her over for a movie or a drink for the stretches of time she’s sans kids (this is longer term) after her bedtime for a few hours.

Sounds like things are progressing nicely! Sounds like you have a good plan in place re: the leaving EH but giving her your email. Don’t sweat the movie stuff; she knows there’s a character limit no doubt.

As for my future MIL, she’s finally progressed to not just doing OKC. OKC was her way of sticking her toe in the ocean; nobody met her (admittedly modest) “must haves” but she wasn’t ready to commit to a monthly membership anywhere. She got this wacky idea in her head that Match is for one night stands because two of her friends (one a college roommate) are having these one night stands or weekend flings and that “scares her”. So I think she got scared that men were just looking for a piece. Yet she doesn’t want to get “married”; she wants something in between. It’s very strange; I would never superimpose a few people’s experiences onto the whole thing, but she did.

Out of the clear blue sky a Groupon offer comes through the intertubes for 50% off a 3 month membership at Eharmony earlier this week; I emailed it to her and she jumped on it. At this point her kids are actively encouraging her to get out of the house too, so it appears her glacial pace will be sped up. I’m excited for her. And I always mention how I’m a free, on call babysitter - certified in giving kids their veggies, CPR and first aid ;).

1332

Thing is, I wasn’t thinking about all those things. I want to leave a first date trying to figure all that stuff out in my head, not walking away perfectly satisfied with a hug and a “see ya later”. The first girl I met (only as of this point), that’s exactly what we did. Kid went to bed at 8, I sent her a text and she came over at 8:30. We smoked cigarettes and made out until 11 and then she went home.

Anyways

Tempting. I didn’t see one anyways. But really, I can’t give them anymore. How about right now for example. They haven’t given me a single new match in, what, 4 freakin days. That’s absolutely unacceptable. Over all I think I average about 2 matches per day (I’ll end up getting a whole slew of them one of these days, most will be inactive accounts or won’t have pictures and what’s left will be way out of my age or driving range). So I’ve been on line for 4 months with EH, that works out to about 240 matches. In that same radius and age range, at any given time, there’s about 80 matches online with Match.com. The one or two new matches that EH gives me each day, the way I see it, are about equivalent to the 1 or 2 new people that show up on Match each day (in my age and range) and since they just showed up, I know they aren’t old defunct accounts.

OTOH, if I caught a 50% off, I might give it a shot. I do still beleive in the whole “it only takes one person” thing. And I know the people are out there waiting to be met. I just really have a problem with the fact that EH A)sends matches soooo slowly and B)sends matches that have been inactive for so long. If it were up to me, in order to be matched with others you’d have to have log into your account at least once a month and have at least one picture. On top of that, I think EH should make some sort of guarantee of how many matches they’ll deliver to you. I’m not sure how they would do that, but I can’t be the only person this frustrated with the service.

1333

Sounds fun! Glad you weren’t just restricting yourself to when you are both free :slight_smile:

Like I said, she has some thoughts on Match from her friends, thinking it’s for one night stands/hookups. Maybe the slowness of Eharmony will suit her well too (there are more layers of questions, right?) I think the 50% off was just for new customers too, and I’d imagine they targeted Pittsburgh as a Match-heavy city.

I also think you hit the nail on the head, that it only takes one. I think certain sites are better or worse for facilitating the kind of relationship people want, and ar emore or less successful on getting people to go on dates. But it must just boil down to when and where. I’m thinking of two couples, one met all her dates online and met her husband in a bar while for another the reverse was true; her first online date ended up her hubby. Maybe eventually you’ll get back on Eharmony; you never know when people enter and leave the dating scene as well. I’d assume that’s one of the toughest things to gauge.

1334

The thing about EHarmony, at least for me, is that I’m not legally divorced yet. I tried to sign up when they had the free week a month or so ago and after all the BS they have you do said I couldn’t sign up because I’m married. I decided not to lie as that’s not the best way to start off a relationship. I hope that in a few months when everything goes through then I can sign up. I actually hope I don’t have to wait that long to find someone though.

1335

That’s patently ridiculous. There really is no “legally separated” thing? I can understand people’s reluctance of physically separated vs legally separated, but divorces take a long time.

I can only imagine how many people in New York state aren’t on Eharmony because the waiting period is a year there!

1336

It’s a year in Maryland too, and that’s from the point in time that the person left the house. And then of course it takes at least a month or so after that, so it will take me at least 13-14 months to be divorced.

However, EHarmony does have a legally separated option, and that’s the reason they gave me for not allowing me to register. They said they wanted people who can form a relationship or something like that.

1337

Hahaha what dicks. “Here, fill out what you really are, BE HONEST NOW…okay! Great. Because of your honesty we’re not going to let you join. Hope the Christianity doesn’t hit you in the ass on the way out”.

1338

In Wisconsin it’s 6 months. I did the same thing as Ed. Went though all the Eharmony BS only to get rejected at the very end for being “Currently Separated” I got started with Match and OKC and once I was ready to go back to EH, I set up a new account.

1339

Well, just got my first match on Eharmony in 5 days. No picture and her profile is hardly filled out. To make it worse, her name was spelled JaNeLL. As soon as I got the Email, I had already ‘closed’ her in my head just based on that. Oh, and her occupation is “Stay at home Mom” which to me isn’t good, since, ya know, she’s single.

Yeah, EH might work for some people, but 5 days between matches at $45 a month just isn’t for me.

1340

Sure beats Rolexus though.

1341

Well, I sent EH girl my email address. I tried to break up the email address so that EH wouldn’t delete it (match will, I figure EH will as well). Just for kicks I gave her my facebook username as well. Might not have been the slickest move now that I think about it. But by the time I get to a first date with someone I’m usually comfortable with them knowing my last name anyways. So we’ll see what happens. It’s possible she just need a reminder, it’s possible she just hasn’t been online, of course it’s equally possible didn’t like my last answers and didn’t feel like hitting the close button.
Guess we’ll find out.