A couple of months ago, I started online dating again after a break of about a year or so. I’ve met 3 men so far, and this is how they break down:
Man #1 and I IM’d and emailed for a month or so. We became kind of emotionally involved, and it seemed perfect. Then I met him, and he wasn’t nearly as attractive in person as he was in his photos. And by “nearly as attractive”, I mean beaten savagely by the proverbial ugly stick. I’m not that picky about looks, personality is more important, blah blah blah, but you do need to be able to look at someone. I had to break his heart and everything and I resolved to not IM very much before meeting, just meet and get it over with ASAP. The point is that he became very emotionally attached to me, and was ready to go get married and that’s not much of an exaggeration.
Man #2 I met 2 days after beginning correspondence, so that part was good. He was attractive, that was good. The meeting went very well and I felt good about it. Then the next day he started IMing me every couple of hours with grand statements of intense devotion to me. Hmm, I thought, that’s weird. How can he like me so much after just barely meeting me? So I took that as a warning sign- nobody can be that into you right after meeting unless they have some serious issues with boundaries and neediness. So I dumped him.
Man #3 I met fairly soon after beginning correspondence. We met Monday night and hit it off well. He’s very attractive, employed, funny, smart, in short everything I could ever want in a man. But now he’s starting with the proclamations of intense like, so dramatic and everything. Wants us to be exclusive, his told his mother about me, I’m so great, yadda yadda. He is so seemingly perfect (I have yet to figure out what could possibly be wrong with him, that’s how perfect he seems), that I don’t believe he could just be that lonely- he probably has women falling all over him. I’m getting suspicious.
What is up with these men?? Sure, I have an excellent personality (I am a Doper, after all)- I’m intelligent, funny, well-read, opinioned, etc. But, come on, I’m not that great. But all three of these men have acted like I was Scarlett Johansson, Madame Curie, Mother Theresa, and the Virgin Mary all rolled up into one. Their responses to me have been so over-the-top as to arouse my suspicion. I’m not rich. I’m not ugly, but I’m not gorgeous or thin (shapely I am). I am a lower-middle-class single mother with plenty of baggage. Why all the worshipping lately?
Do some men just act like this? It’s not like I haven’t dated before, I’ve known lots of men. I’ve found the majority of them are as cautious as I am when first getting to know someone, until now. Should I stay away from Man #3 even though I really, really don’t want to?
My instincts tell me that an intense early courtship usually (I’m inclined to say always) signals a potentially abusive relationship down the road. I’ve learned to trust my instincts, but then I was thinking that maybe some men really are just quick to think they like someone right away, maybe some men are very emotionally available and ready to commit and maybe it’s not so abnormal.
Any thoughts?