This is the place to put any shower thoughts, your complaints/rants about dating, ask for quick advice, serious and (sometimes not) questions and anything else that might not warrant a post of its own.
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Following my comment in yesterday’s thread:
If you’re allergic to animals and know the person you’re talking to has a pet, please be realistic about what you think you can/can’t deal with, rather than lying to yourself about how you can just push through it…only to end things after it was going so well. (Or disclose it in your profile so I can swipe left.)
I’m so discouraged. And sad.
Following up from my comment yesterday—I did it! I went on the Taco date! Did he blow me away? Nah. But he was funny and kind and I had a good time. Thanks to everyone who gave me words of encouragement yesterday—yall rock!!! I ripped the bandaid off and now I feel much more comfortable about going on future dates. Thanks again, everyone! <3
Tis the damn season for exes to reach back out, I guess.
A few weeks ago, my past ex of 5+ years emailed me to say he had started therapy a few months ago and was recognizing how his mental health problems had impacted our relationship. He asked if I would be willing to meet with him. I agreed and we went for a walk in a park. We caught up on each other’s lives since we broke up 2.5 years ago, he told me about his experience in therapy so far, and he apologized for a lot of things from our relationship. It actually was a really good conversation and gave me a lot of peace.
In July, my boyfriend of a year and a half broke up with me. The final few weeks – 2 months of our relationship were brutal. He was angry. He yelled a lot, made accusations towards me, mocked me, called me names. I cried and apologized and took all the blame and said everything was my fault and busted my ass to make it all better, but after 5-6 weeks he ended things. It destroyed me. I was angry and heartbroken. With time and space, I’ve realized that his anger and accusations were largely unjustified. He would pile unreasonable expectations on me, refuse any of my suggestions for compromise, and hound me to do exactly as he said then put me down if I ever slipped up. And I just took it. (Ex. We’d be at his place, it would be getting late and I would say I had to leave. He’d ask me to spend the night. I would remind him that I have a dog and am uncomfortable leaving him home alone overnight. He would get angry and say I cared more about the dog than him. I would suggest he sleep at my place instead and he would refuse, saying he had to work in an office while I work from home, so it was easier for him to get ready in the morning at his place and didn’t matter as much for me. I would suggest planning sleepovers ahead of time so I could board my dog, but that never came to fruition.)
Since we broke up almost 8 weeks ago, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve realized I struggle heavily with codependency. I’m conflict-avoidant, bad at communicating my feelings, and bad at setting boundaries. Paired up with his demanding and controlling nature, it was a powder keg. I feel much more self-aware now. I know that I can express my feelings and boundaries without feeling guilty.
Out of the blue, he texted me last night. (We’ve been no contact.) He said he has “been thinking a lot about what happened between us and would really like to talk about it.” I thought about it for a few hours and then said okay. I’m hoping he wants to apologize. I’m apprehensive that he just wants to rehash and explain his reasons for ending things. (Our actual breakup itself was a very, very short conversation. Maybe not even 5 minutes.) I’m really not interested in hearing him explain and justify his decision. But now, I know that I can assert that boundary and even get up and leave, if necessary. I want to tell him the ways that he hurt me, since in the past I just accepted responsibility for everything. I’m looking forward to this as a low-stakes opportunity to practice the things I’ve been learning. What’s the worst that can happen, he goes no contact again? Big whoop.
So…I guess we’ll see. But I am really tired of living in a low-budget soap opera.
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I’m trying to date for the 1st time in 15 years now that I am divorced. I’ve had 3 women now seem interested in me, tell me I’m attractive, one even made out with me for hours. 1 ghosted me, 1 doesn’t date guys with kids, and 1 isn’t over her ex.
I also have several women in apps and text that barely respond to me lol
I downloaded Stir, dating for parents, and they convinced me to pay for it when they showed me I had 6 likes and they would only show me if I gave them $15. I was disappointed that none of the 6 were attractive to me.
that’s how dating is going for me the last 2 months, I can feel myself getting worn down on it, but I’m not even close to giving up.
Lol I take back what I said about being comfortable with slow/infrequent texting. It’s completely fine, *except* if I’ve asked the person out and am waiting on their response.
Also yeah I apparently have zero self control when it comes to feeling anxious, as I had promised myself that I would be extra passive on this round of apps (since I am always overly proactive and end up with people just along for the ride) and yet I couldn’t stop myself from jumping the gun and asking for the second date before he did, not even because I was so excited about him, but because I just got anxious and I guess a part of me simply doesn’t believe that people will take initiative for me, if I’m not the one to take initiative. also I think someone here told me I should be the one to ask him out the next time and my lizard brain jumped on that as well.
Basically I want to train myself to start believing that it’s possible for people to care and put effort into me but I seem to be losing that fight atm 🫠
I’m turned off by one of the people that I’m dating. He works near my apartment, and his workplace is so close that when he’s in the tower he can take a photo of my building. Well, two days ago he took a photo of my apartment building and said he was above me, and that my place looked really small.
I realize there was no ill-intent BUT it didn’t sit well with me, and it’s really iced any interest I have in seeing him again. I’ve been trying to sit with why and not make any harsh decisions but it really creeped me out for some reason.
i’ve been struggling with this feeling that my partner doesn’t prioritize me. he doesn’t plan dates, defers to me to plan them and if i ask him to help make decisions, he says “whatever you think is best.” he sometimes doesn’t ask i’m doing or how i am on days we aren’t together, and when i point it out, he says he thinks he did, which makes me think he doesn’t actually care about the answer. he sometimes prioritizes his hobbies over actual dates with me – ie, if we have a plan to do something, he’ll say he really wants to finish this one thing instead of doing it.
otherwise the relationship is really good. we talk about the future, we love each other, we have good connection and communication. i have brought this up with him
and feel like not much has changed. i have some relationship anxiety that i’m working through though so i can’t tell if i’m overanalyzing because i’m anxious or if this really part of the root of the problem.
So I have been on 3 dates with this guy. From the first moment we saw each other, we are drawn to each other like a magnet. On our second date we went to have a dinner. He told me that he easily becomes a couple and then realizes after a year, that the person was truly incompatible therefore wants to take things slow. He asked me about my non negotiable expectations from a relationship.
He didn’t want to come over and told me that his brain tells him to wait. I said I am not listening to my brain, and he decided to come. It was crazy, when we cuddle it feels like lego pieces fitting together (this is what he told me as well) and as if his skin was complementing mine. He also told me that he is feeling so comfortable, finds me very warm, and sees a big red heart when he looks at me, and finds my mimics adorable.
He doesn’t text me in between dates. It’s always me who texts, and he is not dry at all in his replies but he just doesn’t iniate it.
Last night we had our third date. We went to a bar, had a catch up. I am going to visit my parents and then will go on a vacation. He asked me to send pictures from both home and vacation, he looked at my parents pictures and so on. and then we couldn’t just take our hands off from each other, we went to his place. It was even more intense, I can’t stop smelling his neck, even his armpits. I just want to live on his chest.
He also told me that a lot of people are on their heads while having sex, and you just let go of everything and its very impressive, maybe it has to do with your feminism. I told him its very important to me in a relationship to have good sexual life. Recently, a guy i was dating told me that he ne er really took me seriously because of my opennes about sex. He told me he thinks those are old school guys.
So I am not sure about where this is developing, on the one hand I am very drawn to him and think he is adorable. But on the other hand, i am afraid that he will just take this as physical. His not texting me is giving me some anxiety. I seem to not be able to control this sexual magnetism, and not approach the situation strategically per say.
We had one date. Nice date too. He said he decided afterwards in the following days (despite post date plans for a 2nd date) that he wanted casual instead and I said no to casual due to connection risk of feelings safer not to and he said well you’re hot AF slide into my DMs if you change your mind. “If you change your mind on wanting casual, slide into my DMs”.
So, 2 or 3 days later I was horny as and slid in to his DMs via Whatsapp. I’d got the ick on him by this point too, so I was happy in myself to just have a casual hook up with him.
Did he reply!? No! Wtf??? Been 2 days and no reply. Just reject me? Lie and say you are busy at least. Don’t ghost? Have some guts, I swear. 34 years old.
He was the one who said if you change your mind and want some casual then slide on in!
Went on my first post-breakup date last night with the French guy. So cute, charming, well-dressed and smelled good. Went to one of my favorite bars for a drink and bite to eat.
He told me he has a situation with a woman in South America. I couldn’t quite understand what needed to happen for them to be together, but he *says* they agreed to date other people in the meantime.
So yeah we kissed and felt each other up a lot in between 2 buildings. I guess I’d sleep with him. Certainly not gonna help me get over the breakup but it’s a great distraction and the attention is nice.
Women:
– Did you ever date or get involved with a man “too old for you”?
– Why do you think you did this?
– Women who did NOT, or even had a “that’s disgusting” reaction to this, why do you think you reacted that way?
Why has it gone from “make me laugh”. To “make me belly laugh” to now I’ve just seen “make me pure belly laugh”. These prompts are out of hand. Women genuinely looking for a trickster juggling comedian clown by the looks of things. Dance jester dance.
I was here last week or so grieving the potential loss of my 10+ years relationship, wondering how I can best work to fix it.
Of course my phone’s algorithm worked to send me “relevant content” on social media about attachment styles and relationship “secrets”. I’ve learned quite a bit.
I’ve also reflected quite a bit on our relationship’s history and myself. I’ve turned a blind eye on many things he said, looked past things I never would have. If a friend would have said what he has said to me, I’d have cut them off. But because I love him, I let it slide. I chose to love him more than I love myself.
So now, I’ve decided that I’m just going to work on me. He’s not reaching out, it’s fine, because I’m going to work towards doing all the things I’d missed all these years because I prioritised him.
I don’t know if he’s really busy these days trying to get all the things he has to do done so he can go for the trip and take the chance for us to try and reconnect, or he’s just unbothered. But I’ve already said my peace to him and emphasised that relationship is work and love is a choice. We have consistently met up to hang out 3 days a week until recently. I’ve reached out last week to see if he’d want to have a meal together and he said he’s busy. So this week, I’m not going to ask. If he wants to, he will reach out. I’ll just make plans for me and see what happens if he does reach out.
While he is deciding if he wants to continue the relationship by the end of this year (since he is the one who said his feelings for me have changed and he doesn’t love me anymore, but still wants to try and see where things go), I will also be deciding if the person he has become is someone I still want to call my life partner. Much has to be discussed. But if by then he hasn’t make time to work this out then… lol Well, wish me luck!
In the mean time, I’ll be hanging out with new friends connected and old friends reconnected, spending my free time with my family and doing the things I’ve always wished I had enough time to do.
I’m fortunate that the universe has been on my side and looking out for me all these while. I’ve not been a person who believes in “community” but I have recently joined an organisation (for work) where the people has genuinely been so kind and open. The organisation preaches strength in community, and the work environment so far seems to really practice what it preaches. I also feel like if my long term relationship falls apart in the end, I’ll be in an environment of good people where I’d feel like everything will be ok even without revealing my private life to them.
How on earth do I respond to a guy who’s opening messages was just “❤️”??? 😭
I’m reading another book on attachment theory and although I definitely think there’s a lot of truth in there, I also sometimes feel we might ‘overdiagnose’ anxious attachment? I think a lot of us experience stress in early stages of the relationship because we’ve all been dumped so many times, and I think it’s just adaption that when someone responds slower or is vague with their intentions etc. we know from past experiences a dumping might be looming (it might also not and I think the not knowing induces the stress). And I know for me the accumulation of rejections over the years has definitely dug a little hole somewhere in my subconscious that contains feelings like ‘there’s something wrong with me’, ‘it will never happen for me’ etc, no matter how much self love I practice on a day to day basis.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m all for taking responsibility for your own love life and coping with disappointments, but I think being scared and anxious when there’s risk of feeding that hole of negative self-talk is also.. a normal stress response?
Well, it’s been a couple days now since redownloading the apps for the first time since 2019 and attempting to put myself (30m) back out there for the first time since I broke up with my ex of 2.5 years back in January. I wrote the other day about my [first impressions](https://www.reddit.com/r/datingoverthirty/s/oJptDZHX3S) of the big 3 (hinge, bumble, tinder) after downloading them again on Sunday, and now that I’ve a little more time to try them out, I’ll rank them in order from worst to best (based on my personal experience so far).
Hinge- This is by far my worst performing app in terms of match rate, likes and overall platform experience at the moment. I’m starting to think that maybe this app is not for me….which is sad because it came highly recommended by both people I know in real life and by the DOT community. I bought a subscription as most suggested, but still. I even filled out my profile with lots of detail and had it reviewed/green lit. I’ve often heard the criticism that it’s usually the men who don’t have much on their profiles, making it hard to connect with, but I’m finding (in my own personal experience of course) that the women I’ve come across have put in 0 effort. It makes it hard to reach out with nothing to go on when your intentions are finding a partner. I might give it until my subscription is up next month.. but so far, not a lot of luck.
Bumble- Much like it was in 2019, this seems to be the in between app for me. The match rate is less than tinder but more than hinge and the match quality actually seems to be greater than tinder. Back in my 20’s I use to hate running out of likes because I could swipe all day, but now I like it because it gives me an excuse to get off the apps and not hyper focus on them. Still, I’ve gotten about 5 matches so far and it’s usually me reaching out first, followed by them responding, followed by me responding and asking a question in an attempt to carry on the conversation, followed by them never responding haha
Tinder- This surprised me. I’ve read the tinder stories on the DOT community over the years and heard that It was nothing but a wasteland. I use to be tinder veteran, but even when I got off the apps in 2019 it was starting to get stale. I somewhat enjoy the familiarity and the swiping method as compared to hinge (maybe just because I’m use to it more) but it is by far my higher match rate app. In fact I’ve had the most conversations on there and they usually last for much longer than those on bumble do. Now granted, the match quality is a little lower than bumble and it seems like not a lot of people are looking for longterm, but at least something is happening. There’s a lot of matches that never respond also, but conversations are somewhat going on.
I suspect the “success” I have had so far is because I’m a newer profile. I’ve noticed since downloading the apps Sunday that the match frequency has started to slow down quite a bit. No first dates and no exchanges of numbers yet. I was close with one match until I mentioned that eventual travel is a goal of mine, to which she responded it’s a deal breaker for her. So I’ll keep trying! But so far, I’m really wishing speed dating had worked out lol
Really feeling over playing the waiting game, feeling like I’m constantly “almost there” in dating – like I meet someone and something happens. It’s so frustrating to feel like I’m in situations where the next person is “the one” for the person, or an opportunity arises and it gets fumbled. Like JFC can I just get SOME good luck in dating for once?! I’m reaching the point of just not wanting to date anymore, it feels like striking out is worse than not being in the game at all.
Question for the 40yo that may be lurking here! I’m 30F and I’m dating this 40yo cute guy that I’m liking a lot, but he’s such a horrible texter. Is this a generational thing? On dates he’s super interested but he texts like maybe 2 things every 3 days and basically only texts to plan dates. I’ve never experienced this before (usually date my age or younger) where it’s at least a daily thing!
I feel like I’ve done all the reading, all the studying, all the therapy and work on myself (spent the past 6 years solo to do so) and, mid-30s, I’m not really any closer to finding someone. It’s so disheartening. I just want a freaking husband and to not do life alone and it feels impossible. I’m basically that viral video of the girl in the car that everyone roasted a couple months ago. It’s nice to find a group of people here who understand at least.
Need some advice on how to talk to him about low effort / possible loss of interest.
I (29M) have been seeing another guy (30M) for a month (4 dates). In the beginning, we texted frequently. Since then, he stopped being responsive. He will respond to my text after 1 or 2 days. I initiate the dates and phone calling. Recently, he made a comment over the phone that he put in the absolute minimum effort to keep the texting alive. I changed the topic because I preferred to talk about it in person (we will meet after a few days).
I have gotten a lot of advice on this subreddit on how to talk to him about my needs (e.g. I expect him to acknowledge my text with a reply, within the same day). What I want to know is, how to ask if he has lost interest in me? The reason I want to know is so that I can know whether to stop devoting my time to seeing him.
Other details: He mentioned that he is not seeing other people (I saw he never logged into his online dating profile after our second date), but he knows I am. He also said he doesn’t want to move fast in dating due to previous hurtful experiences. Maybe for another unknown reason he just lost interest.
It just hit me that my last handful of dating experiences on dating apps that went beyond messaging have all been with older women. My last two dates were 51, and over the summer, there was someone else who was 48. Lots of likes and matches from women late 40s, early 50s overall. For context, I’m 39. I started to realize that while I was still getting likes and matches from women ranging from their early 30s to early 40s, the women who actually wanted to do video chats, meet up in person, and make more effort were women who had a significant age gap from mine.
It’s a difficult position, because these women were all great people and to be honest, more attractive than a lot of the women around my own age I’ve matched with, but at the end of the day, unless you both are just looking for something short-term and casual, it was hard to see something long-term coming out of it. They’re also typically divorced and have older children, so there’s a lot of different dynamics going on. in 10 years, when I’m 49 and she’s 61, how’s that going to be? How about when I’m 59 (and not even retired yet) and she’s 71 (been retired for years and possibly starting to show more physical signs of aging)?
At the same time, what are you supposed to do when you don’t seem to really get enough quality matches around your own age who make the effort to want to go beyond messaging?
How about you all? Do you match and date older people? If so, what have those experiences been like?
I’m getting ready to go out on this maybe first date but probably date with this guy. We’ve been texting a bit almost every day and it’s been nice, but he’s got a habit of texting really late. The last few conversations we had, he either initiated the text or responded to my text very close or after midnight. I decided not to respond until the next morning, at which point he would respond pretty quickly and we’d have a good back and forth for an hour or so. Today, as I was ending our convo, I suggested we reconnect later tonight to work out some details about our date (when to meet, where to grab dinner, etc.) and he joked “I’ll try to not text after midnight, but it might be just under the wire.” I joked back a little but then said “but seriously, please don’t text me late. I have a long commute (temporarily) that I need to be up early for, and it’s really helpful for me to know what to expect the next day before I go to sleep.” A bit of risk this early on, I suppose, but he responded well and said he understood and promised to check in earlier. Green flag! I’m glad I said something.
Do you stop seeking friendships with the opposite sex after you turn 30?
A few of my friends who are older have mentioned to me that men and women Don’t hang out as friends in their 30s. Sort of indifferent to this, I do have some women as friends who I really appreciate but I will usually spend time with them when I see them at an event or something as opposed to planning time with them.
I do have one friend that I would enjoy hanging out with as a friend but she’s in a relationship and I would feel weird about hanging out with her without her boyfriend and I also wouldn’t do it out of respect, because if I was the guy I don’t know how I would feel about my girlfriend exclusively hanging out with another guy.
Don’t think men and women can’t be friends, but for me with having a pretty full life between a full-time, Part-Time school, hobbies such as writing music, And exercising..etc If I am going to set aside time to hang out with a woman It’s because I’m attracted to them or I’m trying to explore our compatibility for a relationship. There are a few exceptions to this rule with female friends I’ve had for a very long time.
And I don’t mean to gaslight anyone on this issue but I personally believe if you are over 30 And you have a full life, can’t possibly just be trying to have friends with the opposite sex. If you do have that kind of free time you either don’t have a full-time job or aren’t working towards anything beyond that.
Feel free to disagree (and downvote because I know you will) and give your take.
Went on two first dates this week. Person A seemed nice, and we’ve scheduled a second date for this weekend, but I feel she’s coming on a bit strong emotionally, so I’m keeping my eyes open for that.
Person B was also nice, we had a fairly normal date, good conversation but not stellar. I’d like to attempt a second, but I think in her eyes I’m 50/50 as well, so I’m not sure if it’ll go anywhere.