Mine can be summarized as:
1. Date for a month or two (earnestly try to get to know them, go out on fun dates, etc.)
2. Ask to define the relationship
3. They want casual, I want serious
4. I break it off; Take time to grieve
5. They boomer-rang back 1-2 months later; I’ve moved on
Is their any way I can clearly say at the jump: “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?
I mean, the boomer-rang part is fun as it usually results in awesome make-up sex, but there’s no going back. I can see they’re simply bored and want to be entertained. It honestly makes me feel shitty and I want to avoid it from happening again.
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I’m assuming you’re voicing the fact you’re looking for a LTR upfront or are you keeping it casual until
You know you’re interested? 1-2 months feel a long time to not know about their goals.
If you want to prevent the boomerangs, then block contact when things end the first time. That’ll remove the temptation to engage in a boomerang hookup of sorts.
Also, I think you should be communicating what you want long before you ask to define the relationship. There is nothing wrong about asking about someone’s purpose/end goal for dating on the first date. (When I was single, I always preferred to ask in person rather than online because I had more confidence that the person would be more likely to tell me the truth rather than what I wanted to hear.)
I feel like if you’re a guy, the best thing you can do is just focus on having fun, and making great connections with women. Keep going out on fun dates.
When she’s ready to commit, she will bring it up. Which, I’d say will likely be like, what 2 months in? Obviously varies.
This way, you don’t come off as clingy, you don’t come across as jumping the gun, or come off as pushy. You’re letting her come to you at her own pace.
And, I realize people hate this or it’s shunned upon for men to do this. But don’t be afraid to keep your options open for a bit in the early stages. I’ve definitely been burned from not doing this. Women do it, men can too, just don’t make it odd and be honest/sincere if questioned about it.
Real deal? Even that’s super vague. Just say in your profile that you’re looking for a serious ltr
How is that clingy or strange? Maybe assertive and confident? If that scares away potential casual daters, remember you’re trying to weed them out.
>Is their any way I can clearly say at the jump: “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?
In my experience anything short of cheerful indifference and benign neglect is going to seem “clingy” to someone who isn’t looking for something serious, and not wanting to be a temp worker on the low effort fuck schedule isn’t strange at all.
Be clear about what you want; it’s better to rule out the flâneurs from the start.
EDIT: Missing circumflex straightened out.
1. Amazing first date where we smash
2. One person ghosts
3. Weeks to months later: hey wyd?
4. Go back to step 1 or block
Do the people you date fall into a pattern? How would you describe them?
I think most people here probably find themselves in patterns. Some may be completely unaware of their pattern. Some like myself can’t break their pattern even after using a variety of strategies and tips.
Pattern 1:
– Meet person
– Take person out on a bunch of dates/nice dinners.
– Try to normalize to a more reasonable spending pace because who wants to blow $400+ a week.
– More reasonable dates include, cook for them, chain restaurant and movie, local fair, wine tasting, frisbee golf, axe throwing, etc
– They start complaining about the “low effot”, “lack of effort” but in reality it’s just the $$$ spent that has declined not the effort.
– They become dissatisfied and leave.
Pattern 2:
– Meet person
– Take person on dates/nice dinners
– I try to normalize to a more reasonable spending pace because who wants to spend $400+ a week.
– Person doesn’t believe they should do any date planning or pay at all/ever, “its the man’s job”
– Because this person believes it’s a man’s job to do all the work in the relationship, I feel less enthused to plan anything.
– It becomes a race to see who becomes dissatisfied and leaves first.
The new strategy I’m trying:
– Removing money spent from the beginning of the relationship.
– Having the low-cost dates at the beginning in order to have a more realistic pace
– I’m sure I will post when it leads to a successful outcome. However, coffee/drink dates have an annoyingly high ghost/flake rate compared to a dinner and activity date.
>Is their any way I can clearly say at the jump: “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?
Yeah, just say that at the very start, before you meet up. It’s not going to weed out everyone, but it helps. It’s not clingy or strange at 30+ to clearly state what you’re looking for, and anyone who thinks otherwise is full of shit. We’re all too old to be playing games here although a lot of posters/commenters here do it anyway, or advise you to.
Also consider not allowing them to come back 1-2 months later if it makes you feel shitty.
1. Date someone for about a month
2. Conflict arises
3. I want to talk it out, he wants to duke it out. The duking it out hurts. I leave.
4. I run and complain to my therapist that did the emotional equivalent of teaching me a language no one else speaks
5. Drop a few grand on therapy vowing to work on myself and gain some clarity
6. I develop an attraction to someone based on how different they are from me
Rinse and repeat.
1. Get to know someone, no feelings yet so I’m comfortable and can be myself
2. Couple of dates and sex
3. Start to develop feelings, start overthinking, get nervous and closed off
4. They lose interest
🤷♀️
For me, the defining what you REALLY want out of the dating experience is something that happens before or at the first date. I certainly wouldn’t waste a month or two casually dating in the hopes that they want to date me seriously. You are kinda setting the president from the beginning because you are already casually dating them so unless they are already looking for a serious relationship, why would they want to change the low-commitment arrangement?
You are rarely going to “convince” someone that they should want to be in a LTR, in my opinion.
I have no advice , just wanted to chime in this happens to me all the time. I thought I was alone with this pattern. I think it comes down to- people don’t know how to form relationships and how to receive love.
We used to have rituals and courtships (patriarchy). Men and women knew their roles and what to do. Now that the patriarchy is being dismantle (still exists) people are confused and don’t know how to act/what to do. The gender roles are being rewritten
Now before people attack me im NOT saying we should go back to the 1950s. Just pointing out we are in a transition period.
With that- I tend to give benefit of the doubt more. I’ll only give boomerangs 2nd chance if they truly can communicate with me why they left and prove to me they’ll never do it again. So far no one has met that bar
I don’t think you need to block people. Sometimes people really are going through crap and leave. Just be open to give and receive love
Yes. 5 years of dating, and the pattern is always:
1. Hit it off, date a month or few
2. She asks for money or reveals she has bad debt.
3. I reject her request to help financially.
3. She breaks up with me for not ‘being generous’ or slings insults.
Rinse and repeat 2-3x a year.
These women are all professionals with advanced degrees and some of them have high income jobs. It still shocks me every time it happens. I really can’t fathom what goes on in their heads that they think it’s OK to do that.
>Is their any way I can clearly say at the jump: “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?
Prior to the 1st date or on the 1st date itself, you ask the person exactly what they’re looking for. I usually advise women to attack the men with this topic first before the men hit them with it first. As a man, I have to say that some men will ask women first before women are able to ask them and the men lie and say “Yeah, I’m looking for something serious too” only to pump and dump you. Which brings me to saying, don’t have sex on the first couple of dates if you want to weed out the pump and dumps/hookups/friends with beniefits. The “What are you looking for?” question should be one of the first questions asked. Later on, you can ask questions that’ll give them more information about what on a deeper level you’re looking for.
Here’s one question:
**”Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”**
I believe that time speeds up when you’re in your 30’s. 5 years is not a long time. And if someone tells you “Gee, I don’t know” or some movie quote like “I live my life a quarter-mile at a time”, he/she is wasting your time.
The “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” question may get them to talk about what vehicle they may want to have to be driving, how many kids they see themselves having (it gets difficult for women to have kids in their mid 30s), what kind of career path (same or different or go back to college), what kind of roof they’d want to live under (renting an apartment/owning a house), etc.
> “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?
I’m not sure what’s strange or clingy (I hate that word so much!) about expressing your preferences up front. It may scare off some prospects, but it beats wasting 1-2 months to find out y’all wanted different things. Much better to be on the same page from the get-go.
I definitely think asking important questions up front can combat this. I try to get a couple of things squared away even before the first date:
1) Do they have kids of want kids? I’m very opposed to having kids so I don’t want to potentially waste a guys time or money on a date if he wants kids.
2) What are they looking for? I saw this on a previous post months ago and saved it: “I’m looking for a relationship, I’m dating specifically with an eye towards finding a long-term, relationship with the right person that has the potential to get more serious over time. Does that fit with what you’re looking for too, if the
connection is right?”
Anything less than a yes means you should move on. Including “I don’t really know what I want.”
I’ve saved myself a lot of time, confusion and improved the quality of my connections and dates doing both of the above.
I never ever ever discuss relationship status with guys. And I date more than one guy at a time. Hate to say it but they like the thrill of the chase. I’ve been engaged and proposed to numerous times with this “strategy” but that’s just who I am. I could care less about settling down and it’s the guys who have always wanted serious. Every girlfriend that I have with your strategy is in this boat or have to force the guy into the relationship. Every girlfriend that I have who legit just don’t care have their pick of guys. I just go with the flow. If they bring up exclusive and monogamy and if I like them enough I’m like aight, guess we can give it a try 😂😂😂 but I legit have it within my soul I don’t need a guy to feel complete. They can be a part of my journey but I’m just as awesome alone. Try something new. Good luck.
Are you stating up front that you’re looking for a LTR and not just something casual? That seems pretty important to discuss very early on. I mean I’m not entirely opposed to casual dating but ultimately I want a long term life partner and I’m upfront about that.
Mine:
1) meet, hang out for a week/weekend, also have sex in this period.
2) talk every day amd meet up for another few weeks (almost like bf/gf)
2) slowly get iced out over the next month until I’m ghosted.
3) be sad for a few weeks until I meet someone new.
Same thing. Happens with the next person I meet.
That was actually why I quit online dating.
I spent last Valentine’s Day at A woman’s house- we spent all weekend together cooking, having sex, and doing yoga…and it was great.
The second week we hung out she got a little bit weird and said she wanted to take it slower. So we stopped sleeping together but we were still seeing each other every day. Then about 2 or 3 weeks later she just stopped really communicating with me. We normally spoke all day throughout the day, but suddenly I was getting one text in the morning that was never followed up on- like “how are you doing today?” and then nothing else. She also blew off any plans we had made.
So I asked her if she still liked me, it seemed like she didn’t. She said she really did she just didn’t have the time because she was busy….i mever heard from her again after that. Then like 3 weeks later one of my friends saw her new tinder profile.
I felt like she just wanted some attention and loving on Valentine’s Day, and then realized she wasn’t ready for relationship but didn’t want to tell me.
After having very similar experiences several other times last year, I decided to quit online dating.
My advice to OP: take a break from online dating and get out of those cycles.
That’s because you meet these women on the apps
If you notice a pattern stop immediately then backtrack why while reading up on behavioral psychology stuff. Also look at your environment to see if you’re being sabotaged via toxic friends. A lot of friend groups shift into sociopathic tendencies unknowingly due to codependency driven nonsense.
After 5-6 dates, not all people wanted to jump into a long term relationship.
Do you put on your dating profile ‘Looking for a serious relationship’. If not then you should. I swipe right on men who put this regardless of anything except the most serious red flags and deal breakers
If you’re using OLD, just put it in your profile.
Maybe if you establish what you want prior, there won’t be any wasted time?
I think you just haven’t met the right person
“Is their any way I can clearly say at the jump: “Yes. I like to have fun, don’t play games, and am looking for the real deal…” without sounding clingy or strange?” It is not clingy or strange to say what you want. If that is what you truly want then go for it. There is a woman out there who wants the same. You need to find him.
Ultimately you have no control over what someone says they want. Some people lie. You also can use your profile to screen, say something similar to you are looking for something more serious than a fast food drive though. You aren’t into casual. A decent share of people will skip past you/self screen.
The more time you get yourself in these makeup trysts, the further away you are from the finding the one that you want in your life. If you want steak why are you settling for a happy meal? My suspicion is you are going for players/obviously attractive people, hoping you can change them. Then you findout you cannot and just wasted 2 months.
Hmm in my case, they don’t boomerang back.
Do you ask what they want up front? I don’t personally date people who want casual only. I find this usually saves a lot of heartache.
I’m starting to think I’m romantically inept. Bad at reading signals. She flirts, plays hard to get, oh she’s just being friendly. Then get friend zoned when I realized she was flirting. I couldn’t tell even if she told me.
….makeup sex with no intention of getting back together sorta seems the opposite of “don’t play games + looking for real deal?”
I wonder if there are other places where you are unintentionally sending mixed messages.
I’m ready to be exclusive at two months (not one) but I’m not ready for serious until after the six month mark. Casual/serious can mean different things to different people, but I also wonder if it’s possibly to be truly serious with someone you’ve only known 2 months. You can say you’re looking for serious at two months, but are you asking them to be serious that early?
Maybe it works for some! It wouldn’t feel authentic to me. That’s still honeymoon phase and I know I’m not thinking straight.
Is it pathetic that I actually get a little bummed out that no one ever boomerangs back to me? For me, after number 4, it’s crickets. Not saying I’d necessarily take someone back, but boy, it really is a gut punch to feel like you were totally meaningless to someone.