So personally (m25) I got out of a relationship a few months ago (with my fair share to be of the blame) and I have lots of stuff to work on and I have a plan in place for carrying that out.
I’m curious though, how do people date non exclusively? Do you always tell the person on the date straight up? What does it look like communication wise? If you are a good looking guy and get a fair amount of attention and you want to see through on your options, how do you go about this?
The reason I’m asking is because I feel like I see a fair amount of posts that include something to the lines of “my significant other told me (insert a random amount of time) into our relationship that they hooked up/had sex with another person while we were talking and now I don’t know how to feel about it” wouldn’t it have just been better to say to the person before the hookup happened “listen I really like you but where I understand things is that we aren’t exclusive and I’m going to enjoy you in my life and we can make that decision once that conversation comes up” or is that completely bringing up the exclusive conversation in itself?
I’m pretty confused by this. On one side, I imagine it would be better to say that so you have some “insurance” but I also understand the rationale behind not wanting to scare the other person off.
Granted: I’m talking about the stage where you are have possibly slept with each other/gone on 1-3 dates together.
As a guy and with the social media age, I always imagine “she” has a million options and isn’t holding back for me due to us not having that conversation.
If you couldn’t tell, yes I’ve been in this situation (before my gf were official and I ended up choosing her) but it did blow up in my face with the other party and I knew I could have been more mature about it.
I’m trying to increase my emotional maturity and maybe the “girls with social media having a million options” thing is a deep rooted insecurity I have.
If you were single and dating and had two or three different people that you went on a date with, how do you handle it? Assuming you know what you want and have your shit together of course
Genuinely trying to get other thoughts and challenge my own, thanks in advance
5 comments
If you haven’t established that you are exclusive that means you are not exclusive, aka you both might sleep with or date other people.
I’m up front about it when I’m on the dating apps and select on my profile that I am only interested in dating casually and not interested in commitment or a long-term relationship.
It would be rude to go on a date with one person and tell them about the date you had with another person. But neither would I deliberately hide that information.
There is no reason to think the person you’re seeing isn’t dating or sleeping with other people if you haven’t specifically and mutally agreed to exclusivity.
It’s not exclusive until you both discuss it so I just assume anyone I’m seeing has others they are at least talking to
For me it works out well because when one of them gets on my nerves (a common problem for me with men lol) I just focus more on another one. I’m only actively dating 2 right now but talking to about 6 and I have 2 serious crushes on men I’m not even talking to. So I guess that’s about 10 men I can shift focus to at any time. Keeps me sane
Oh and 1 female crush
It’s about communication first and foremost. Don’t say things to any of the girls you are “dating” that could be misconstrued as leading them on. Don’t “future fake” with them. But, you don’t have to flaunt your girls, either.
Keep things light and casual. You can make the assumption that she has millions of options, but you won’t know if she’s actually exercising them vs developing feelings for you unless you two talk about it. If you want it to stay open and light-hearted, encourage her to continue dating… encourage her to talk about it, to tell you the dating horror stories from Tinder, etc.
You can casually mention a horror story yourself just to check her reaction.
Last week, I was on a date with a guy I actually really like, but don’t want to be serious with. In the course of our joking around, I dropped a few “guess I’ll check in with my other boyfriends” and “you wanna join my fan club?” type silliness. We swapped Tinder stories, and when he told me one, I didn’t get weird. I laughed. And then it turned into an inside joke between us.
Even though I said it’s about communication, I don’t think it has to be a sit down serious conversation, unless you feel like it’s the right move.
Online dating was traumatically frustrating for me, but I found the results were astronomically better by dating multiple women.
When I first started online dating, I didn’t get a ton of matches, so I’d get really excited about getting chances with girls I liked. However, the girls I liked almost never had that same level of enthusiasm/energy for me. I was just one of many options for them and, if I did manage to score a date, it rarely progressed beyond that. I felt like girls just weren’t really giving me a chance and rejecting me before they even knew me. I would amuse myself by predicting the outcome of the date before I even went on it so I would at least get some degree of satisfaction to the inevitable “I didn’t feel a spark” text.
So, I setup a pipeline inspired by girls! I went crazy and signed up for every single app. Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, POF, FB dating, Match, eHarmony. Everything. You might only get 1 match a week but by golly if you’re on 50 apps that’s 50 matches per week! I would find 3 girls to be in the “dating” stage, 3-5 in the “talking” stage, and constantly keep swiping and interacting with girls on the apps to fill into the pipeline. I distributed my excitement and emotional investment across all the girls so that I could match the same level of energy and apathy as the girls.
It was toxic. So toxic! Having options makes it so easy to just not care about anyone and play the game. People actually tend to “chase” you more when they feel like you’re scarce/rare. I’d be going on 1-3 dates per week, spending hundreds of dollars a month. If a girl cancelled a date I could simply just hit up another option. If my top option was fading away, I’d just laugh it off and engage more with #2 and #3 while pulling in #4 for a date. I unknowingly went down on a virgin and then she liked it so much she asked me to take her virginity. I went on a date with a girl while another was at my house!! We had slept together the night before and she ended up taking a long nap and I didn’t want to wake her so I just texted her a white lie that I was meeting a friend and I’d be back in a bit and went on the date. We were not exclusive in any capacity and I don’t owe her any info about who else I’m talking to or dating. Of course, the other girl rejected me on the date and I came back home to the original girl and we slept together again.
This is why dating apps are so toxic! When you have options, shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll have plenty of stars to land upon. When you have options, why get mad about a rejection when you have plenty of other people in line? I wish I could’ve just stuck with one app, invest in just one girl at a time, and actually have them give me a freaking chance, but that’s just not how things work nowadays. In order to avoid being burnt as just another option for someone, you need to make sure they’re just another option as well. I totally understand how you feel about people having tons of options. It is truly toxic. But girls are going to take advantage of having options anyways, why shouldn’t you?
After a few months, one girl had stuck around in my dating pipeline. I found out she had paused her apps and had been asymmetrically exclusive with me the whole time. Despite having communicated that we were casual, I found out she had lied to her family and friends saying that we were official because they knew she liked me so much and she didn’t want them to know she was putting herself in such a vulnerable position. She isn’t perfect and isn’t my usual type, but she has a great heart, great personality, she’s funny and fun to be around, and the sex was amazing. IS amazing, we still have a very active sex life. She was plagued with constant anxiety, worried I might suddenly end things and wanting commitment, but too afraid to tell me out of fear of scaring me away. *And the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day*. I hated how women had treated me as just another option on dating apps. I always felt like their standards were unrealistic, inflated by all the options, and they were letting perfect be the enemy of good. Would I now ignore my own advice, and condemn myself to becoming just like those girls and getting lost amongst the options trying to find the perfect person? **Fuck no**. I deleted all the apps, politely let go of all the girls in the pipeline without ghosting, and asked her tf out.
*He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.* Dating lots of options is kind of toxic, but I think it’s a necessary evil in online dating as long as you’re able to avoid getting hopelessly lost in a sea of options chasing some unrealistic ideal of perfection.
I originally thought its “shady” to do it and not putting in 100% in a girl… but i tried doing that and missed some opportunities when the girl ghosted me after i thought things were going well.
I do feel some girls are more sensitive about dating multiple people than others and they may be only dating one person at a time and would be incredibly angry/disappointed if they find out you are playing the “well we are not exclusive” card. This goes both ways of course.
I am no expert on dating multiple people same time but I would rather have singular focus to devote time/money/effort to vs spreading around. However, I know it is wasting my time if i focus one at a time when there’s no indication it will be exclusive.