Online Dating Question

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-23-2004
Online Dating Question
2
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 7:37am
Deay Doyenne,

Recently, on the advice of some friends and family, I started using a online dating service to meet guys. My dating history has been limited at best, but it is not for lack of trying. Currently, I live in Tokyo, Japan and dating life for foreign women in Japan can be a hellish nightmare. However, I live here by choice, so it is my own fault I suppose.

Anyway, recently I met someone through an online dating service and I am interested in pursuing a relationship with this person. Let me give you some of the details:

1. He lives in LA, I live in Tokyo.

This is ironic because he is a native-born Japanese and I am a native-Californian.

2. He is 10 years older than I am, he is 38 and I am 28.

3. Met once while he was on a business trip to Tokyo. We had a wonderful time and he

asked to see me again before leaving Tokyo, but he wanted to spend additional time

with his family. He promised to call, but broke the date by email instead.

4. He has a very successful business career and is in executive management, thus he is

extremely busy and only emails once or twice a week at the most.

Since we met, we have continued to exchange email. In the beginning, after our dinner-date, his emails were quite short while I seemed to write volumes. His emails are gradually getting longer and he wants to meet me when I go on vacation in Bali. Meeting him in Bali would be a wonderful opportunity to see him again, however sometimes I worry that the distance between us will be a detourance. I have also noticed that he continues to check the dating website we met on. One of my friends says that his logging on to the website shows that he is still looking and that I should not pursue this relationship. Yet, in his emails he says he wants to join me in Bali if he can and would like to see me when I come home at Christmastime. While I truly want to believe in him and begin a relationship with him, the fact that he logs into the website bothers me a bit. It mainly bothers me because in the time that he is on the website he could be emailing me, since he is supposed to be "so busy" with his job.

Please give me some advice. Since I have not been in very many relationships, I am not sure what I should do.

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-20-2004
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 2:04pm
Well, the two of you have never talked about being exclusive have you? You aren't in a committed relationship with him. As much as it may bother you that he's checking into the dating website, he's really not doing anything wrong. Look at the distance between the two of you. Unless the two of you talk about being exclusive and working on a relationship, you are both fair game. My boyfriend and I both continued the online dating thing while we were "friend" first. Once we decided the relationship was "REAL" all of that online dating stuff ended. I don't think either one of us stopped checking the dating website until after we established our relationship. We were long distance as well, but I moved shortly after we met in person. It's working, nearly 16 months now. First, establish what the two of you are before bringing up the fact that he still checks the website .
Avatar for northwestwanderer
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 06-23-2004 - 2:15pm
You've had *one date*, and you expect him to be dating you exclusively, when you live thousands of miles away??? That is terribly unrealistic. *OF COURSE* he's still looking, the two of you barely know each other!!! You should be too!

If this r'ship is to have a chance of moving forward, I would meet him in Bali and see how things go, and then decide how to take it from there. Also, are you planning to move back to the States at some point in the not too distant future, or is he thinking of moving back to Japan? If living in the same place at some point in the next year or so isn't going to happen, then it doesn't make sense to get involved, IMO.

Sheri