ONLINE DATING EXPERIENCES

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-01-2005
ONLINE DATING EXPERIENCES
1
Wed, 08-16-2006 - 2:58pm

As someone who has had numerous relationships that resulted from dating online, I thought it would be nice to share some insight from the experiences I had. I would love to hear if other people have had the same experiences, and maybe you guys can post your experiences regarding the issues I have with online dating.

THE FANTASTIC GUY THAT LIVES WAY TOO FAR AWAY.
-I met this guy online and talked to him regularly for a year. He was the perfect guy that had his own business, family-oriented. I googled him, LOL, and everything he said was true. Everything about him was great, and the relationship that resulted, was one that led to an ultimatum. I was here on the east coast and he was on the west coast. He wanted me to come visit him, and I seriously contemplated coming to visit. However, I was broke, and didn't have the money to go. I was very afraid to go some where without the means to get there. He offered to buy a ticket and some spending money. I was adamant about not taking his money, but I simply was afraid to go 3,000 miles to meet someone I never seen face to face. He gave me an utimatum, that he would have to move on by December, and since i realized that it wasnt going to happen, our relationship ended. I realized finally and became quite annoyed, if he was so eager to see me, he could have flown over here too. Therefore, I promised myself, never to get involved again with a man so far away.

THE INTERNET PLAYER.
I admit, that even when I'm in a relationship, I do stay in touch with my friends that I met online. I make it perfectly clear that I'm no longer single, but enjoy flirting. I know my limits. However, do I want my boyfriend to do the same? No. I recently found my soon to be ex-boyfriend's online dating ad which was current and up to date with pictures I took. I admit, that I google to find whatever I can about a guy. I asked for this, but I was happy to find this information. It makes the impending break up easier to do. (Yes, I'm fuming.)

There is such thing as the internet player. He is the guy that is too afraid to meet women in real life, but can live it up online. I caught a boyfriend a few years ago, after a night of passionate sex, online, looking at other women's profiles, when I got up to go to the bathroom. It's a reality that with online dating, it's very easy to always stay connected with exes, flings, and meet even new women and men. It makes me insecure to the point that I feel it necessary to keep an eye out for this sort of thing.

THE EXES THAT DON'T GO AWAY
I lost my virginity ten years ago with a guy I met on the beach. He was good looking, but I didn't particularly love the guy. However, I was ready to experience sex and wanted him to me my first. We had sex twice, when I realized that I was curious and didn't really like the guy. I broke up with him after a month. From about five years ago, he found my homepage online, and has continued to write me. It doesn't bother me, because I find it flattering, however, the problem is...the internet never let's you get away from people. People who stay in touch online, pretty much can rekindle a relationship on a boring lonely night. It's happened to me, and it can be a benign situation to an explosive situation. I think that the internet is a tool that can bee a good thing, but you have to realize that the people you meet today, you will run into over and over. There's something really traumatic about going through online ads, and coming over an ex's profile.

GOOGLE THAT MAN
I hate to say it but I enjoy googling my prospective dates. I think it's a great tool that allows you to get a great idea of who they are. I also look up my exes, to see what they're up to. Stalking...LOL> Sure, sort of. It's about protecting my safety, my heart, and aids in trusting a guy enough to meet him. One guy I dated, had a dating profile on every dating site. Another guy, who claimed to be a professional athlete, was proven legitimate, by the number of articles written about him. I think it's a great tool.

Dating online is fine, but guys that have the desire to be promiscuous, finally have a great way to fulfill any desire he wishes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2001
Wed, 08-16-2006 - 3:39pm

I have yet to be able to find any real info about a guy via the internet other than maybe an address & phone. But I have always wondered what it would be like to hire a private I to check a guy out. Don't have the funds to do such a thing and never really had a situation that I felt required it, but I do understand why some women go through the process. They are wanting to know, before they get hurt again, if the guy is married, has a drug, alcohol or gambling addiction, etc.

But even with all the safeguards a person might take to prevent future heartache, I think there is no real sure-fire way to prevent heartache unless you just stay away from men in general. With anything in life, there is always a risk.

I have dated men who lived an hour away or more and I have come to the conclusion that unless they live fairly close, no budding romance is likely to happen between me and the guy. An hour might not seem like a lot to some people, but I do believe the distance had something to do with a couple of dating situations not working out for me. It might not have been the only reason, but to say that distance doesn't matter if it's the right person is not really realistic from my standpoint. If you have to make elaborate travel plans or even change work schedules in order to see each other, it might not be worth it. Some men might be willing to make it work--I never encountered any who didn't admit that even an hour away was hard to schedule around. Add to it now the high gas prices, and that's another reason why they don't want to drive to see you.

Add to the mix the fact that some men do not have the TIME to date nor do they want to rearrange their schedule so they do have time. I have been interested in a bounty hunter (yes, think of Dog on A&E, only better looking) who was basically on-call 24/7. He lived an hour away as well. Never could plan anything for sure due to his weird work hours. Then there was the truck driver guy who lived an hour and a half away from me. We never did meet because he kept cancelling our meets due to work. Forget the fact that he claimed he was willing to make time for me and could do his job from anywhere in the country. He drove with a fleet of trucks and was the front man van driver. I got an e-mail from him saying he just didn't think it would work out with his schedule after all and he was sorry that he led me to believe otherwise. I end up talking to him again a couple months ago (via e-mail) and hoped that maybe his schedule was a little less hectic. I then get another e-mail basically saying the same thing as before--no time, not fair to me, yada yada yada. I promptly wrote back that if he had a profile online, then I assumed he had plans to eventually meet someone and if he did not, then he was short-changing himself as well as anyone who might be interested in him. Never heard from him again, and good riddance I guess. His profile was hidden right after that e-mail I sent, but I noticed that it's back on Match again. Maybe he gets a thrill out of the possibility of dating but has no plans to ever follow through with actually meeting.

Then I had another guy from Iowa who told me I just was not the "biker" type. We dated for 3 weeks, and I was quite hurt when he basically bailed on me.

I had a couple other dismal first-time dates only when I finally started dating Mark. He was a decent looking, caring guy who actually lived in the same town that I live in. Long story short, we dated for 3 1/2 months until a nasty custody battle with ex-wife #1 made him make some really foolish decisions. He went back to wife #2 (whom he was not quite divorced from) in order to make it look good to the courts in order to keep his daughter. He is largely the reason why I am not emotionally up to dating again. A part of me wants him to come to his senses and leave this bad situation he's gone back to and come back to town where he has family and ME. I still care about the guy and I am still shell-shocked that things happened the way they did. So, for me, I have no real success stories with OLD....only heartache really. Wish I could say otherwise.