At what point do you stop "shopping?"
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| Mon, 10-03-2005 - 9:48pm |
I apologize if this has been brought up in the past -- I did a quick search but wanted more info. Feel free to pass along a link to a different thread if need be.
So the guy I met online (that I like very much) seems to be into me. We've gone out on four dates, and each time the conversation was great. Although there has been barely any kissing, etc (not an issue... yet) we do talk or text every night. I imagine there will be a fifth and possibly sixth date this week/weekend. Now, he hasn't come out and told me directly, but from a few things he says (and from the fact that he is always active within 24 hours on his profile) I strongly suspect that he's still "shopping" and perhaps talking to and even dating other people. Heck... I even had a date Friday night (that didn't go well). But I'm "shopping" half-heartedly because my hopes and interests are really with this guy. At what point should I (and should he) put it all aside and focus on each other? How do I tactfully bring up the fact that I might be a little irritated if he is still "shopping" after several weeks of dating? And do I even have a right to be irritated by that?
And have any of you had a guy with whom you were serious, who lied about the fact that they stopped looking on the dating sites?
Thanks, Tobi

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>But now I have a bad gut feeling because he said he'd
>do something and didn't, and I feel misled and not
>sure what to think
I am probably the most cynical person here, but someone (Bertrand Russell?) much smarter than me said, "If you have one contradiction, nothing can be believed". Also, Albert Einstein said, "A person who lies about small matters cannot be trusted with important ones". It has been suggested that a technical "glitch" has made it impossible for him to remove his profile. I suppose people like to believe whatever helps them sleep at night.
I did consider the technical glitch option mostly because one of our posters recently took her profile down only to be told a few weeks later by a guy that "Hey, I thought you said you were taking it down."
We've had more than one person on here post that they thought they took their profiles down on match, only to find out that it did not in fact happen. Are you saying each of these posters is a liar?
Technical glitches DO happen. There is nothing wrong with inquiring as to whether it was the case here. If not, she'll know soon enough.
Sheri
Sheri,
Signing in is not a technical glitch. If two people think they are a good match there would be no need to check each other's profile status. What reason would you give for logging in after 3 weeks of dating? There are reasons but none of them are good.
If I had not made a commitment to date exclusively (and as a rule I would NOT after dating for only 3 weeks because I don't think you can tell if you're really a good match until you've dated regularly for a couple months), then there's no reason needed (good or bad) for logging on. Both of us are free to date other people until we've discussed it and explicitly agreed to date exclusively.
In any event, my answer about the glitch was given before FA posted that the guy in question has been logging on every day. But even that is possibly a glitch...someone posted recently on another board about a default setting on match that signs you in and shows you "online now" automatically just by logging on to the computer...even if you weren't actually ON match.
Sheri
>Both of us are free to date other people until we've
>discussed it and explicitly agreed to date exclusively.
This is where I am confused. I can’t work out where all of these extra dates would come from. I only keep hearing MINIMUM success stories with OLD.
>I don't think you can tell if you're really a good
>match until you've dated regularly for a couple months
IMO, I think you can tell within 20 minutes of meeting someone. By the end of the first date you will know if you want to see them again. If by the 3rd date you are still unsure then chances are it will never work.
There is NO WAY you can know enough about someone in 3 dates, let *alone* in 20 minutes, to know if you are a good match! You can THINK that, but you don't KNOW. Knowing you want to see someone again is a completely different animal from knowing whether you're a good match. I don't think you start to REALLY get to know someone until you've been dating for *at least* 4-6 months, but I'm willing to stop dating others at 2 months if they seem like a good match at that point (operative word being "seem") and concentrate on one person at that point.
People put their best feet forward (someone coined the term "send in their representatives", LOL) for the first few months of dating...the dating masks don't start to come off until you've been dating for a while. And the best way to evaluate someone's character, integrity, etc. is to spend time with them, OVER time, and see how their words and actions match up. That takes multiple observations, not a couple dates!
As for your first point, whether you *actually* date others is really irrelevant. What's important is keeping your options open and not putting all your eggs in one basket until you know the person well enough to decide whether they are someone you want to date exclusively. But finding people to go on dates with isn't all that hard on OLD (or at least that's been my experience)...it's finding someone you're compatible with over the long haul that's the challenge.
Sheri
>There is NO WAY you can know enough about someone in
>3 dates, let *alone* in 20 minutes, to know if you
>are a good match!
You will know whether you want to see them again. You don’t need 2 months to figure this out.
>And the best way to evaluate someone's character, integrity
>etc. is to spend time with them, OVER time, and see how their
>words and actions match up. That takes multiple observations
>not a couple dates!
How can you do this effectively if you are dating more than one person at a time?
>What's important is keeping your options open and not putting
>all your eggs in one basket until you know the person well
>enough to decide whether they are someone you want to date exclusively.
Your process is flawed because you will only get to know someone properly when you start dating exclusively. This is when you put all your eggs in one basket. Until such time you aren’t acting as a couple so everything preceding it becomes null and void.
1. I'm repeating myself here, but knowing whether you want to SEE someone again and get to know them better is a completely different animal from knowing whether they are a good match. The latter takes time.
2. Very easily and effectively. Do you have trouble keeping people straight in your head or something? I'm not trying to be sarcastic...this is a no brainer to me so I'm not sure why it would be hard for someone else.
3. I disagree completely with this viewpoint. You can find out a LOT of things about a person before you become an exclusive couple.
Sheri
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