2681

Married.

2682

If it makes you feel any better, your posts make it seem like you’re a bit off socially =)

Also, its in you’re best interest to just ignore the match percentage, its just some made up indicator and in no way will reflect whether or not you will get along with a person.

2683

I started doing that, particularly since it’s giving the match percentage for that Paladin that I rolled in Neverwinter Nights a few years ago at this point anyway. Unfortunately, other people have not - I’ve started running into people that put highlighting conditions on correspondence you send to them that requires that you be at a certain match level or higher, which strikes me as being in entirely the wrong spirit (if you knew what you were looking for an had any talent for getting it, would you really be here now? isn’t this SUPPOSED to be about meeting different people?), but, more importantly, also leads to my witty and incisive email being filtered directly into a black hole, reducing the already dismal response rate to a level where I really have to consider if it wouldn’t be more productive for me to spend the ten minutes it would take to write something not completely generic watching pornography.

I kind of wish that they would take it behind the scenes, much like they have done with whatever mystical process decides what you like for the Icebreakers. It suggested I liked Hellboy. I don’t like Hellboy. I appreciate its existence, and I mention it as something I have read, but I don’t LIKE it at all. I assume it’s just doing a word search, but it keeps those interests that it finds behind the scenes, where they should be.

2684

I’ll second the notion of ignoring the match % stuff. My wife and I were a 28% match - we just celebrated our 5 year anniversary.

2685

I dunno. I think the match percentage is a good place to start. It’s hardly the be all and end all - just matching up how you answered some questions with how they did and how you wanted them to - but I’ve found that high match % people on OkCupid tend to show an active interest in the sorts of things I’m interested in, write profiles that click with me, and all that. Whereas the sub-50% people the Quiver sometimes throws my way? Not so much.

Now, if you’ve contacted all those people and it hasn’t gone anywhere or did but didn’t work out, then maybe it’s time to start casting further afield. And I certainly would never rule out someone who’s shown enough interest to contact -me- just because they’re not high enough on the match scale.

2686

pffft. Five years is nothing. Still, you DID get married, and you seem happy with the choice still, so I’ll give you credit anyway.

2687

If PoF and the others aren’t working for you, try beautifulpeople dot com. Here’s a charming item about it from Jezebel.

2688

Uh, yeah, you did.

If a girl is not interested in fucking around, SHE IS NOT INTERESTED IN FUCKING AROUND. Booze doesn’t magically make her interested in fucking around.

My point being – and recall I was adding this in response to divorced’s “no woman of mine can go out drinking” bit – is that if your gal pal gets drunk and bones some random guy, it’s because on some non-trivial level* she wanted to even when sober, and that’s indicative of a larger problem in the relationship. If you’re confident that your gal pal is satisfied in your relationship (on all levels – sexually, emotionally, etc) then you have nothing to fear when she goes out drinkin’ with her ladyfriends.

Now, sure, cheating while drunk is usually** more forgiveable than stone-cold intentionally cheating while sober, if nothing else because the latter is just a lot meaner. I wasn’t trying to draw moral equivalence between the two. All I’m saying is that if you have a trust issue, you have a trust issue – booze alone doesn’t create the trust issue.

  • “non-trivial” because even in healthy relationships we find others attractive, but it’s a long stretch from an abstract “that guy is cute, bet he’s a good lay” to actually bumping uglies.

** “usually” because it does sometimes happen that a girl will intentionally get drunk so she can use the “I was drunk” excuse.

2689

*** guys do that too

2690

Thanks for posting that questionnaire.

Who is really going to get hurt by brutal honesty on the internet? it seems like divorced’s control issues are ruining his relationship, but it doesn’t seem like anyone in his life - outside of the internet fagopolis - is willing to tell him so. He didn’t seriously engage with any of the thread’s criticism, but at least he has objective feedback on his behavior that he can revisit when he’s feeling less defensive. If the criticism is truly off-base, then why should he care? If it hurts because it’s true, then maybe he can work on his jealousy and ultimately be a better mate.

2691

A couple weeks ago, I somehow managed to get roped into a new girl’s extremely aggressive flirt zone. I was still with the cougar at the time and the new girl was “Status: It’s Complicated” with her dude, so I thought nothing of it. Two weeks later and she’s reserving multiple night hotel rooms and buying me things and texting a dozen times a day with “What can I do? I can bring you dinner! Let’s go hang out? I’m bored, want to hang out? Here are semi-nude pics of my boobs!” That’s the tamest stuff. Thank the Maker that last month I had upgraded to an unlimited text plan with Verizon.

The thing is, I was and am totally not attracted to her in that way. She’s a great girl for someone else and a good friend for me, but that’s it. We have almost nothing in common except we like the same music; but food and drink, personality, outlook, life goals, etc. were completely disjoined. I tried to make this clear in a polite way multiple times, for example end-of-night “friend hugs” without any kissing or anything, no hand holding, repeatedly and plainly telling her (in person and over text) that she was way too aggressive for me, etc. Seriously, I rebuffed her in every non-rude way I could think of, so now I think I know how women feel many times. :(

Anyway, Sunday night she was pretty liquored up (1.5 bottles of wine will do that) at the winery where I hang out and, paraphrasing her words, was inebriated enough to ask me something although she didn’t really give a shit about the answer*. Right then we were interrupted. As that passed, I turned back to her and said “No, I’m not looking for a relationship right now”. A few more words, a goodnight hug, and I left. In point of fact she was almost stalker-y, but that’s another conversation to have once I’ve been liquored up myself. On the drive home, I actually took the scenic route and avoided trailing headilghts to make sure she wasn’t following me.

The next day I received multiple short essays on FB asking me to delete all the texts (no problem, actually I already had; they were quite inappropriate) and basically cancelling all the “investments” (her word) she had made in us spending time in the future in the hotels, etc. This whole thing sucks because I do think she’s cool. Just not mate material for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this somewhere and get it off my chest and somehow sublimate the negative feelings.

  • This seems strange to me. If you don’t care, what’s the big deal? If you do care, won’t pretending to be uncaring about it turn me away?
2692

pffft. Five years is nothing. Still, you DID get married, and you seem happy with the choice still, so I’ll give you credit anyway.

Daaamn, 5 years is nothing? Tough room. :)

2693

5 years is a short marriage. Sorry if that surprises you. There’s a reason people talk about the 7 year itch. Making it to five years is pretty easy, and very common. I can’t get a solid answer from google on how long the average marriage lasts in the U.S., but the smallest number I saw was 8 years, while many were in the 20s.

Again, I’m not trying to discount your relationship or anything. I’m just saying that 5 years of marriage isn’t an inspiring success story or anything. It’s still good enough to make your point about the matching pool on dating sites.

2694

I’m just saying that 5 years of marriage isn’t an inspiring success story or anything. It’s still good enough to make your point about the matching pool on dating sites.

Right, that was all I was trying to do. I certainly wasn’t holding my marriage up as some sort of glorious, inspirational achievement.

Although, fuck it, I’m proud of it. It’s my first and I fully intend for it to be my last. :)

2695

http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p70-97.pdf

On the first page: “First marriages that end in divorce last about 8 years, on average.”

When you include marriages that don’t end in divorce, the average is obviously going to be much longer.

2696

Not in my neighborhood! Stray bullets don’t wait for no 8th anniversary!

2697

Advice?

She’s cheating on you and/or she’s looking to cheat on you. I’d say with the next relationship that you need to loosen the reins a bit (no problem with her going out with gal pals), but this one sounds like a bad apple. Dump her and find someone worthy of your time and love.

2698

So you find the problem to be with … her? Really?

2699

It frankly doesn’t matter who the problem is with - at the point that these questions are being asked of virtual strangers on an internet forum and not kept between the people actually in the relationship, the relationship has already failed. It wouldn’t matter if divorced’s entire perception was actually correct and his girlfriend is just the worst spy in the history of terrible spies (and after having met my sister’s now ex-husband, I can say that yes, some people really are that dumb and inept); he’s done. The only way he’s going to trust her more, outside of a severe head trauma, is if he can gain more certain control over her life, but it will never be enough unless he can get his hands on an electric dog collar and a GPS implant. And access to the secret government video cameras that film our every waking moment. And telepathic powers.

Now, for preventing this sort of thing from happening in the future, that’s a different issue, and one on which divorced has proven remarkably unreceptive to criticism. I honestly don’t think it’s possible to have any kind of healthy relationship in which you are not willing to let the other person hurt you and trust that they will not abuse that leverage, but my interpersonal shortcomings are well-documented.

2700

I think you should marry her, then in a year you can get Tom to change your name to divorced2x.