That Internet dating thing

The British Special Air Service have a saying, “Qui audet adipiscitur”, which means who dares wins. Speaking of British special services, remember what Sean Connery said in The Rock: “Losers whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.” Well, I never fucked a prom queen, but … ok I forgot where I was going with all this.

We hung out tonight for a little bit playing board games but I was kind of in a crappy mood… just haven’t felt great all day. Would have been a good time to talk, but I wasn’t feeling up to it. Thinking about asking her out for a drink after work sometime this week.

Why ask her out when you live together? Why not just wait for a night you’re both home on a typical Tuesday or whatever, suggest her favorite takeout food for dinner, crack open a bottle of wine and enjoy each other’s comapny for an hour or so. Perfect segway into “So I really enjoy hanging out with you like this, and lately I’ve been thinking…”.

As you say, the worst that will happen is that she will say no thanks. If she does, and you can deal with that, then you guys are good to remain friends and roommates. If you can’t deal with it, then you should start looking for a new place. That all assumes she’s not at least willing to give it a shot though, so fingers crossed for you!

I live with two other people and it doesn’t happen frequently where we’re both the only ones home. If I wait for that, no clue how long I’ll be putting it off. I dunno, we’ll see.

I am pretty sure I can deal with it if she’s not on board, and honestly, I think my chances are not great and that’s kind of how I expect it to go. Assuming the answer is ‘no’, hopefully she at least respects the fact that I put my feelings out there/finds it flattering. I don’t have many female friends, and I believe they are an invaluable asset for clueless single guys like myself, so it is my preference that this bring us closer instead of tearing us apart.

Oh yeah, basing important life decisions on Michael Bay movies has got to be good idea.

It’s never led me astray. Except that one time I tried to hijack a space shuttle to try to take out that asteroid that I am pretty sure nearly destroyed New York City. And, ok, that one other time I broke off from that tour group at Alcatraz and smashed every object that looked big enough to be holding rocket guidance chips. But except for those, it’s always led me true.

Man, if I could go back and give my 20-year-old self advice, it’d be: “What do you mean you don’t want sex to ruin your friendship? In 10 years you won’t be able to 100% remember her name, trust me. Jump in, dipshit.”

Took a break from dating and seeing people for a few months and after resurrecting the online profiles a couple of days ago, I’ve been getting more messages, winks and high ratings than I know what to do with. A little overwhelming for a shy guy like me. Guess I did something very right or something very wrong on the profile rewrite. Some of the correspondences are going pretty well, but proceeding faster than I’d expected / felt ready for.

Went out for drinks last night with one of them who seemed more casual (which is my speed right now) and things were going great until my drink fell onto her lap and she immediately departed, upset. I felt bad but fortunately, it wasn’t a great match anyway. She was a bit young, for one thing. Physical attraction but too many other differences.

On another front, I’ve been developing a romance with an old friend from way back. The friendship is going fantastically well and the romance is building, but she lives far away in my old town. She drove up here a few weeks back and stayed at my place for a few days, and I flew down for Xmas and stayed through New Years. Not sure yet if this is going to inspire me to move back to the Bay Area or not, but one day at a time.

Glad to hear it. Sounds like the thing with the old friend has places to go. Probably more so than the online thing since you have a history.

Thanks! Yeah, my heart is with the old friend for sure, but we’re platonic primarily because she is gradually exiting another relationship. We were platonic friends back in the day (90’s) – kind of a close brother-sister type relationship. In recent months, it’s developed quite a bit beyond that. She wants me to pursue other women and wants to hear about it all, and we both hope that we’ll be available for each other when she’s ready. I’ve never done the LDR thing before and am spending a lot of time reading up on the subject. If I did move, I’d have to upgrade my income enough to fly my teenage daughter down or fly up here every month or every other month. Fortunately my field (webdev/IT) supports such a possibility.

But that’s a long term plan at this point. For the time being, I just want to rebuild my confidence and start meeting my physical/romantic needs more, and OKC seems to be the right place to look for that. I may have a truly hot date happening in the next few nights with a woman a few years younger who may be more woman than I can handle, but seems to be really into me. Yikes.

Great! I found OKC to be filled with more folk looking to ‘date’ than have a relationship. Although, I did find one great one thru it, but we had to call it off shortly after a great week or so together due to issue she felt she needed to focus on with one of her sons. Otherwise, OKC just had about 10% of the users Match did in my area (DFW) so I used Match more often.

Although I’ve been off the sites for a few months due to finding someone and hitting it off back in September. She’s met my kids now and I spent NYE with her at her vacation home in South Carolina. We’re talking about moving in together as well. She does make significantly more than I do, and that’s taking some getting used to for both of us because a mindless purchase or cheap night out for her can be a big hit to me. Luckily, she’s actually pretty low maintenance in the entertainment department so hopefully it won’t ever become a big deal.

Good luck to all those still online dating. Hopefully, I’ll be hitting this thread just for encouraging others from now on.

I’ve had 5-6 dates off of OkCupid in the past month but nothing that really went anywhere. Not sure if it’s me or just the mentality of the people using that particular site. I’ve never really done this “numbers game” style of dating, where you just try to meet a bunch of people and hope things click with one of them. Everyone I’ve dated in the past has been someone I met through a friend or in some other setting. It’s weird. It feels like it cheapens the experience. But what else is one to do when there aren’t any valid dating options in their established peer group?

5-6 dates in one month is uhhhh… good.

I finally got someone to agree to meet, then day of the meeting she says she can’t, then two days later deletes her account. Probably for the best.

I don’t get much of a chance for a social life- had about 5-6 years of no life due to finances/military, so this was mad frustrating.

I have found someone that I’m dating regularly now through OKC. 2 or 3 months ago, when I resurrected my profile, I quickly got responses from a couple of prospects at roughly the same time. After one date each my initial reaction was that I was probably a better match philosophically with the one who I wasn’t really attracted to. After the second date with each it was the philosophically-matched one who informed me that she was probably more comfortable with a friendship than a relationship. Which sorted me out and now I’m very happily dating the attractive one. :)

But yeah, once again, it started out as a bit of a numbers game. Messages / openings to 8 or 10 ‘prospects’ got me a single reply and it was the attractive one who actually sought me out rather than me her. (Which I like.)

It does cheapen the experience. At least, it does until you have a mentality shift. Eventually you will not be so involved in tne dates so much emotionally. About as much as you would say, a hobby or sports outing.

Which you should schedule in, by the way. Sometimes I’d even pause videogame, go out on a bust date (girl was crazy, or I threw up on her, or she didn’t look like her pictures, or I showed up 30 minutes late and pissed her off, or she had a bad day at work and just quit her job, whatever), then when things ended, go “oh well” and come home and finish a game. Or, go see a ball game or new movie while I was out.

When you get used to incorporating dating into your life instead of seeing it as this huge looming life goal, I think it gets more fun and more relaxing. The numbers games suck, but eventually, out of the blue, one will click. You’ll never get to that click if you don’t break open every barrel and look under every rock.

Yes, that’s true. You’ve got to not particularly hope or dread about any particular chick. This not only makes the activity sustainable, but makes you more attractive via confidence and avoids any hint of clinginess, stalkerdom, or desperation.

Bah, I disabled the OKC/POF accounts again before going on any dates. I’m glad I tested the waters and realized that I need to do some more inner work before I’ll feel ready to go out with a stranger. I’m totally open to meeting people while out in the real world, though.

I’m going to have to get pointers from you guys on this “Internet” dating craziness, with your new fangled wireless phones and talky films.

If she was that upset about an accident that she felt she had to leave then I don’t think you’re missing much with this one anyway…