lostandhurt

I totally agree and as soon as I can tell if there is at least equal interest I suggest a phone call. The thing is if a woman suggests a phone call very early on it isn't a safety issue for the man but if a man suggests exchanging digits most women balk if there hasn't been some sort of connection through the safety of the app. I have had many women offer their phone numbers or even say screw it, lets meet right away for a drink and cut the rest of the stuff out. Those were refreshing and nice and it showed me they were strong secure women which I admire. Usually after some back and forth I offer my number letting them know I am game to take the conversation off the app whenever they are. Sometimes my phone rings right away, other times they say thank you but I would prefer to keep the conversation on the app for now. Everyone is different and have their own comfort levels. In all the first meets I have had 3 times women brought a friend for safety even though we were meeting in a very public place afternoon or early evening. I didn't mind or take offense but it showed me some are way more cautious than others. If she gets back to me I will offer my number and see what happens. Thanks Lost

I did exactly that. Every message from me had some tidbits about me or my life but she did not bite on any of them. I have found that asking a question at the end of a message gives even the most shy or unsure person an open to respond and have something to say and it has worked very well for me. Unfortunately 2-3 words answers with no sharing at all leaves me nothing to converse about. Her profile is pretty thin on details as well so there are almost no conversation starters. Thanks for the tips Lost

Day 74 A few messages back and forth with the 56 year old on POF yesterday. Frankly I was less than enthused by her messages. All she did was answer any question I posed but asked nothing in return or even elaborated further. I just logged off and left her last message read. Just sent her a reply asking her to tell me some things about herself and prompted her to ask me anything she wishes. Lets see if that helps her open up a little. Lost

Perfect! If you were in a negative mindset you would be going down the red flag path looking for and making assumptions about her going out with friends the day before as a bad thing. To me it shows she has a life and friends and is social. Those are good things in my book. Like I said you are doing great Lost

Your friend has a right to her opinion just like you have a right to have sex with whomever you want. Not sure why you told your friend but her reaction sounds like one of concern for you as her friend. Your safety is not worth rent money so please at the very least require all of these men to wear a condom EVERY single time. This isn't about who is right or wrong, this is about differing opinions and choices. She has made hers in regards to the friendship so respect it. Lost

Day 73 Signed up for 3 months on Match so I am reaching the end of my adventure it seems. Received a few messages on Match but like usual not interested. Pretty much ran out of options there but I have sent out a few messages with no responses. Sent out 2 messages on POF. Been a while since I was on there and now they only let you send one messages every 24 hours for free. 20 bucks a month for unlimited I guess. I am patient so I just wait. Sent one 2 days ago to the woman I saw on Match that her profile kept bleeping in and out and then disappeared. No response Sent a message a few hours ago and got a response so we shall see. Her profile is pretty thin on details about her so messaging is a challenge. She is 56, lives fairly close, pretty and seems like she has her stuff together. Looks like she just replied to my reply, here we go... Lost

You see a lot of jumping to conclusions all around us with no evidence except past histories of the person doing the jumping. It is important to just view it all with a clear lens don't you think? Hard not to get jaded or even expect disappointment the way online dating and society in general has morphed all this. Grace, respect, courtesy and understanding used to be common, now not so much. Going out, laughing and talking their heads off after a few drinks is a sure way to get a sore throat so it doesn't sound far fetched at all. Remember the good ole days when all you were worried about was who paid for what 🤪 Lost

From what you have written about her she is definitely trending towards Unicorn territory at our ages (trust me on this I have been on Match over 60 days) so just leave all the pontifications aside and go into it with the simple facts you know. You are attracted to each other, great convo's, she is smart, in great shape, has her stuff together and enjoys your company. I have a feeling once the physical part comes in (I don't just mean sex) you both will feel excited about being together. You have your head on straight on all this and are doing awesome except for one thing. Remember when we were young and dumb and didn't over think everything? Jump in the wayback machine (Mr Peabody & Sherman reference) rediscover some of your youthful dumbness and see what happens. I am really rooting for you as I totally get what you want in your life and why. Sharing an intimate connection with a woman is a beautiful thing. Lost

Been there many times. What you need to figure out is: Is this her or you? Are you looking to her to knock your socks off and light the fireworks and convince you she is the one? OR You caught the car you were chasing and realize it wasn't the one you wanted to catch? Comparing new "dates" to your old flame(s) is common but not fair to anyone. I have been guilty of it myself many times. At first you seemed excited to hear from her but not now. Exactly when did that change? Be honest and dig deep. Is she not as pretty as you hoped? Her figure isn't what you expected? Her views on life and the world? Intelligence?... These are the tough questions and answers but need to be answered. It is hard to find then get the attention and then get a date with a woman you are attracted to so we tend to hang on to them feeling deep down that it may not happen again which of course is the wrong reason to continue seeing someone. 1 or 2 more dates and you should know for sure. Lost

Status of his relationship: MARRIED Status of his career: On probation Status of his morals: Sketchy Where you fit in: Someone to flirt with and possibly bang a few times to make himself feel better about the dumpster fire he created of his life. So you want to get involved with a married man with a drinking problem and possibly drug problem that is close to losing his license? You have no other options in men? Seems like you could close your eyes at the coffee shop and point and pick a guy that is better than this guy. Lost

Day 69 I went ahead and made a profile on Plenty of Fish the other night. Lot of the same faces but some new ones as well so not a total loss. There is one woman there that I saw on Match but didn't get to send her a message before her profile disappeared, then reappeared. Match is not helpful by doing this crap. In fact this particular woman was in my "hightlights" they email me and I saw her in the email batch of pictures but by the time I had a chance to send her a message later that day her profile was gone so I went to the email and her picture was gone there as well. The emails must be actively linked to the site somehow. Anyways she is on POF and I am about to send her a message. Interestingly her age on Match was 61 but her age on POF is 56. Beatlesfan, I have received several messages on Match in the last 10 days or so but no one I am interested in. I sent out 3 in that time with 2 of them checking out my profile but that is it. Maybe 15 "likes" on POF since I signed up but you have to pay to see them which I won't because anyone I am interested in I will just message. I am always open to meeting women IRL and try to be on my game when out and about. I do think I need to be more proactive like you are by seeking out groups and events as I have been far to passive as of late. Seems like back in the day there were always Ladies Night somewhere in town and you could go with a good chance of meeting someone that was single and looking too. Not so much anymore... I am a lot older than you but I do run across a fair amount of profiles of never married/no children women. Nearly all the women I have dated have children which was absolutely no big deal and often times a huge plus. Most were super protective and would keep their dating life and home life separate until at least 4 to 6 months. Since they have children a lot of times it was week on week off custody or something similar so when they were busy with their children I had my time to do my own thing which was nice. Just focus on meeting someone and don't worry about if they have children, unless of course they have like 8 kids 🤪. Women for the most part are not looking for a father for their children, they are looking for a partner to share their life with. I will let you know if I get a response from the message I am about to send. Lost

Lets answer these in order. 1. Yes if there is no passion you could totally feel it. Sometimes we know something is off but cannot put our finger on it or even want to see it. 2. I couldn't have sex with anyone if I knew they did not want to or enjoy it. She would being doing it out of duty as your gf. No thanks 3. Yes it can be treated but as you mentioned she has never liked sex for what ever reason. She has had a long time to seek help so suggesting she see a doctor would be for you, not her. Don't do it. 4. You completely have the right to end the relationship and in my opinion should end the relationship. She misled you for a long time and I would guess to make sure she had you hooked and hoped you would eventually stop wanting intimacy. You had no idea what you were getting into and had you known I doubt you would have gone past a few dates with her. 5. You are more than likely correct that she likes all the bf stuff except sex. Now if she would have told you this upfront and possibly her ex's she might have found a guy that likes all that stuff but not sex too and it would have been a great match. Unfortunately she didn't until now which makes it a lot harder to end this. 6. Nope! I would have walked right then and there. There are a lot of responses to "I love you" that are not "I love you too" if they are not feeling it but telling someone that is harsh and uncaring. Not sure how you made it this far with this woman. Time to end this so you can one day meet someone that will be honest with you, enjoy your touch, feel passion for you and have the capacity to love. Your current gf lacks all of these. Lost

This is not unlike a romantic relationship where one person has certain expectations while the other has none or a lot less. You want your friend to match how you feel this friendship should be and when it doesn't happen you feel let down. Just like in a romantic relationship there are times when you accept them for who they are and not try and change them into who you want them to be or you step back and let nature take its course. This means allowing them to be who they are without pressure from you. Once you see who they choose to be then you decide if you want them in your life. In this case lies are being told in my opinion to avoid conflict with you. Step back and let things cool off a little instead of forcing it. Lost

Getting to know a stranger through texting is at best a 50/50 prospect since we all know there is no substance to texting, some people aren't great at texting and misinterpreted things happen all the time. Heck even the time someone takes to respond is pondered as either a good thing or bad. It is your life and you can be as selective (picky is not what you are) about who you want to have in your life. If you are attracted to a person, would feel safe meeting for a quick coffee and have somewhat similar lives meeting in person is the best way to know for sure one way or the other. There is nothing like a face to face meeting to get a good read on someone. Even if they are not for you it helps you sharpen your skills at who to take a chance on. Texting has been given way to much weight as a valuable communication tool. Lost

Perhaps in the future you can meet for a quick coffee sooner and save all this mental gymnastics. There is nothing like meeting in person and it is nice to be pleasantly surprised by who they really are but not because we have decided they were boring or whatever, but because we never really know who we will fall for. As you have read above there are couples that if they followed your reasoning would never even met but are together and in love. I do agree at 34 he should have his own place unless he has had a recent financial tragedy he is recovering from. Best of luck on your dating Lost

Wait, is this the long distance ex from 2019? Or is this a new guy you met and married? Lost

Okay first off jerking off 4 times a day is excessive even for a teenager. If you are masturbating to porn or even fantasizing it becomes your normal so the real thing will not do it for you. This is pretty common and the cure is to totally stop. No jerking off and no porn. The only way is cold turkey but it won't be easy because you have turned it into a habit, breaking that habit will be tough but you can do it by staying busy and when you get the urge distract yourself with something else. How long will it take? As long as it takes till you are able to fully enjoy real life sex and reach orgasm. As for her I can see how being in her home and having to be careful and silent would keep her from reaching orgasm. Many women cannot orgasm from sex alone so don't put pressure on her or yourself as it will only make things worse. Definitely work something out so you can be really alone together and have fun. Leave yourself alone and you will be just fine Lost

Take separate vehicles. Then you can stay or leave whenever you want to and not cut his time with friends short. There is no need to turn this into some battle royal, just try the simplest approach and see how it works. Lost

Day 59 Interesting development on the number of profiles available to me since I messed around in settings. So I had a pretty long list of removed profiles (mostly women that were super far away) so I selected nearly all of them to show once again in my searches. They are back when I search but the interesting part is there are way more profiles I had never seen before and there is no way that many women signed up in that short of a time. Match must be using my removed profiles as some sort of base filter on what it shows me. This of course is a guess. I am going to wait a few days and then remove a bunch more then wait a day or two and un-remove them and see what happens. It is like a game to get them to show everyone in my area. Sent out 3 messages in the last 3 days. The first was a long short to say the least. She viewed my profile but did not respond, then she viewed it again yesterday, still no response. The second message was to a woman that is not a subscriber but I sent it anyways. The third I just sent moments ago so we shall see. Lost

Not in my area. Scrolling through profiles I keep seeing women I have actually met or dated very briefly or they are in a picture with a landmark or something I recognize. It appears they hold back profiles in your search though and meter them out to you as they see fit. Lost

Nope not kidding. It offered that to me twice while I was asking questions that I guess seemed to it like I was in danger. When I get a chance I am going to open a chat session again and type in "contact agent" and see if it will connect me to a human. I will let you know. I did the 3 month thing too. In the past when you don't renew they start sending you all kinds of discounts to sign up again. Mine should be up in February. Lost

I just read through a ton of questions and answers looking for a way to reset back to the start when you first signed up but there is no option for that, I just spent 10 minutes with a chat bot asking it questions with no answers. When I asked about highlights it just explained what it is and if you do not like the profile you can dismiss it. It doesn't say what happens then and when I asked how to undo a dismiss it told me if I was in danger to dial 911 and then gave me an option to contact an agent. I guess you have to let your subscription run out and start from scratch. Lost

Funny how they don't tell you this stuff. To get those profiles back in your search go to settings (icon on the far right next to your little profile pic. Once there on the left side of the screen you will see "Account Settings" select "removed profiles" and it will show a list of profiles you X'd out. Any profile you want back simply click "show" and they will return your search. I was doing the same thing you were figuring I would circle back but then they were gone until I figured this out recently. To avoid this I look through the profiles they email to me and click on "View", check them out and then close the window without Xing. For a company that is supposed to help you meet someone they sure make it way harder than it should be. It seems like they just show you enough to keep you signed up... Lost Just read what you posted how this only affects profiles you hit X or the trash can icon. I am going to do some more research and maybe hit up Match and ask how to reset everything. Big help, thanks

Day 57 So I have been widening my search hoping to see someone I missed or for some reason weren't in my search criteria. One of which is "has photos". I removed all the filters and figured I would scroll through women that smoke or were not single and on and on and I saw several profiles without a profile picture but one caught my eye so I scrolled down in her profile to read about her. Guess what? She had pics but not a main profile pic. I started scrolling down on all profiles without a main pic and found about 30% had pics. Not sure why they are doing that and unfortunately none were what I am interested in but it was good to know that is a thing. So Match sends you "Highlights" and you can click through them one by one and I saw a woman I was interested in reading her profile so I clicked and got to her profile and wanted to send her a message but there was no way to send her a message. Turns out Match only lets you send someone a message that is in your highlights if you send them a Super Like first and yep you guessed it super likes are not free. They give you one like once a month or something. So I thought I would out smart them and simply search for her profile. I put a tight age range and hit search, she wasn't there. I put her exact age and closed the distance so her profile had to turn up and still nothing. I tried searching for every woman in my Highlights and they were all excluded by match so I had to Super Like them to open up a message window to send a message. This doesn't seem right to me for two reasons. 1. If they disclosed this it has to be in very small print when I signed up that not all people on Match can be found by searching public profiles. Secondly if they put my profile in "Highlights" and some woman wants to message me she has to pay extra. Not cool. I actually got a message about 2 weeks after I signed up and the woman said she had to super like me to send me a message, at the time I didn't understand what she meant but now I know. No good news. Just received a message from a woman that graduated a year before me from my high school, sigh not interested. At least I am figuring out the game Match is playing... Lost

Sounds like a great idea. Let me know how it works out when they restart. Lost