The Big Relationship Thread

[viscomica]

Hooray to that!!!

I'm super excited about it, btw. I've heard it's pretty good!

[Avistew]

I agree OKCupid is full of problems.

Despite putting that I was only looking for serious relationships and friendships, and being clear in my profile that I was absolutely not interested in casual sex, when I was there the only messages I got were along the lines of "wanna have sex?"

On guy actually tried to get me to drive an hour or so to have sex with him that very day.

They don't seem to get that we don't really have an incentive to make an effort to have sex with a complete stranger, when just walking into any bar and going "who wants to have sex?" would give us a bunch of options.

But aside from the "what are you looking for?", people are also notoriously bad at reading profiles, in that most guys don't read them at all. I received a bunch of messages from guys who, when I checked their profile, made it clear they were only looking for single women. It's pretty clear on my profile (as in, it's the first line of text, and should be clear from several of the pictures as well) that I'm in a long-term relationship and am not planning on ending it..

That, and the messages sent tend to be obvious "one size fits all" messages that they must send to 50 or so women every day in the hopes of getting one to bite.

So yeah, my experience with OKCupid was pretty bad. The first time I tried it, I received no spontaneous messages at all, and out of the guys I messages, one in... five? ten? would even reply, but after a couple back and forth of messages, even these would stop replying (and I only sent messages to poly guys, not random people!)

The second time, I decided to add pictures (I originally hadn't put any to limit the number of jerk messages) and was immediately inundated with "wanna have sex?" messages, which started arriving way before anyone could have had time to read my profile.

I ended up disabling my profile again. I have a few friends who are in relationships that started over OKCupid, but it's definitely too much work for me. I don't think most people are interested in what I want, anyways: 6-12 months of friendship followed by a (if possible) life-long, committed relationship.

[Elomin Sha]

That sucks.

[viscomica]

But, aren't you married? (gossipy panda is being gossipy again)

[Elomin Sha]

But, aren't you married? (gossipy panda is being gossipy again)

Ssssssssssssssh. He doesn't know about the upcoming divorce papers coming in the mail.

[Keab42]

//************Reply to Viscomica***********************//
Avistew is Polyamorous.


//************Abrupt Topic Change ***********************//

When I'm actively browsing on OKCupid, I don't even look at photos. I read the descriptions, I look at the match percentage and how people have answered questions. Then, if I like what I've read, I might look at the photos.

However, I usually then just save them to favourites and run away without contacting them.

If I do manage to contact them and then do reply, I spend so long agonising over the content of the reply that they usually assume I've lost interest. Also, even if the reply comes relatively easy I have real trouble continuing the conversation. My small talk skills are very lacking and my life is so boring that outside of work and my few limited nerdy interests I have absolutely nothing to talk about.

Also just in case any women accidentally stumble across my profile and get further than the terrible picture of me, the first line of my description reads: "I am an overweight nerd".

I think those paragraphs should explain to everybody why I'm still single.

[viscomica]

Ohh!! I see, I see... Thanks Elomin! (btw, I know you were joking)

[Elomin Sha]

Ohh!! I see, I see... Thanks Elomin! (btw, I know you were joking)

HEY!

Elomin Sha's Divorce Attorney Of Mark Nutt is a legitimate business.

[viscomica]

Isn't that a name a little bit too long for a firm?

[Keab42]

They've recently abbreviated it to ESDAMN

[viscomica]

Makes perfect sense! Are you one of the lawyers of the firm?

[Elomin Sha]

It's Elomin Sha DAMN.

Hey Avistew do you want to go throw stinging nettles at poor people?

[Lyinginbedmon]

So I haven't heard a peep from her since she agreed to a Christmas meetup, despite messaging her about needing certain details of her schedule to organise it around.

I'm well aware it's Christmas and she's likely to be quite busy, but a spare couple minutes across a few weeks? I'd be a lot more nervous if she hadn't agreed already but that's not to say I'm entirely devoid of nervousity.

[Jamfalcon]

Still similar here, our plans are tentatively agreed on (though no specific date) but I haven't heard anything since she wrote back to say she wasn't feeling well over a week ago. I know that she's probably just not in the mood to have a conversation online, but I sent an email checking in to see how she was doing a couple days ago, and still no response. It's starting to get me a bit anxious, and at this point even a one sentence reply would be more than enough.

[Laurnil]

Elomin....it is generally illegal to call yourself an attorney without the proper certification.

Actually....that's not too long a name for a firm.

[Laurnil]

Also, guys...if it wasn't set in stone, they may be ditching you. Sometimes,( and I want to state that I think this is wrong, but still understandable considering some guys get really violent) women will be vague because they really don't want to go and then, ignore you, hoping you'll get the hint.

I would like to reiterate that it is really shitty, but it happens.

[Bebop Man]

And the cosmic ballet of women not saying what they really want goes on.

[Laurnil]

Well...when there is a chance of some men getting all rapey, can you really blame them?

[iamafish]

Of course, that is the only reason why women are sometimes vague and uncommunicative in response to amours advances...

[Jamfalcon]

Also, guys...if it wasn't set in stone, they may be ditching you. Sometimes,( and I want to state that I think this is wrong, but still understandable considering some guys get really violent) women will be vague because they really don't want to go and then, ignore you, hoping you'll get the hint.

I would like to reiterate that it is really shitty, but it happens.

Yep, I'm fully aware that this could be the case. None of the other signs (as far as I can tell) are pointing towards it so I'm trying to stay optimistic, but the thought has certainly been on my mind.

[Laurnil]

Of course, that is the only reason why women are sometimes vague and uncommunicative in response to amours advances...

Well, no, but the other reasons are related. Women don't want to hurt men's feelings when they're around a guy (because we all know being ditched sucks, but they're not in front of us to hurt our feelings). There are a range of responses from the men. Some of them violent, some of them not.

I'm not saying it is right...actually, I think I was pretty clear that I thought it was wrong, but being a person who wasn't vague and was honest and had men get violent with me on more than one occasion, I can totally understand their reluctance.

[iamafish]

I'd argue that there is also a more general reluctance to confront people. And that's not a gendered thing, men very often have difficulty confronting people about their feelings, not for fear of their reactions but because the confrontation itself can be awkward and uncomfortable, or at least they fear it will. Ultimately it's easier just to ignore a problem that has a decent chance of just going away in the end.

I'm not saying that rape culture (because that's what we're ultimately talking about here) does exist or doesn't effect how women act with regards to men (and I'm not saying that you condone the way women act either, given that you quite clearly stated that you don't). I just think it's worth noting that there are other factors that play into these things, many of which are just part of human nature.

[Laurnil]

True.

[Avistew]

It's Elomin Sha DAMN.

Hey Avistew do you want to go throw stinging nettles at poor people?

I think I'll pass. I'm not usually into that.

I have to agree that ignoring someone and then dropping off the surface of the planet is not necessarily a female thing. I've had that happen to me almost every single time I've asked a guy out.

The problem here is, people who are trying to reject someone by being nice, but not outright saying "I'm not interested" are, well, not always very clear. Now, I understand there are many reasons to be hesitant to be clear about rejecting someone, because it's difficult to do, because you don't want to hurt their feelings, and so on, but I find whatever the result you're fearing is, it's likely to be worse if you just end up ignoring the person.

If you were afraid of hurting them, guess what, they'll be more hurt by suddenly getting avoided, and realising retroactively that all that time, you were not interested, and feeling terrible about giving you unwanted attention and not being given a chance to stop doing so before it was so unbearable that you had to run away, ask for a restraining order or change your number (or nowadays, block someone on something).

If, however, you're afraid they'll turn violent... do you think someone is not going to be violent when they feel you've been "leading them on" only to then vanish? I'm pretty sure they'll get even more pissed. Now, if they don't know where you live/work/study, the danger might be less immediate, as opposed to telling them face to face, but there are ways to tell someone that aren't face to face, too.

The way I experienced it all of these times was, I would hit on someone. They would be friendly but not react. My reasoning would then be along the lines of "Well, either they didn't get that I was hitting on them, or they liked it since they didn't ask me to stop. But if they liked it they probably would have played into it to... unless they're shy I guess. Still, most likely explanation, they didn't get it. I obviously need to be more forward next time", followed by a gradual ramping up of the advances, until the guy usually vanished or stopped responding altogether, or even in a couple cases, moved away (largely unrelated, but the lack of forwarding address wasn't).

These were all guys I considered my close friends (I'm not generally interested in random strangers, which is another reason websites don't tend to work so well with me, it would take a very long time before I'd be comfortable moving to dating someone). They were people I always assume knew they could talk freely with me.

Every time it happened, I felt terrible. I would just replay all the signs that I interpreted as them being interested in me and not rejecting me, and wonder what they were actually feeling and thinking. I kept wondering, why didn't they just tell me they weren't interested?

In the one case, the guy told me right away he wasn't interested. I apologised for making him uncomfortable, and within five minutes we were back to being friends, the awkwardness being over.

The people who didn't tell me? If we ran into each other, it would still be awkward now, and it's been years.
Nowadays, I have a lot of issues about being forward with men and telling them what I think, because I've pretty much never had a good reaction to that. I look for explicit consent so much that my friends are getting pissed at me on a regular basis because I won't do things unless they explicitly tell me they're fine, I ask before hugging them, and so on, and they're getting very annoyed with the whole thing.

But I just can't help it. I'm too freaked out that I might accidentally assault someone because I thought they were into it but they just never told me they weren't.

I understand you need to ask for consent, and I understand that sometimes people can be too scared of consequences to outright reject you, but I think there are definitely times when people are just avoiding uncomfortable talks because they're too scared to deal with an uncomfortable situation, and it's easier to just look the other way and hope it will go away.

But once again, I don't thing there are many cases that result in a better outcome when you do that as opposed to being honest. That doesn't mean being an asshole, and you can do it in situations that are not dangerous for your safety, such as over the internet.

[viscomica]

As a girl, and a human being I have to say I agree with anyone here who said it's not a female thing only. But yes, I know commonly women have more troubles when it comes to expressing themselves. I assume it's because typically, society expected women to be nice and quiet and ask for permission and, obviously, not to confrontate anyone about anything. Nowadays things have changed a lot but the reluctance to clearly state certain things to men is still there. For instance, most of the time women don't ask men out even if they want to because they fear they'd be looked down upon by her friends and, ultimately, the guy she wants. So she drops hints here and there and just waits. And if the hints aren't obvious enough, she makes them more obvious.
But yes, blanking people is not a female only thing and, dare I say, it's not a dating thing only as well.