CastleBell

That sounds like the bottom line to me. You don't know you're done yet. So don't be done until you do know, or he knows. Maybe this is just normal early-getting-to-know-you confusion that looks like something else because of the extended timeline. At some point something will break for one of you and you'll end it (or not). You've both been willing to go months between meet-ups, meaning that no one is leading anyone to think that this connection has already been marked as serious and long-term. If you're enjoying yourself, there's nothing wrong with waiting a little longer, doing the things you do together, and being sure.

If anything, I think I prefer it. Not because of the name aspect-- yes, people lie, but people seem to be open about lying about their names, so no difference in the long run-- but because of the change requiring mutual likes to get messages in your inbox. For me, that worked exactly as intended: I put more energy into looking at and reaching out to people who interested me instead of just spending hours on end triaging the unsolicited messages I got and not doing anything else. Of course! And thank you for the help you've given me from time to time. :) It's hard to meet a stranger with whom you might not have crossed paths otherwise and not learn something, so I've taken some good things from the experience. But it may be that the big thing I learned about myself is that I'm just not wired for online dating. I tend to get anxious in new social situations/dynamics. Usually I get over it. When I was first promoted at work and had to boss people around it was nerve-wracking; now it's not. When I started taking ice skating lessons as an adult, I felt ridiculous; now I don't, and even though I've learned to skate I keep going to the classes for the sheer enjoyment of it. The first time I ask a friend to join me at the movies or for lunch, it's scary; the next time, not really. But online dating never got easier. I was sick and distracted (terror, not anticipation) in the lead up to every date and often just when I opened the app. For me, the possibility of a wonderful relationship coming from this isn't worth the stress of continuing to try to walk through a wall. I was reading an article (https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/08/18/how-the-internet-has-changed-dating) about online dating and this line jumped out at me: The process made me unhappy far more than it ever made me happy, so I stopped.

I am about to delete my profile despite having "liked" some men I've never spoken to and messaged men without the conversation reaching date-level. This has nothing to do with any of the men and everything to do with me. I know "it's not you, it's me" is a joke-cliche meaning "it's actually you" but it is in fact true. I need a break. Probably a permanent one. I'm sorry to waste anyone's time or get anyone's hopes up but there's no other way out-- someone will always have just seen a like or messaged me because that's how it is from the under-40, living in a metropolis female side of the equation. There will never be a "polite" time for me to take down a profile if it is required that I wait for all activity to have died to zero.

I messaged a man on Friday and happened to be busy with non-computer things on the weekend. There were seven messages today, the last one asking if I was still interested. Would've been more interested by one message than by seven. I know people tend to check in every day, and I try to, but it was 48 hours and it was a weekend. Even my real job that pays me lets me have most weekends off.

Considering recent conversations here, it cracks me up that I just saw a profile that led with "recent convert to the Oxford comma." I had no idea this was so important in online dating!

Thanks for the advice. I am asking him questions and his messages are fairly long as well. I guess we've just fallen into that rhythm and we'll see where it goes. A first message from another person today. I'd been going through my mutual likes and choosing a few to message, and he was one I skipped over but apparently he was doing the same thing and didn't skip me.

Oh, for example he mentioned being good at those games in supermarkets were you use the claw to pick up a stuffed animal and drop it in the slot, and I went on a long tangent about how I used to be able to beat those too and in high school my family took my great-aunt shopping most weekends and there was one of those machines and blah blah blah. Or he mentioned going to Chicago for the first time and I started rambling about how I went for the first time last year and liked it very much, and why. I'm just spontaneously wordier with him than most.

I'm selfishly glad this nonsense went down after I'd already stopped talking to the guy who kept harping on how I might secretly be a man out to get him. Currently talking to three people. One of them just had a medical issue and sent out such a pleasant/thoughtful message about how he didn't expect anyone he'd been talking to him to wait around for him that I now want to wait around for him. Plus he talks about books. I like talking about books. :) The next responded to my message (I messaged first) with a comment that it was good that I seem to like living here because he doesn't. I asked him to compare his former home to his current one and the response was a litany of complaints. Many of the complaints are doubtless accurate, but if he's this negative on first contact I wonder how he is when he's not trying to put on his best face. The third... I keep feeling an inexplicable urge to say all kinds of things to him but I'm not sure how I'd describe him at all other than he likes travel.

I know you've had a lot of comments on this post and I do not want to pile on. I will just say that self-deprecation and confidence need not be mutually exclusive. And reading on a profile that someone used to write a column in his college newspaper with a self-deprecating title would grab my interest, personally. That's pretty cool! I love that this is one of your must-haves! I usually go to the theater with a good friend from college. Occasionally her husband joins us. Every time I watch my friend argue with him about how he can't wear jeans, and isn't allowed to take out a sketchbook and sketch during the performance, and no he can't put his feet on the balcony rail... I wonder if she married a 12-year-old. To be fair I will say that overall he is a great husband to her, and a great father to their kids. Plus he put up with her taking off to NYC with me in between their wedding and their honeymoon because there was a show we really, really wanted to see. Same here. I could not tell you anything any of my dates-- online or otherwise-- wore after the fact, with the exception of one time when the guy obviously hadn't made an effort. (And I might not even have remembered that one if he hadn't failed to compliment me when I'd worked really hard... and then on the way home from the date random men did the least-annoying-to-me variation on the catcall of "hey, you look beautiful.") But I had such high hopes for Ms. Oxford Comma! I wanted to know what happened when you confronted her about NOT using the Oxford Comma when the opportunity arose! I've definitely seen more than one man lie about his height, but I'll generally give him a pass on that because I know there's so much pressure on men about that particular thing. Plus, he's probably still taller than I am. Plus, the men I've known well who didn't care if I was taller than they were when I slapped on heels were all-around great guys and badasses. (Co-workers rather than love interests, alas.) The biggest difference I ever saw between the pictures and the reality was someone who had some kind of physical issue with his mouth-- like a cleft palate corrective surgery gone wrong. He had a speech defect and I had a really hard time understanding him. His pictures were all taken from an angle to hide the deformity. I understood why he did it, but I wished I'd had a little warning.

New intro message:

The guy I'd been chatting with for a while made made his umpteenth comment about how I'd better not be a man in disguise cat fishing him, and at this point I'm starting to wish I WERE a man in disguise cat fishing him. Just started talking to two more, and even though they approached me in the "right" way, demonstrating that they'd actually read my profile (one commenting on my home state, one commenting on books and cooking), I just don't feel any spark or excitement. Meanwhile in real life, a plumber came to my condo to install a microwave I'd bought. He started talking about how it was so awful that I lived ALL ALONE in this condo, grabbed my ass, told me I was beautiful, and suggested that traffic was bad so instead of leaving after he'd installed the thing he'd better just stay with me. I'm considering giving up talking to people on any form for the good of all concerned.

Well, as long as it only "kinda" doesn't matter. I get bad first messages, but yours almost make mine look thoughtful.

I'm on vacation from work this week so I had a quick afternoon coffee date with the man I mentioned above as having a nice opening message. Emphasis on quick. He said that because of his son's schedule he wanted to meet at a place near him. Interesting trip over there for me as I skirted around the guy mumbling about mothereffing cops and was grateful that I just barely missed getting a condom that was lying on the street caught in my sandal... Anyway, it was about a half-hour trip for me, and while I did hurry I didn't know where I was going and I was precisely two minutes late. I know it was two minutes from the time stamp on the text he sent me asking after me as I stepped in the door. So the nice barista asked what I wanted to drink and since he was at the point of texting and I was late, I said I was meeting someone and would be back in the minute. He already had his drink and launched into the conversation. We talked non-stop for 45 minutes, so at least he can carry his share of a conversation. Then he abruptly said he had to get his son and stood up, almost in mid-sentence. I walked with him toward the door, said I'd get a drink on my way out, and that was that, he was long gone before I'd paid for the lemonade. I 100% do not believe that men should have to pay on dates, even if they asked (this guy did), especially in the internet dating paradigm. I always always offer to split. The last guy I dated in December paid the first, we split the second, and I paid the third, and because of what we were doing at various times, I actually paid more. But I retroactively noticed that this is the very first time I've ever been out with a man who didn't even offer to pay... $4.25 for lemonade, less than my subway fare there and back. He spent the whole 45 minutes drinking his drink in front of me, too. Of course I could have interrupted the conversation and gotten up to get something, but it still seems quite unusual. And while he made me laugh every time we emailed, the compatible sense of humor thing wasn't there in person. Alas.

Just messaged another man I'm not sure about, but his first message to me was cute. Since we often complain about bad first messages, here's a good one: My profile mentions that I go to an ice skating class. (I didn't learn as a kid so I'm still working on things like going backwards.) He answered with a cute story about how when he was a kid, his mom refused to have his blades sharpened for "safety," but of course that made him an unsafe skater who was always checking people out of the rink because he couldn't stop on dull blades. That's one of the ways a good intro message is done.

Thanks. I did consider just asking him out, but I was so busy being perplexed at why he'd bothered to ask for my contact information if he was uninterested in developing any kind of rapport with me that I went for running a little experiment instead. Though hey-- a certain subset of men asking women for their numbers even if they don't intend to call is a time-honored tradition so maybe it's not so perplexing after all. ETA: And of course maybe he just isn't interested or we just don't connect. I don't necessarily need the man to take charge and do the asking, but I DO need him to share in some of the awkwardness of this whole artificial online dating situation. So I don't want to be the one who struggles to keep the conversation going AND the one who is genuinely sharing personal stuff AND the one who does the asking for the date.