Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 10 of 11 1 2 8 9 10 11
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Haven't heard back yet from Mr. Semicolons yet (darn!) but I have a "coffee date" (actually a glass-of-wine date) tomorrow with Mr. Caterpillar Mustache.

He seems nice and appropriate enough so far. I've purposefully avoided having extensive conversations with him because I knew it would be a couple of weeks before we could meet. I've learned to keep expectations low until meeting; you never know if there will be any attraction or not until then. (Although, to be completely honest, I did break that rule twice with long distance dates - luckily both of them turned out to be exceedingly sexy in person.)

He's actually age appropriate, appears to be gainfully employed, smart enough to play in chess clubs. (Which could be a good sign or an Aspergers sign lol. ). And he actually lives in my town. He looks like a grownup which seems attractive after crazy ex boyfriend. So fingers crossed that the mustache looks better on him in person!

kml #2794948 06/08/18 05:31 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Oh, and he's ex-Air Force; hopefully he was in long enough to have acquired a pension. At my age this is an important factor, whether or not a potential partner has a financial plan for their retirement. I should be ok in retirement myself, but won't have enough to carry a partner; it'd be nice to end up with a man who has similar resources. Or at least a guy who could pay his own bills so long as I provided free rent. (Mind you I'm thinking long term - NO desire to live with a guy any time soon).

kml #2795050 06/09/18 05:12 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Ok report on Mr Caterpillar Mustache and our wine date:

First of all - no Air Force pension. He was only in for four years. Worked mostly in telecom sales, lots of international business travel.

Was married for a long time - he pulled the plug on the marriage but sounds like he had legit reasons. Some of what he told me was - astounding. Clearly he's a beta male.

His wife came from money and he was making a good income working for Qualcomm. After their three kids were born his wife kinda checked out of parenting. Put them in preschool near his work and couldn't come attend to their issues there because she was busy socializing with the housewives. Spent like crazy. The example he gave me: she had an Accord but it wasn't practical with three kids so she bought a short van with Captains chairs in the middle and third child in the rear bench seat. Within two months she traded it in for a longer van so she had more cargo room behind the rear seat "for groceries " (he did all the grocery shopping). Then within six months she decided to trade it in because "all the mom's were driving Suburbans" so she bought a Denali.

He took the kids to Hawaii every year but wife only came the first time. (3girls)

He thinks the marriage started to go downhill during the recession when his wife's profligate spending couldn't continue. Later when their oldest daughter left for college the wife began drinking heavily (like 3 bottles of wine/day) and moved out of their bedroom. . (I suspect she was always drinking but just hid it better earlier) He couldn't convince her to get help and after three years of this he filed.

His oldest daughter wasn't around for most of this and blames him for not saving the marriage. He hasn't discussed her drinking and spending with the girls because he doesn't want to speak badly about her.

He seemed like a nice guy who was overly accommodating to a wife with some real issues. It's been five years since they split but he sustained a knee injury with quadriceps tear after that so has had some period of disability then part time at work and doesn't seem like he has the kind of money you'd expect from someone with his work history - likely due to the wife's spending, divorce costs and putting three kids through college (youngest still in).

I can only guess that since he was an only child whose parents died when he was 19 and 20, and since he had three kids, he was just really invested in making the family work. He seems beta male and eager to please but then he worked in international telecom sales so how beta could he be?

(Nothing against beta guys, an alpha friend is married to a lovely one and they have a great marriage. But I tend to gravitate towards more alpha males who can stand up to me, because I can be a forceful personality ).

I'll probably go on a real date with him. He seems nice but no sparks on my end yet.

kml #2795051 06/09/18 05:19 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Oh - and the mustache was less caterpillary in person.

kml #2795403 06/11/18 02:19 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Follow up:
Have agreed to a date next weekend with caterpillar mustache man (henceforth CMM).

But he's coming on too strong already, wanting to see me two or three times this week. I finally had to say dude, you'd put more research into buying a car! We don't even really know each other yet.

I mean, I know I'm a catch, I'm cute and smart and funny and interesting and genuine. I can practically see the jackpot signs above a guy like this' head when we're talking. But to anyone who is not a Love Addict the excessive enthusiasm too soon after meeting just says "needy"

I know he's a lonely guy - I'll give him a chance but the last guy who came on this strong turned out to be a bipolar addict with sociopathic tendencies!

So guys - if you're dating, don't think women will be impressed by hot pursuit after a coffee date. Wacky Love Addicts will fall for it - if that's what you want, great. But sane well balanced women who have lives of their own find it weird. Wait at least until there's been a date with mutually passionate kissing, ok?

kml #2795497 06/12/18 04:48 AM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Have I mentioned that I hate the new OkCupid format? It's been five years since I've been on, but apparently they recently made changes to reduce how many messages get through. I understand that some people were overwhelmed with messages, but what's the point in making people you write to disappear from your feed once you write to them unless they have also liked you too? And you can't see your sent messages once you've sent them unless they message you back - which requires them to notice and like your profile. I find it very cumbersome and I'm not getting responses from people I normally would have been likely to hear from - I suspect because they haven't crossed paths with my profile and seen that I messaged them. They really should just have a category for "people who have messaged you" that you could choose or not to look at.

Also, in the past, I've had luck messaging people even if I didn't quite fit into their age range or other preferences - now I suspect they don't even see my profile so they can't see my message?

Not a fan. Grrrrr.

kml #2795507 06/12/18 05:12 AM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
Has anybody here used other OLD services that they liked better? I like the detailed profiles and questionnaires on OkCupid so don't think I'd like Tinder.

kml #2795512 06/12/18 05:34 AM
Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 4,227
Likes: 63
A
Member
Offline
Member
A
Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 4,227
Likes: 63
This is interesting to me. I created an OLD profile on both POF and Match about a year ago but except for some brief instances kept them as hidden - not really ready. I don't know about the other sites but they do seem to be a bit of a scam aimed at people who are looking for a quick hookup.

From what I've seen and from what I've heard from others, less is more.

Personally to no-one's surprise my original profile read like a Russian novel. Most though that I see are like the inside book-leaf on a book. A couple of paragraphs to entice you to buy the book but not giving away the whole plot.

Given the rural nature of the area I live in, I see the same profiles over and over again and have my own list of "red-flags" that I watch for.
- pictures that include wedding rings. Assuming that the person is available, don't they have anything more recent?
- spelling mistakes in the profile
- too brief or too detailed. I don't want your life story just yet but I need to know that you aren't going to harvest my organs in some back alley
- biker mommas (not to my taste)
- group pictures with attractive people who aren't you
- fishing / hunting - not to my taste again and I have to doubt the veracity of the interest
- drinking pictures - why do so many women post pictures of them chugging down big glasses of wine?
- exotic vacation pictures (out of my budget)
- obviously photo-shopped pictures
- more pictures of their dog and memes than of themselves.
- too much emphasis on cleavage (yes, I'm a fan but still ...)

I suppose in part it depends on what you are looking for. Despite my flashy neckwear, I'm a pretty conservative guy and would be looking for someone similar. A bit bookish, a sense of fun and oh yeah - cleavage please laugh

I figure that if I ever do turn my profile on to visible I'll need to have a single paragraph and 3 or 4 pictures. I have a nice one of me in front of the Stratford Festival when I was attending the "scottish play", some pictures I took hiking that show most of me and perhaps some pictures of one of the pies I've made.

I dunno - do others who are actually active rather than a wallflower like me have any thoughts?


On BD
H52, W50
T27, M26
S21, D23
BD-9-Mar-16
D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18
I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good.
But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
What I like about OkCupid is that they do have fairly good profiles - of course, you can make them as long or as short as you like, but they ask some good questions to get people started and a reasonable length profile can tell me a lot about a person - their interests, their spelling and use of the English language, etc.( I read a profile last night where the guy just said "I am slightly above average in most things" lol. I was not sold!)

What I'm talking about more though is the mechanics of the site - who sees you, how they do messaging etc. My profile is pretty much the same as it was last time I dated and I KNOW on the old format I would have heard from at least one of the three guys I messaged by now. I think it's just an issue with how they can't see your message unless they happen to stumble across your profile. And becoming a paid customer doesn't appear to change that part of the algorithm at all.

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
K
kml Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
K
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 18,913
Likes: 316
As to some of your other questions:

"drinking pictures - why do so many women post pictures of them chugging down big glasses of wine?"

Can't answer that - are they signaling I'm a drunk and you can take advantage of me? I'm a party girl? I tend to avoid the guys with pictures of drinking as well unless it's just a benign party pic to show they have friends.

"too much emphasis on cleavage (yes, I'm a fan but still ...)"

Guess they're signaling they're dtf? While I am blessed in this department I try not to advertise it as it attracts the wrong kind. If I did I imagine I would get even more naked guy in the bathroom mirror pictures.

Page 10 of 11 1 2 8 9 10 11

Moderated by  Cadet, DnJ, job, Michele Weiner-Davis 

Link Copied to Clipboard