Dating Thread: "Pain, disorder, occasional clarity"

[Buckwheat]

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I think we’ve all been there.

My only advice would be to not project your own wants and feelings about yourself onto another person. It’s easy to think back about good times and try and reconnect to that. But that person wasn’t the thing making you happy or unhappy.

I mean ... being in a relationship with that person did, in fact make me happier than I am being now, because great companionship, feelings of closeness, having somebody to rely on emotionally, and sex are all factors that tend to make people happy. But this is just nitpicking, in general I with your post.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Lol, whoops.

So my dog is at my parents place and I'm staying here for the night. I decided to take her on a walk, a route that lined up perfectly with a podcast I wanted to listen to. It was also a good excuse to get out of the house for a smoke. But my mom insisted she comes along too, so that part of the plan was dashed. Early on into the walk I notice from afar what appeared to be a really attractive black woman also walking her dog in the park, and it didn't hurt that she was just wearing a sports bra and booty shorts on this hot Friday evening. 

After we go around the park a bit and now heading home, we run into her and her mom at their place and they live just a block and change away from my parents. I just give them a quick wave and a smile, get the same in return, and keep it moving, as I can't hear anything with my buds in. Apparently my mom stopped and talked with them, the good looking young lady is in her mid 20's and she I guess was trying to yell at me to come back, but again couldn't hear shit. My mom is having a good bit of fun laughing at me.

I guess I know which route I'm walking the dog on from now on in the short term. 

[Jen'ari]

On 7/13/2020 at 5:20 PM, Liffguard said:

Thanks, but I'm aiming for more of an Anthony Jackson vibe. Reckon I'll be a full-fleged virtuoso in a few months. How hard can it be?

An Anthony Jackson vibe is no bad thing to aim for!, my favourite bass player is Peter Hook .

You’ll have it nailed in a few months I’m sure .

Speaking as someone who’s played guitar and piano for over 20 years I don’t think you ever stop learning, learning an instrument is an incredibly rewarding,sometimes frustrating experience and I hope you enjoy it and wish you the best of luck with it, it can also be quite an expensive past time, I dread to think of the amount I’ve spent on guitars, amps and effects over the years.

 

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

On 7/11/2020 at 4:51 AM, litechick said:

So what do you think?  Can bad people be made good with the right influences or will a dick always be a dick?  Should you nurture a person and try to uncover the good or should you just run?

No matter how bad a person is, they will always have some good qualities but you don't go out with Hitler just because he likes dogs, ya know?

Women in particular should be suspicious of any impulse we might feel to save a man or redeem him, imo. A lot of heartbreak lies down that road.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Every now and then you have to just shoot your shot and hope for the best. We'll see how this goes. 

 

[Fury Resurrected]

2 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I have to say, I think I attract some irredeemable characters  I know The Fury has already heard part of this over on FB in a certain discussion group, but it’s been weighing on me like “why me?” What did I do to give some guy the impression that I might be into him? AND WHY has it been years of professional behavior and now THIS??

So - guy I know reaches out to me on LinkedIn, after the restaurants had re-opened in Atlanta. He saw I had posted something about having lunch with a former colleague, and asked if I wanted to do lunch or dinner the next week. This is someone whom I know professionally, and we have had lunch and dinner before, totally normal. He’s a recruiter. This is how they network.

So I said - free on Wednesday; whatever is best for you. He says dinner, ok. 6 pm at the expensive restaurant I always have recruiters take me to

Well, he was drinking fairly heavily (in hindsight maybe beforehand, too), and right towards the end of dinner he slides over the half-circle booth and starts kissing my neck and such. And then he starts kissing me. I draw away because I didn’t want to slap him and make a scene, but got out of there as quick as I could. Mentioned that I didn’t want our professional relationship to get awkward. And then he sends me a completely inappropriate e-mail *to my work e-mail* when he clearly has gotten home. And then he apologizes the next morning. I laughed it off as “oh, I forgive you, I know you had a lot to drink and it was the alcohol talking.”

But, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to have to not just wave it away, because he started to text me every day and such and ask “when can I see you again?”

Ugh. Well, I made an appointment to have dinner with him at my local wine bar (small plates) so that I could tell him flat out no, I was not interested in him. So, mission accomplished, but in doing this gently and with the most tact that I could muster (which can be a decent amount of tact when I try, and remember there is a professional relationship here), I found out that he is 23 years older than me has been married for *as long as I have been alive* and his wife hasn’t had sex with him in 5 years. He tried to say that they have an “arrangement” but I could totally tell he was lying. (Because I got him to confess that he said he was playing golf.) GROSS! Gross! Gross! 

So, I did my best and was able to use the fact that he is married to cushion the blow to his ego about why I just could not have anything other than a professional relationship with him. Because he had not been taking anything else I said regarding “no” for an answer. But, that got through.

Even then, he texted me for a few days after and was verging on inappropriate. I didn’t answer his text back, and he said, “oh, are you speechless?” And I said “you know where I stand; I told you on Wednesday. If you keep on trying to flirt with me I will simply have nothing to say.”

And he has blessedly not reached out ever since.

I mean, maybe I should have been a little bit stronger and instead of trying to wave his behavior away the next day I should have asked for an apology for his inappropriate behavior.

*sigh*

Goddamnit he didn’t take the hint? Ughhhh. Maybe your wife won’t fuck you because you’re such a douche, buddy

[Fury Resurrected]

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Right!!??

In thinking about it some more, he probably would have kept on trying had I simply asked for an apology for his e-mail and his behavior.

Complete douche. 

Also, you can likely sense the tie-in to the Lit thread where I stated that 12 years of age difference as an adult isn’t problematic, but anything close to or over 20 years is a bit much. It’s when you’re old enough to be someone’s parent that it’s a gross age difference, IMO.

I think it depends on what age is at the low end. If it’s an 18 year old with a 12 year age difference, that’s pretty creepy. On the first few years of adulthood there’s a big jump in emotional maturity that makes it less of an advantage taking or fetishization of the very young that largely diminishes in the mid twenties. A decade looks a lot shorter when you’re 35 than it did at 18, and I think even two decades isn’t that big a stretch when you’re 80 and they’re 60!

[Theda Baratheon]

16 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I have to say, I think I attract some irredeemable characters  I know The Fury has already heard part of this over on FB in a certain discussion group, but it’s been weighing on me like “why me?” What did I do to give some guy the impression that I might be into him? AND WHY has it been years of professional behavior and now THIS??

So - guy I know reaches out to me on LinkedIn, after the restaurants had re-opened in Atlanta. He saw I had posted something about having lunch with a former colleague, and asked if I wanted to do lunch or dinner the next week. This is someone whom I know professionally, and we have had lunch and dinner before, totally normal. He’s a recruiter. This is how they network.

So I said - free on Wednesday; whatever is best for you. He says dinner, ok. 6 pm at the expensive restaurant I always have recruiters take me to

Well, he was drinking fairly heavily (in hindsight maybe beforehand, too), and right towards the end of dinner he slides over the half-circle booth and starts kissing my neck and such. And then he starts kissing me. I draw away because I didn’t want to slap him and make a scene, but got out of there as quick as I could. Mentioned that I didn’t want our professional relationship to get awkward. And then he sends me a completely inappropriate e-mail *to my work e-mail* when he clearly has gotten home. And then he apologizes the next morning. I laughed it off as “oh, I forgive you, I know you had a lot to drink and it was the alcohol talking.”

But, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to have to not just wave it away, because he started to text me every day and such and ask “when can I see you again?”

Ugh. Well, I made an appointment to have dinner with him at my local wine bar (small plates) so that I could tell him flat out no, I was not interested in him. So, mission accomplished, but in doing this gently and with the most tact that I could muster (which can be a decent amount of tact when I try, and remember there is a professional relationship here), I found out that he is 23 years older than me has been married for *as long as I have been alive* and his wife hasn’t had sex with him in 5 years. He tried to say that they have an “arrangement” but I could totally tell he was lying. (Because I got him to confess that he said he was playing golf.) GROSS! Gross! Gross! 

So, I did my best and was able to use the fact that he is married to cushion the blow to his ego about why I just could not have anything other than a professional relationship with him. Because he had not been taking anything else I said regarding “no” for an answer. But, that got through.

Even then, he texted me for a few days after and was verging on inappropriate. I didn’t answer his text back, and he said, “oh, are you speechless?” And I said “you know where I stand; I told you on Wednesday. If you keep on trying to flirt with me I will simply have nothing to say.”

And he has blessedly not reached out ever since.

I mean, maybe I should have been a little bit stronger and instead of trying to wave his behavior away the next day I should have asked for an apology for his inappropriate behavior.

*sigh*

Jesus Christ what the fuck 

how can someone not take THE HINT so badly?!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

51 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

Jesus Christ what the fuck 

how can someone not take THE HINT so badly?!

I think a much younger person could be forgiven for not getting it even if they should have, but at that age and being married for a long time....how?

Anyways, regarding age differences, I think it's fine for the gap to increase as time goes on. Being in your 40's and dating someone 20 years older than you is fine if everything else clicks. But that was clearly not the case here.

(Full disclosure, my only experiences with large age gaps were when I was a teenager and it was with a woman in her mid thirties and another in her early forties. Also there was one when I was way too young with a woman in her early thirties, but I can just laugh about that one.)

[BigFatCoward]

Yeah, when I met my wife 33 - 24 seemed pushing it, 44 - 35 seems much less sinister on my part. 

I had to re read the @Chataya de Fleury story, I still dont understand to how it got from dinner to neck kissing in a restaurant? I wouldn't even kiss my wife's neck in a restaurant. 

[Heartofice]

On 7/29/2020 at 3:28 AM, Chataya de Fleury said:

I have to say, I think I attract some irredeemable characters  I know The Fury has already heard part of this over on FB in a certain discussion group, but it’s been weighing on me like “why me?” What did I do to give some guy the impression that I might be into him? AND WHY has it been years of professional behavior and now THIS??

So - guy I know reaches out to me on LinkedIn, after the restaurants had re-opened in Atlanta. He saw I had posted something about having lunch with a former colleague, and asked if I wanted to do lunch or dinner the next week. This is someone whom I know professionally, and we have had lunch and dinner before, totally normal. He’s a recruiter. This is how they network.

So I said - free on Wednesday; whatever is best for you. He says dinner, ok. 6 pm at the expensive restaurant I always have recruiters take me to

Well, he was drinking fairly heavily (in hindsight maybe beforehand, too), and right towards the end of dinner he slides over the half-circle booth and starts kissing my neck and such. And then he starts kissing me. I draw away because I didn’t want to slap him and make a scene, but got out of there as quick as I could. Mentioned that I didn’t want our professional relationship to get awkward. And then he sends me a completely inappropriate e-mail *to my work e-mail* when he clearly has gotten home. And then he apologizes the next morning. I laughed it off as “oh, I forgive you, I know you had a lot to drink and it was the alcohol talking.”

But, I could tell pretty quickly that I was going to have to not just wave it away, because he started to text me every day and such and ask “when can I see you again?”

Ugh. Well, I made an appointment to have dinner with him at my local wine bar (small plates) so that I could tell him flat out no, I was not interested in him. So, mission accomplished, but in doing this gently and with the most tact that I could muster (which can be a decent amount of tact when I try, and remember there is a professional relationship here), I found out that he is 23 years older than me has been married for *as long as I have been alive* and his wife hasn’t had sex with him in 5 years. He tried to say that they have an “arrangement” but I could totally tell he was lying. (Because I got him to confess that he said he was playing golf.) GROSS! Gross! Gross! 

So, I did my best and was able to use the fact that he is married to cushion the blow to his ego about why I just could not have anything other than a professional relationship with him. Because he had not been taking anything else I said regarding “no” for an answer. But, that got through.

Even then, he texted me for a few days after and was verging on inappropriate. I didn’t answer his text back, and he said, “oh, are you speechless?” And I said “you know where I stand; I told you on Wednesday. If you keep on trying to flirt with me I will simply have nothing to say.”

And he has blessedly not reached out ever since.

I mean, maybe I should have been a little bit stronger and instead of trying to wave his behavior away the next day I should have asked for an apology for his inappropriate behavior.

*sigh*

This guy is clearly a total creep, possibly has some emotional issues going on, if he is drinking so much. He seems to be someone I would want out of my life entirely.

I think this does raise a question about how to deal with people like this, and I don’t think there is a one size fits all answer. One thing to say is that a lot of guys like this pursue women almost as a sport and will take any encouragement as a sign to move forward.

I know this guy is in your professional circle and so tact was needed but he didn’t display tact when he acted so maybe you don’t need to either. 
 

This isn’t blaming you in any way, I think blame is entirely on his side here, but I do also think someone like that is going to cling on to any scraps of encouragement they get and rationalise them in a way that fits their goal.
So I think agreeing to a dinner ( which is not something I would do with anyone I knew on a purely professional basis), saying you couldn’t see him because he was married could easily be taken as a ‘maybe’ by a certain type of guy. Really I think ambiguity and tact is not your friend here. 

I know it is a very difficult situation to be put in, and the problems women have when trying to resist unwanted attention can lead to even worse situations. Really though I think the best course is to shut things down immediately.. invent a boyfriend or something, don’t let guys like this think there is even a sliver of hope 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, when I met my wife 33 - 24 seemed pushing it, 44 - 35 seems much less sinister on my part. 

I had to re read the @Chataya de Fleury story, I still dont understand to how it got from dinner to neck kissing in a restaurant? I wouldn't even kiss my wife's neck in a restaurant. 

Have you heard of a man by the name of Rick Pitino? 

[sologdin]

age range here is maybe two years younger to tenish years older, unless you are lennon, or lenin.

 

regarding ambiguity--it's not a gendered thing; it's an optimist thing:

Quote

Lloyd Christmas: What are the chances of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?

Mary Swanson: Not good.

Lloyd Christmas: Not good like one in a hundred?

Mary Swanson: I'd say more like one in a million.

Lloyd Christmas: So you're telling me there's a chance?

some might develop an aggressive optimism which develops dialectically into a semiotic nihilism, taking any gesture as a complicated sign by ignoring the plain objective significance: i was only tazered instead of shot, must be communicating true love. this is like hofstadter's paranoid style of american politics; shutting down immediately is likely not to be interpreted as a termination, but rather as just another cypher.

welcome back, chats.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

52 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Thanks, solo!!!

And the above paragraph was something I actually understood on the first reading!! Lol.

Maybe I got a tiny bit smarter while I was gone, along with having some damn good parties in Canada  here’s hoping!!

I really hate to break this to you, since you've been away for what feels like a few years now, but solo has become, dare I say, comprehensible, at least most of the time. 

The pandemic can shake even the mightiest of us. 

[litechick]

Chataya, Hi!  I've missed you.

I sincerely hope he doesn't go petulant douchebag on you and badmouth you in professional circles.  Getting him to stop making advances is one thing but he can still fuck with you if he wants.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I am playing a dangerous game. One that could be 99.9% complete folly. And I just pointed out how this exact behavior could be a bad idea. But damn if I'm bored and a fun old flame may be giving me the green light, at least if I play my cards right.....

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Well that failed. Which is fine.

On another note, sigh. I agree with the advice I got here and from mostly elsewhere in RL, the right thing to do is not ask someone out when they're at work, but the cute massage therapist and I have had a couple of interactions over the last few months. I do think she's really into me, she's not just being flirty to get a better tip. And we have so much in common. 

But no, it's still wrong to ask her out, even if she's been increasingly hitting on me. So I guess here's hoping she asks me. 

[Guest]

Yeah, don't ask someone out while they're working, but if you ask outside of work, that's not an issue. In the past, I would usually find a way to meet up with them outside of the job, and then would ask there. Just be prepared to find a new massage therapist.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

55 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Hey, it was your ex wife who went on Rock of Love, right? I’ve told that story over the years....this guy I know, his wife left him to go on Rock of Love, so never believe that shit about getting a ‘hall pass’...”

Bad joke?

It's so frustrating because I feel so confident that she just wants me to make a move. And she's so cute, with an awesome personality. And she's in such great shape. She basically says the same thing back to me, except I can tell she is much more conservative than me sexually, even if she's super liberal. In a way. But as someone who has hurt a lot of people, I worry about risking it, assuming she's even game.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

But then again, you never know how things work, @Chataya de Fleury. I recently reached out to a friend I haven't seen or spoken to  in years. I never expected to hear anything back. Turns out he was worried to respond to me. Who knows when I'll be back in Chicago or if meeting in L.A. could be better, but hey, wtf, it could be worse.

ETA: context. We're not gay, but I wouldn't be embarrassed if I was, and my buddy would melt most of you. I just meant I was reaching out to a friend.