I haven't posted in a long time. My divorce was final as of the beginning of March, 2012 and since then I've been dating on and off. I had a relationship with REBA (the accountant from my last set of posts) that began in September of 2012, lasted nine months and ended horribly after we came back from a European vacation. I've since bought a house and have done my best to move on with my life. Since this last September, I've been online dating again and had a two month relationship with ABBY. ABBY did not want to ever get married, live with anyone else or have a typical relationship so once that was revealed, it ended amicably just before Christmas. In between have been a smattering of women that have not "worked out" for one reason or another. None of them were bad, just not right for me.

So the purpose of this post and subsequent posts will be to talk about the day to day "stuff" that goes into online dating. The names will be changed to protect the women's identity. I will talk about the blow by blow stuff that goes into online dating so that others can get a general perspective on how this goes for an average guy in a small city. Hopefully this will help someone beyond just myself. I'm also taking any advice if anyone has some.

I am 35 years old with three kids, a stable job and a nice home. How bad can this be, right?

Travis

Ok so the current lay of the land is in order. I'm using two sites in order to meet women. The first is OKCupid which is free. This is also my go-to site which for the most part is where I've gotten the most dates this time around. Last time I used Match which is where I met REBA.

On Match, I've sent out 33 emails in the last week and have received replies from one woman thus far, JENNIE. JENNIE strikes me as reasonably intelligent, articulate and generally not interested in me. While she has replied three times to me in the last week, she is either not invested in online dating or I just haven't captured her attention compared to other suitors. I fully anticipate her to fizzle out over the next week.

On OKCupid, I have had significantly greater success. I've e-mailed approximately 100 over the past three weeks, have received numerous replies and gone on several dates. I'm currently actively talking with five women from that site and have dates planned with three.

KATE - I've already been on three dates with Kate thus far. So far I've taken her to a wine bar, the St Louis Art Museum (which I love, this is a great go-to date) and finally I made her dinner at my house last Monday evening.

Kate has many traits that I like. She's educated and has a great job - she's a kindergarten teacher at a private school. She's cute and is generally fun to be around. I've had a good time talking to her about her students and being a teacher in general. She and I also share similiar interests in movies, television and in some cases, music. She's Catholic so that's also a plus as she and I share the same faith. Finally, she does not have kids which is something that I consider in the "plus" category at this point.

Now to the negatives - she is overweight. Not past the point where I'm not attracted to her at all but she and I are definitely in different places when it comes to this issue. I'm older, she's 28 and hasn't gotten to the point, if she ever will of embracing physical fitness as a goal to pursue. This not only affects physical attractiveness but also our ability to do certain things together (hiking, traveling, etc). Prevailing advice from my brother and friends is to look past this but ultimately I'm not sure how effectively I'll be able to do that. I'm also not sure if we'll have things to talk about at the end of the day. We converse daily via text but it's not of much substance. Either way, I do plan on continuing to date her in the short term to see if any of these issues resolves.

SUSAN - I currently have a date scheduled with SUSAN for Friday night. We're going to do drinks later on in the evening. SUSAN is a scientist with a doctorate which is impressive but far above my level of education. I'm a history major and an IT guy by trade so I'm not sure what we'll have to talk about but I do appreciate her profession, she's attractive, has no children and is willing to meet with me so I'll give it a go. I'm going to brush up on her area of expertise just a bit before the date so I can have a reasonable discussion without embarrassing myself too badly. We haven't spoken too much to this point; I think we've exchanged approx 10 messages total so I'm going into this one pretty blind.

AMY - I have a date scheduled with AMY for next Thursday. Again, for drinks in the evening. I actually talked to AMY back in September before I dated ABBY. Our conversation fizzled out relatively quickly but I approached her again via e-mail on a whim. Much like last time, our conversation was lacking so I went for broke - I asked her out and gave her my number. She accepted and we've spoken much more via text in the last few days. She's very busy, she's a children's therapist, and therefore has little time for the whole dating thing.

My general impression of AMY thus far is that she's attractive, intelligent, worldly, a great conversationalist (via text) and all in all, put together. She's a few years younger than me without children, pets, etc. So far, so good!

STEPHANIE - STEPHANIE is the youngest out of the women I'm currently talking to at 26 years old. That's pushing the envelope for me a bit as I think we may run into generational issues. That said, she's cute, has a good job (social worker), seems civic minded and is very sweet. She's not replying often but everytime I think STEPHANIE is fading out, she surprises me with a new message. So I don't think anything will come of this but I remain hopeful that I'm proven wrong.

GRETTA - GRETTA and I have been talking off and on for about a week in length. We have about 100 messages on the site between us but have not transitioned to phone, text or any other form of communication in spite of having asked for her number and given her mine. I'm not a huge fan of prolonging the online portion of the dating process so this is a newish scenario for me. That said, she's athletic, attractive and has a great job selling insurance. Our conversations online have been fluid and interesting. So this morning I went for broke and asked her out for coffee on Sunday. She hasn't replied yet so we'll see. I'm realistic in that I expect her to ignore me or ignore my message. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised however.

If PA is one of your top ENs, then why settle?

What went wrong with REBA?

Brain - PA isn't one of my top ENs. Still, it is a EN. So... I don't know why I would settle other than if she was able to meet my other ENs in a spectacular manner. Good question.

gerold - With REBA, the communication wasn't there. Her and my fault. We came back from a trip to Europe for a month and she ended it three days later. She didn't agree with the way I raised my kids, didn't agree with me on money matters and ultimately expressed that she would never marry me. At that point, it was over.

GRETTA surprised me by accepting my invitation to coffee on Sunday so now my weekend is fully booked. I confirmed drinks with SUSAN tonight, I'm firming up plans with KATE to go see a movie and dinner on Saturday and now coffee with GRETTA. I'm going to be busy!

Did you ever try to use POJA with Reba?

What was it that she didn't like about you how you raised your kids?

Yes I did without getting into MB specific terminology. She is a very "my way or the highway" woman who was used to getting her way in all aspects of her relationships. I found myself constantly struggling to use POJA because her world view was that she was correct and everyone else was incorrect. When viewed from that angle, coming to mutual decisions was difficult. While this rarely devolved into arguments, it rarely culminated in any type of resolution either.

In regard to what she didn't like about how I parented, she thought I was too tough in some areas and too lax in others. She did not like that I managed my children's behaviors (hers were free to act as they wanted as long as they did not bother her) but felt I was too lax in forcing my kids to participate in activities and management of school work. She was also big into physical punishment which I reserve for very few instances. I found some of her complaints constructive and my kids now are performing significantly better in school. I do appreciate her thoughts on that. But she thought I was soft because I didn't beat my kids for menial things.

Her comments when the relationship ended was that she was afraid for my kids, that they were going to grow up to be worthless members of society because of how I raise them. They get straight A's (even before they got A's and B's) and they're consistently the best behaved kids in the room. They participate in activities after school and have a good group of friends within their social circles. While I'm not a perfect parent, I can't validate her concerns.

This is an interesting post. Do you assume these ladies are dating others as well?

Yes, that is the assumption. Whether they are or not isn't really something I'm worried about at this point. Exclusivity, for better or worse, is not something anyone can assume in the dating world these days. I won't think any of these women are being exclusive with me unless we have that conversation.

Welcome to the world of you wonder why she is still single. I find this kind of Lovebuster plate a lot in dating .... A LOT!!!

I always tell myself it is that kind of selfishness/disrespect that will be their demise as they start to approach middle age. They think they are all cool as crap now...well it's just a matter of time before they realize they are old and their "set in their ways attitude" has pretty much destroyed any good relationships they once had.

Good relationships never last when the person is hopped up on Lovebusters.

This is why I have a six month rule now with men...they get to be my best friend for at least six months before I will grant them access to my heart. I see at least 95% of the time they fall out well before the six month period and it is usually because I see huge red flags all over the place.

I realized that if they don't get "IT" by 40, then likely they will never get "IT", and they will keep that hardcore renter mentality until death.

This why what you are doing by dating a plethora of women is GREAT...really really GREAT!!!

You'll find her...just keep up the great search!

Sometimes I don't wonder very long.... lol. You make valid points though. If they're of this mindset, they're not worth keeping anyway. No relationship can exist for long with that kind of LB dynamic.

My date with SUSAN went well! The first thing I noticed was that she was very pretty, more so than in her pictures which did not do her justice. We shook hands at the beginning of the date which was odd... but I didn't take it amiss since I thought that might be due to the highly professional environment in which she works. We spent approximately three hours at the bar talking about anything and everything. We didn't focus on her work hardly at all and while there were some pauses in the conversation, SUSAN and I each managed to ask enough interesting questions to keep the flow going relatively well. My general impression is that she is interesting, engaging and highly intelligent (a fact that she downplayed).

On the less than positive side, she was extremely stoic and reserved thoughout the date. This made her extremely hard to read. She played with her hair, a classic sign of interest but I got the impression it was more out of nervousness than attraction. While the topics were personal, they did not feel intimate per say. Finally, she mentioned that she is a smoker (which is something I'm not into). While she's not smoking cigarettes at this time, she is using the e-cigarette. I'm not disgusted by smoking per say but I'd prefer to not date a smoker. The e-cigarette does not bother me so as long as that's how it remains, I don't consider this a deal breaker.

So three hours into the date she suggested we call it a night and I agreed. I offered to walk her home (she lives a few blocks from the bar) but she politely declined, said it was nice to meet me and that she'd "see me later." I wasn't confident based on the lack of signals (that I saw) that she was interested so I played it safe and did not attempt to kiss her. I bid her a goodnight and drove home.

Ultimately I had a good time. While her reserved nature and the smoking thing are not ideal, I am at times fairly reserved myself so I understand. I am definitely attracted to her many other qualities so I sent her a thank you text and asked her on a second date. She accepted relatively quickly and confirmed that she had a "great time" with me. Nice! I'll plan something with her soon; she's definitely worth a second date.

Hi TC - I like this thread. It's interesting to see online dating from a man's perspective. Thanks for sharing.

You're very welcome Zhamila! I really benefited from similar threads on different sites and since I was getting back into it after the breakup with AMY, I thought I'd throw this out there. Plus it helps in solidifying some of my thoughts on these women.

My date with KATE on Saturday was uninspiring. We went to a movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, which was incidentally enough, quite good. We had originally intended to see American Hustle but the theater where I had tickets for already was closed due to a burst pipe so we had to improvise. After that, we went out for sushi. The movie was great, the food was great but the company was not.

KATE was back to being very quiet. I had to instigate much of the conversation this time around and there were quite a few awkward silences. Beyond that, I get the impression that she is unwilling to make decisions within the context of dating or a relationship. I've given her options for dates in the past but she has thus far forced me to say "we are doing XXXX tonight" which I don't like. I can't tell what she likes and what she doesn't because she does not voice her opinions on much of anything. This came to a head last night when it was time to pick a movie; we could have waited two hours for American Hustle to start or we could watch something else. I asked her what her preference was and she stated that she was up for anything. When I chose to see an earlier movie, she indicated that she was disappointed indirectly only after I had bought the tickets. I am not a fan of this lack of communication and it illustrates that we are not in sync in this aspect. I took her home after dinner, declined to stay for more than a few minutes and kissed her goodnight.

I think my experiment with KATE is over. While she has qualities I like, I don't think the communication is there and she's much more passive than anyone I've dated before. I can deal with that but I'm not sure I could deal with this inability to voice an opinion. I had to prompt her three times to pick a sushi roll because I wasn't going to pick all of them. All that's left is to tell her that it's not going to work out. Any advice on this one? I continue to have a hard time ending dating with someone as a gentleman.

GRETTA contacted me a few hours before our coffee date today to ask me if we could reschedule because she was supposed to pick up a friend at the airport this morning and his flight was delayed. I replied positively, commiserated a bit and told her that if she let me know when she'd be available next, we'll figure out a good time. If I don't hear from her by tomorrow night, I will suggest Wednesday evening or Sunday night next weekend.

I texted SUSAN last night to schedule a follow-on date this Tuesday. She seemed amenable with a characteristic lack of enthusiasm via text. I sent her a text this afternoon with a couple of options: comedy club, wine bar, history museum and the classic second date favorite, bowling. We'll see how she responds but barring anything unusual, I think we're on for something interesting Tuesday. Additionally, I'm having a drink with AMY on Thursday who I have been diligently texting every once in a while to keep interest alive. She's responded positively each time and I'm looking forward to meeting her.

STEPHANIE hasn't contacted me at all over the last week so I think she's a no-go at this point. I'm not sending out any messages this week because I want to see what happens with AMY, SUSAN and GRETTA.

"Hi Kate. It was very nice to meet you. Unfortunately, I don't think we are a good fit. All the best."

Is that as simple as it needs to be? I feel like there should be more after four dates... lol

Kate clearly doesnt meet your need for IC.

Gretta was the one that blew you off online so her reschedule should be red flags. When I reschedule online dates it's has always been because something better come along...most of the times I don't reschedule either I simply let the guy fade away.

My opinion is to keep looking.

My mistake - I thought it was date number one. I guess I was unable to keep them all straight.

How about the following by telephone with appropriate pauses for her response:

"I've enjoyed getting to know you. However, now that we've been on several dates, I don't really see a future for us so I think it better than we part ways. I wish you every happiness. Take care."

I don't think any details are necessary. Be kind, honest and brief. Most especially, don't waffle.

Alright, talked with KATE and she responded amicably. Thanks kerala!

Home - I agree with you; I don't think a date with GRETTA will ever materialize. I will however give her a chance to prove me wrong. At least for a few more days.