Not sure whether...

KC43

New member
...this is a whine, a vent, or a request for advice. Probably some combination of the three.

My marriage is probably the best it's been in a long time. Hubby's been putting in the work he wasn't putting in for a while, and I'm trying to be more compassionate and understanding when he isn't emotionally or physically available to me. I'm also taking stock of all the awesome things he does, which helps me see things positively.

My relationship with Woody is going really well. Even though officially I only get Tuesday nights and the first Thursday of every month with him, since he currently only ("only") has two other partners and one of them is long-distance, while the other one is mega-busy, I've been getting most Saturday nights with him as well. I talked with him a few weeks ago about feeling like sex had become by-the-numbers and feeling like the D/s part of our relationship had stopped being a thing, and those issues are no longer issues.

But...

Woody does have two other partners. And he seems to keep finding more, or at least more potentials. He went out on a date on Wednesday night. (He says it "wasn't anything to write home about", just nice and friendly.) He tells me fairly regularly about other women he's talking to on Fet and OKC.

Meanwhile, I get virtually no messages on either site, nor do I usually get replies when I send messages. I've had message-versations with four or five guys in the past month, including two I met in person at Woody's monthly karaoke event...but those have all turned into me being ghosted. Which I realize is not uncommon with dating sites, but I'm batting 0 here...

I don't know that I want another actual relationship, but I do kinda want someone to spend time with when Woody isn't available (which is the majority of the time) and Hubby isn't interested in spending time with me (which is ALL the time). Maybe another boyfriend. Maybe an FWB. But someone I can hang out with and have fun with and have rambling conversations with.

(This might belong in General Poly rather than here; I've no problem with it being moved if that's the case.)

So that's the whiny-vent part. I guess the advice part is... how do people actually meet people on those sites? How do you start a messaging conversation that won't result in the other person bailing just when the conversation seems to be going well?

It isn't as if I've never done this before. I met Woody on OKC, after I sent him a message to which he responded three days later (after I'd forgotten messaging him; it was in the flurry of "fuck this, I deserve someone good, dammit" after two months of wallowing in the wake of my ex-boyfriend dumping me). I met Hubby and my two ex-boyfriends on AFF, though only the more recent ex resulted from a messaging conversation, which he initiated. (I met Hubby and the other ex at "meet and greet" events.)

Woody "helped" me rewrite my profiles on Fet and OKC a couple of months ago; I put "helped" in quotes because I'm not sure the changes were at all helpful. He told me to change them because I said I wasn't getting any messages or responses, but that's still the case.

So ugh.
 
I never had luck with online dating. I got tired of the creeps trolling for sex. But I know that it works for some.

I have had better luck in real life. Do you have hobbies outside hubby and Woody. Or an interest you want to persue?

For example I met Murf at a classic car club cruise in without Butch. I was driving a friend's Nova while he drove his 34 Highboy. While making conversation about the car he found out that my friend and I were not a couple and asked me out.

Before Murf I met an ex at a tattoo convention.

Before that another at a dog competition.

Sometimes you meet people when you're not actively searching.
 
I have had very good luck with online dating... for dating. But maybe I am wrong, but it sounds to me you are not really looking to date, but you are more looking for friendships / a busier social life? While OKC has the option to say you are looking for friendships, I don't think it really works for that.

As far as the ghosting goes... I've been on literally dozens of first OKC dates, and for every first date, there were dozens of convos with guys that did not work, fizzled out, where I was ghosted etc. So I would say hundreds, literally, of flaky conversations. Makes me tired just thinking about it ;)
It just takes a TON of time and energy so I think that is only normal.

I second Dagferi's suggestion to look for friends in the sphere of your hobbies. But you could still do that online. I've met a couple of my best friends on a hobby forum where I was very active about 10 years ago. One of them lives on the other side of the world and yet we manage to meet once every 18 months or so. But it was an online friendship first.

As far as meeting people irl goes, developing friendships takes a lot of time. In that respect it is very different from meeting romantic/sexual partners.. at least for me. I've met some close friends at work. For me that is an ideal environment to slowly get to know someone, without the pressure of actually having to plan a 'date'.

I know you don't work, (or that the work you do like writing and music is pretty solitary) but maybe there is volunteer work or meet up groups in stuff you are interested in?

As far as OKC goes my advice would just be to not give up. Keep sending out messages. It's worked once with Woody, there is no reason why it would not work again. And I'd be happy to take a look at your profile if you would like some input!
 
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Craigslist? I've met some great people off there, do a.search for poly in.personals or put up your own in misc romance
 
Cleo, I'm not *not* looking for dating... I'm just not exactly looking for another full-blown relationship. Though I'm not opposed to that happening if it happens, it just isn't my main focus right now. Relationships are stressful for me; a friendship-with-benefits is more my speed.

I don't have any hobbies. I don't have any interests. That's the biggest problem. Other than going to Woody's I pretty much don't leave the house except to run errands. The only thing I would count as an interest is karaoke, and the karaoke nights are hosted by Woody which I'm sure kind of cramps things for me since those are date nights for us. Even though it's clear on my Fet profile that I'm poly and my relationship with Woody is open, people aren't really going to be interested when they see me with him. (Even though he says differently; according to him, guys are *more* likely to hit on me if I'm there with him. But I've pretty much come to the conclusion that Woody's full of shit when it comes to observing whether someone's interested in me or predicting whether anyone will be...)

I have looked at meet-up groups, but the ones I've considered attending are too far from me or are at night; I prefer not to go out alone at night.
 
Sometimes you have to leave your comfort zone.
 
You asked me advice about this, somewhere, but I neglected to respond.

I've been on okc since Jan 2009. I've been on dozens of first dates. I've probably chatted at least a thousand men, and a handful of women. In all these years, I've ended up in relationships, some casual, some more loving, with...

miss pixi (7 1/2 years)
BoyToy D (2 1/2 years)
Ginger (2 1/2 years)
The Gentleman (9 months?)
The Artist (F) (4 months)
Old Friend (years of chatting, 3 meetings)
J (also years of chatting, about 6 meetings)
Punk (current! NRE! almost 8 months and counting)
a scientist subby boy, 7 months

I've been on 3 or so dates with a handful of others, which led to one or the other of us kinda ghosting because the chemistry, or timing, wasn't quite right. Or there was that one guy who tried to kill himself after our first date.:eek:

Last week, I had an interesting series of long messages, conversations, with a guy wherein we seemed to click on intelligence level, interests, sense of humor, kink factors! And then he ghosted. That is so annoying! I wonder if he was a fake.

Right now I've got a guy messaging me from New Orleans who will be in Worcester for work for a few months this summer and wants to meet, sounds like something casual. And an older guy from Brookline is pestering me. But I can't-- he's 66, a "proud secular Jew," and has one of those stupid walrus mustaches. There's a couple pix on his profile with his son who looks late 30s, and I'd rather do his son lol

But by far, the messages I get are from, like, Algeria or Florida or other places far away, and it's obvious he's done no more than look at my pix, if that.

Ever since I met Punk 8 months ago, I've been sorta looking for another guy who might turn into a bf with whom Punk and I could share sex. No luck! And not for lack of checking my messages and matches.

Pixi has never looked as hard online for dates. But she does keep a profile open. All her partners, she had first met online. I want to say, since her late teens, so nearly 2 decades, she's had maybe 10 partners of any duration. So, that's every other year, someone good comes along.

I feel lucky to now have Pixi and Punk. My lack of recent success on okc, I put down to being relatively content with my 2 lovers. I am not trying as hard as I could to chat people up and lure them to me. lol P and P are both loving and attentive, smart and sexy, funny and helpful, creative, kinky, and good cooks. I feel well taken care of!

If only I could still have Nick, the adorable big-cocked Dom, I *would* be content and completely fulfilled! Damn him for having a wife, a gf, 2 kids and a demanding job already! lol 4 dates, then we drifted apart, despite me trying to keep in touch.

So ... yeah. I've worked really hard over the years to find good people on OKC. They are wicked few and far between. Most men on there just want to chat, beg for pix, and jerk off. Losers!
 
I've met some great people in person via OKC and one on Fet. Have had good dates, a few relationships, made a few friends, two FWBs and an ongoing romance. Everything depends on what you're truly ready for and what your profile says about you. Make sure that what you mean to convey is what you're really conveying on your profile. Messaging with someone is another discussion, but first and foremost, get feedback about your profile so that you're accurately putting out the vibe that you think you are. Most people are not - not even close.

If you'd like some feedback, KC (on either OKC or Fet profile) feel free to PM your names to me. I'd be happy to take a look and tell you how they strike me.
 
I don't have any hobbies. I don't have any interests.

none? at all? Not even music, books, writing, movies (things you often talk about here?)

I don't mean to sound harsh. But if you perceive yourself as someone without interests, that could be a reason that convos on OKC fizzle out. Personally, I would not be able to keep a conversation going with someone who said they had zero interests in anything? I mean what would you talk about?
 
I feel lucky to now have Pixi and Punk. My lack of recent success on okc, I put down to being relatively content with my 2 lovers. I am not trying as hard as I could to chat people up and lure them to me. lol P and P are both loving and attentive, smart and sexy, funny and helpful, creative, kinky, and good cooks. I feel well taken care of!

...

So ... yeah. I've worked really hard over the years to find good people on OKC. They are wicked few and far between. Most men on there just want to chat, beg for pix, and jerk off. Losers!

I agree with Magdlyn that okc is great but only if you WORK at it. Like, on there every day, messaging people and searching and replying and updating your photos and questions. Being active keeps you in the top of people's search results; if you aren't online much, okc kind of drops you off people's radar. I've never had any luck just leaving a profile up and seeing what happened. But when I treated it like a job, I got messages every day, a date or two a week, and met both Dag and my ex (year long relationship) there.

I know everyone likes to say you'll meet people when you aren't looking... But there's also another angle, that if you're not motivated to date, you don't put in the effort to meet and get to know those "hmmmm maybe" folks and you miss out on a lot of chances.
 
Hi KC43,

I think you are mostly hitting a run of bad luck, but I'm also inclined to say that if you don't care for the changes Woody suggested for your profiles, you should change the profiles back to how they were. Or at least decide on your own adjustments.

Don't give up, things will work out eventually.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Online dating is hard because you don't really know anything about the people you are messaging. All you can see is the side they put out there for you to see. They could be total flakes or just too busy that week. Who knows?

I do way better meeting people in person. Mostly that is because I travel so much.
 
Trying to meet people online is like having a second job. Ugh, it's so time-consuming and a major energy suck -- with very little reward. I've had tons of guys "ghost" on me. And I've had quite a number of really bad dates. However, I've also had some wonderful experiences -- but, man oh man, they took a lot of effort to get there.

What occurs to me, KC, is maybe you're spending what they perceive as "too much" time emailing and chatting before meeting, while they might want to meet much more quickly. I don't know, that's just a thought I had while reading your post.
 
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My usual disclaimer: I am not disagreeing with people or trying to be argumentative. i am thinking out loud, but also trying to clarify. I don't always recognize if I sound like I'm arguing, so if I do, please point it out, but also please understand that isn't my intention.

nycindie, I'm not spending any time messaging... I send a message and they don't answer at all, or they stop answering within about half an hour of the conversation beginning. We never get far enough for meeting to be a thing that might happen.

Cleo, you don't sound harsh. But I don't have any hobbies anymore. Writing is a career, and I gave up doing music, other than singing at karaoke, because it was causing more trouble for me trying to let go of S2. The books I usually talk about are the ones I've written; I don't remember the last time I read anything for pleasure. Lately I've been reading books about shamanism, Wicca, crystals, etc. but that isn''t something most guys are going to want to talk about.

There are meetups for Wiccans, energy healers, etc., but those are the ones that are too far, too late in the day, or cost money.

There are things I guess I'm interested in, but when anyone asks me what my interests are, my brain goes completely blank. On my OKC profile, Woody had me list books, movies, and TV shows that I like; that took longer than rewriting the rest of the profile, and without looking at the profile I can't remember anything I listed.

With the guys I have met and have dated at least a few times, there haven't been any questions about interests. We start talking and the conversation just flows, and goes off in random directions. That's the kind of conversation I love, because verbal communication is difficult for me, and when the conversation just starts and only stops because one of us has to go somewhere, it's easier for me to speak fluently and not feel awkward.

Mags, thanks.

Dagferi, not sure what you mean by needing to leave my comfort zone. (I get the concept. I'm not sure what you mean in this specific situation.)

Vinsanity, meeting people in person probably does work better. I just don't go anywhere that I might meet anyone, except the karaoke nights. And those are date nights for Woody and me, which pretty much makes it impossible to meet anyone who might be interested in getting involved with me. Woody has offered a few times to introduce me to guys he knows who might be interested in me and who he trusts with me, but that never actually happens.

GFT, I usually do meet people when I'm not looking...with Hubby, Guy, S2, and Woody--and even Boots--I was emphatically not looking for anyone and had said so several times, and had good reasons (with Boots and Woody it was because I wasn't over S2 yet), but all of a sudden there they were.
 
Online dating is hard because you don't really know anything about the people you are messaging. All you can see is the side they put out there for you to see.

An alternate view:

I feel the opposite - that online dating (actually, it's online meeting that possibly leads to dating) is so much quicker, easier and more effective than finding people in person. On sites like OKC and Fet, you can get a pretty good feel for the essence of a person and you can know personal aspects of someone that are really important factors in chemistry, aspects that would take weeks and months to see in person. For instance, how someone writes is (in my experience) usually an accurate reflection of their verbal acuity, wit, intellectual ability/interest. Messaging a few times, along with getting a feel for the kind of photos a person posts and possibly a few lifestyle details gives me a pretty darn accurate picture of whether there is potential for in person chemistry - whether it's romantic or friendship. I have met up with quite a few people via online meeting and in every case, the person is very similar to how he/she comes across online. I would never have the opportunity or time to zero in on interesting people in person the way I can online.

I'm a fan of online meeting. That method is a big help to me, living out in the suburbs where there aren't a lot of people whose interests and sensibilities intersect with mine. I'm keeping company right now with a wonderful local guy who messaged me on Fet and ours has grown into a beautiful romantic (and ironically, pretty vanilla) love relationship. We never, ever would have found each other in "real life" and it's just because we struck up a correspondence on Fet that we now enjoy a colorful romance in person. If you think of the social/dating sites as places to interact, meet people and have fun, then you have a good foundation for allowing friendships and romances to spring up naturally. I recently met up with someone in this very forum community. We've been corresponding for about a year and arranged a weekend in person. We had a great time and agreed that our friendship chemistry was exactly the same in person as it was online/in text. So keep an open mind and heart to finding people online. The internet is a wonderful "new" way for people to find each other and enrich each others' lives.
 
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On sites like OKC and Fet, you can get a pretty good feel for the essence of a person and you can know personal aspects of someone that are really important factors in chemistry, aspects that would take weeks and months to see in person. For instance, how someone writes is (in my experience) usually an accurate reflection of their verbal acuity, wit, intellectual ability/interest. Messaging a few times, along with getting a feel for the kind of photos a person posts and possibly a few lifestyle details gives me a pretty darn accurate picture of whether there is potential for in person chemistry - whether it's romantic or friendship. I have met up with quite a few people via online meeting and in every case, the person is very similar to how he/she comes across online. I would never have the opportunity or time to zero in on interesting people in person the way I can online.

I 100 % agree with this. Of the 50+ dates I went on (after meeting people online) only a handful of men turned out to be very different from what I had imagined them to be.

I LOVE online meeting / dating. When I say I have had succes.. that means 4 actual relationships, varying in length form 8 months to 4 years, and one FWB that lasted about 2 years... over the course of 7 years of me being non monogamous. Again, that means a TON of dead end convos and ghosting etc....

So I guess for the 'advice' part, KC43.... is to just persevere and not give up and keep messaging?
 
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An alternate view:

I feel the opposite - that online dating (actually, it's online meeting that possibly leads to dating) is so much quicker, easier and more effective than finding people in person. On sites like OKC and Fet, you can get a pretty good feel for the essence of a person and you can know personal aspects of someone that are really important factors in chemistry, aspects that would take weeks and months to see in person. For instance, how someone writes is (in my experience) usually an accurate reflection of their verbal acuity, wit, intellectual ability/interest. Messaging a few times, along with getting a feel for the kind of photos a person posts and possibly a few lifestyle details gives me a pretty darn accurate picture of whether there is potential for in person chemistry - whether it's romantic or friendship. I have met up with quite a few people via online meeting and in every case, the person is very similar to how he/she comes across online. I would never have the opportunity or time to zero in on interesting people in person the way I can online.

I'm a fan of online meeting. That method is a big help to me, living out in the suburbs where there aren't a lot of people whose interests and sensibilities intersect with mine. I'm keeping company right now with a wonderful local guy who messaged me on Fet and ours has grown into a beautiful romantic (and ironically, pretty vanilla) love relationship. We never, ever would have found each other in "real life" and it's just because we struck up a correspondence on Fet that we now enjoy a colorful romance in person. If you think of the social/dating sites as places to interact, meet people and have fun, then you have a good foundation for allowing friendships and romances to spring up naturally. I recently met up with someone in this very forum community. We've been corresponding for about a year and arranged a weekend in person. We had a great time and agreed that our friendship chemistry was exactly the same in person as it was online/in text. So keep an open mind and heart to finding people online. The internet is a wonderful "new" way for people to find each other and enrich each others' lives.

Perhaps this is why I don't do well with on-line. I absolutely suck at writing. I am nearly as bad on the phone. Get me in person and my charming personality just oozes out all over the place :rolleyes:
 
My usual disclaimer: I am not disagreeing with people or trying to be argumentative. i am thinking out loud, but also trying to clarify. I don't always recognize if I sound like I'm arguing, so if I do, please point it out, but also please understand that isn't my intention.
I don't think you sound argumentative. Clarification is a good thing! :)

nycindie, I'm not spending any time messaging... I send a message and they don't answer at all, or they stop answering within about half an hour of the conversation beginning. We never get far enough for meeting to be a thing that might happen.
Oh, I see. I thought that, perhaps, you were messaging back and forth for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after I read this: "I've had message-versations with four or five guys in the past month, including two I met in person at Woody's monthly karaoke event...but those have all turned into me being ghosted." There are a lot of guys who put in their profiles, "Not interested in endless messaging" or similar (which I personally think is a little obnoxious), so I thought maybe the ones you were message-versing with were guys like that. Personally, most of the guys from OKC that I had good experiences with were those with whom I conversed in emails for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, before meeting. The ones that wanted to meet me right away, before I had more of a sense of what they were about, always turn out to be duds, weirdos, or problematic in some way.

But yeah, it's happened to me, too. Many times. Start a convo with someone and then they go poof. I hate it, but it is a common occurrence. A friend of mine has a theory: since there are many more women on dating sites than men, the men are like kids in a candy store and can hardly keep their attention in one place. She's monogamous and won't use dating sites because she thinks that any guy she meets online is constantly trawling the profiles for more eager women and will keep doing it even if he's started dating her, because she believes too many women are so desperate to find a "mate" that they throw themselves at the guys -- so the guys have their pick and will just go with the most willing women. So, with OKC, intelligent conversations are trumped by eagerness to meet and fuck right away. That's her theory, anyway.

I agree that much of that could be true. Plus, with apps nowadays like Tinder, when all someone puts out there is a picture, a lot of guys are getting used to hooking up without any conversation at all. However, of course, we can't generalize the behaviors of all men and all women and come up with a neatly packaged reason why things happen the way they do for ourselves. I know it's possible to make good connections with good people online, though they may be few and far between and getting there can be exhausting, and a bit disheartening as well.

Poly adds a whole other dimension to meeting people online. I guess the bottom line is that if that is the main way you feel you would be able to meet someone, you just have to keep persevering and not take things too personally. Ghosting happens to all of us.
 
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My difficulty with verbal communication is one of the main reasons I prefer chatting online before meeting. If I've developed some comfort in messaging someone, talking to them face to face will be easier. I can manage face to face conversations with people I don't know well, but it's exhausting for me because I constantly get tangled up in wondering if I'm talking too much, or not enough, or saying the wrong things, or taking too long to respond, or whatever. If I'm messaging in some format, I can see what I'm saying before the other person does, and it gives me more time to think and takes away the self-consciousness of having the other person staring at me waiting for me to say something.

That last bit is a problem no matter who I'm talking to, even with Woody or Hubby. Add in the communication issues Woody and I have because of phrasing things in a way that doesn't mean the same thing to the other, and sometimes I do better just being silent...

But some of this dating stuff is a case of me not humaning well, as someone else on here once put it. I know it's common for someone to bail in the middle of a conversation, but I don't understand why people do it, and to me it seems extremely rude and disrespectful. Same with someone interrupting me or talking over me in person, which happens with pretty much everyone I ever talk to. (I went off on Woody about it last week; he made me promise to tell him if he does that so he'll learn to recognize it and stop.) The only people I give a slight pass to on the cutting off/talking over are Country and Mouse, because they don't always recognize they're doing it, they just get something into their head and say it without thinking.

As for chatting too long, I think the longest I've chatted with someone before agreeing to meet was with S2, and that was only about 2 weeks. With Hubby and Guy, I didn't chat with them at all, other than saying hi to Hubby in a chat room on AFF. With Woody, I messaged him, forgot I'd done so, got a response a few days later when I happened to be on the site, and about fifteen minutes later we'd decided we wanted to meet. A day or so later, he messaged to set the day to meet, and three days after that--the day we actually met--after I'd given up on him, he messaged with a time and place.

With all four of those guys, when I met them face to face, I felt an instant "click" and was entirely comfortable with them pretty much from the beginning. No problems with conversation; with all four, neither of us ran out of things to say on first meeting. That's the kind of thing I look for when I meet someone in person; if the "click" isn't there, I thank them for their time and tell them I'm not interested, usually. Online, I sometimes feel a far milder "click" when i look at someone's profile, and those are the guys I message....but as I said, they rarely answer. Even the guys whose profiles say "I always answer messages, even if it's just to say I'm not interested" don't answer...
 
Yeah, I think interrupting is a really bad thing to do in a conversation, I try not to do it. Letting the other person finish what they're saying is part of good listening skills, I think.
 
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