Ok, so I'm on day, what, 3? of my 2nd online dating experiment (on
plentyoffish) and already starting to lose faith in the system. So I've sent out 8 messages, 7 of which have been read (it bothers me that you can see that information by the way). Only 2 guys have responded
Ouch. Anyway, so on first day of doing this, one of the guys I messaged works in my field (film/tv). While I don't normally go for film guys and I think it's a little too risky to date them (you never know who you'll end up working with on a project), he was pretty cute so I thought I'd give it a shot. At least we had something in common I could mention to make the introductory message less awkward, right? Anyway, so he responded within about 20 minutes of my sent message. He wrote me two messages, which should've been a tip off but I didn't think much of it because the second one was kind of "oh I forgot to ask..." Nor did I think much of the quick response because maybe he just happened to be online at the same time. I responded a few hours later and had another response from him 11 minutes later. Clearly this guy needs to get a life. I didn't actually see the message until the next day and I've been very busy the past few days catching up at work and settling in after being gone for the holidays (not to mention getting ready for New Year's Eve) so I didn't have time to respond when I read the message.
So I get online today with the intent of responding to his message because I had a little extra time and I have a message from him that says, "and like that... you disappear"
Yikes. High maintenance much?
I was tempted to respond that I was sorry I was busy so that he wouldn't feel like I'm a bitch who just disappeared (not that I was all that interested in him once I found out he's the starving artist living with his parents type of film person but I was still going to respond), but I'm not going to because I've lost all interest in him. If he's this clingy now, imagine how he must be in a relationship? I'm not going to deal with that.
While I'm not into playing games and playing hard to get, I also don't like clingy. So a word of advice everyone: back off! Sometimes people are busy and you shouldn't take a delay in their response personally. And honestly, it's INTERNET DATING. If they don't respond at all, so what? You're probably never going to meet them (and if you do, you probably won't even realize it). As the website name suggests, there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Move on. Only 2 of the 7 guys who read my messages responded, and yeah, it stings a little. But I'll get over it. It's nothing personal. They just didn't think I was right for them. And I'm certainly not going to message them again like a psychopath saying "why haven't you messaged me back?!"
On the plus side, the other guy who responded to my message seems normal (so far). I think I will need to exchange a few more messages with him in order to really judge that though.
Comments (2)
I have so been there. Honestly, with all due respect to Jill above, you need high standards on the internet, because I'll tell you--if you give these guys the benefit of the doubt for their online behavior, you'll regret it. Your standards are not too high and you're very right for writing the clingy guy off. I would have done the same. Just because a guy shows interest doesn't mean he's actually someone you want to date. And if he's showing that much interest after only a couple messages exchanged...holy crap. In the words of Monty Python's The Holy Grail: Run away! Run away!
-Katie