Yesterday I chatted with two men separately from different parts of the UK who reached out. Both had experienced a door being slammed in their respective previous relationship and had not dated for a long time, one for over two years.
Enter P, an ex Army Royal Signals veteran who just does not seem to know what to do to meet someone. He says his friends keep nagging him to “get out there” but they don’t seem to be doing much else for him.
Quite a few guys seem to be put off by dating sites if they are looking for more than just a one night date. I’ve never tried one myself so can’t comment, however, someone I know did meet a nice guy and they got married last year after 8 years together. Guess it’s the luck of the draw; got to potentially kiss a lot of frogs…
Online chat sites are ok but it takes a while to get to know people and to discern who are just looking for a quick “bit of fun” or just chat bots or outright scammers from those who are genuine. It’s also inevitable that you might end getting close with someone who lives in a different country or time zone; long distance relationships can be quite hard to maintain.
As a woman, I know I get a significant number of men (and even possibly women posing as men) who are just after a bit of transient adult chat; it’s nasty and sometimes even makes me feel sick: opening lines such as “what colour panties are you wearing” is not a good intro …
Adding to the mix is the issue over messaging in general: you end up missing nuances, mis-understandings can occur and of course sometimes servers go slow or your internet dies and someone thinks you’ve just gone off without saying bye and therefore rude.
I also spoke to a manager from Edinburgh, who was still getting over his ex cheating on him. While she has since moved away to Dundee, it was clear that he had huge trust issues and was unable to allow himself to open up to someone and potentially get hurt again.
I did my best to encourage P to start joining friends on nights out because at this festive time of the year, who knows who you might meet at a bar or pub who is also single. Hopefully he will keep some mistletoe in his pocket!
With the manager, it was slightly harder, but I hope he got to understand that being vulnerable with someone doesn’t make you weak. The right person will realise where you’re coming from and know how to make you always feel comfortable about the relationship and never doubt that they may be straying with other guys.
As I’ve said before, it really boils down to having clear and honest conversations which isn’t always easy to do when we are having fun in the initial “rosy tinted spectacle” stage of a new connection. We don’t want it to end and we could therefore ignore all the red flags and more importantly what our gut is telling us.
However, if we don’t say what we need from a partner and open up about how past experiences have shaped us, then we may spend too long with someone who can’t understand us or may not meet our needs in the long run, and that can be far more traumatic.
Are you struggling with finding a new partner after a break up or divorce?
