OkCupid is too good, thanks DrSkipper

I thought more about it and I will modify your rule to say that I will not date anyone with mh issues unless high functioning. Meaning, won't pick up guys from the residential treatment center where I was placed four years ago when then H refused to take me. Home after inpatient.

This guy Randy is clearly high functioning. I read the LINKEDIN profile and saw no issues with professional functioning. He talks of a craft hobby and meetings with other hobbyist guys he hosts in his apartment regularly, so normal socialization. Finally, he is polyamorous but does not report a whole lot of poly part of the word. Reports regularly seeing someone named Jennifer who is married and lives within an hoour and a half drive away so for these two reasons they do not meet often. But he consistently reports going to this restaurant with her or doing ABC or XYZ with her which gives an impression of a normal relationship. So high functioning in relationshps as well. I think I can live with all this. I think it is a decent compromise.

We also did some light kissing and he is extremely sweet. Not in a sexually arousing way, no, but just very very tender and sweet. So overall I feel that I lucked out on him and am glad that he found me.

One guy on okcupid messaged me saying he and I have a lot in common. He wrote in his profile that he was in a sexless marriage and was looking for a sexual partner. I shut that down real fast. Jerk. After I told him to get lost he changed his status from 'married' to 'available'.

lol I love that emote.

My experiences dating online were...very, very subpar, to say the extreme least. Like, "Catfish" levels of subpar. YMMV, of course...but I've been wary since my debacle. But that's purely me.

How'd your date go HB?

It went well and I invited him over on Sunday to eat. Later on Sunday he will go home to watch the Superbowl, which is the only professionals sports event he watches. And I do not have a TV for that. He told me he does not care about the shape of my apartment and that his apartment is very cluttered and he cannot even blame an ex for that. So I just need to cook and I have not done it in a couple of months.

Since we have already discussed his work and my work, his childhood and my childhood, his mental health and my mental health, his relatives and mine, and in particular when his grandmother died and when my grandmother died (both at 90+), his former and current partners and mine, his cat and my cats, and everything else that can possibly be discussed, and he is nice and sweet and appreciative and all the rest of that, I plan to try and have sex with him on Sunday and see how it goes, because otherwise I am completely out of ideas of what else to do with him. Someone on the Relationships and Communications forum suggested bowling, and I thought about it, but decided against it because I just do not see myself being keenly interested in how well he does bowling. I deeply do not care and feel that we can safely skip that stage.

lol Well, heck of a Superbowl Sunday, it sounds like.

I would have to ask, and you know I don't mean any offense, but based on what you've said about him, things seem to be getting a little...stagnant, as far as substantive relationship things go. Frankly, you sound a little...bored, if I may say so. Would sleeping with him help (long term...lol I won't argue that if things go well, a Superbowl Sunday followed by...well, you know...is a heck of an evening )? It seems to me like sex as you propose it is more of a last ditch effort to keep the spark going, which I'm not sure is viable long term.

Not trying to interject myself where not wanted. Just offering advice to a friend, is all.

I am curious as to what it would feel like having sex with him. He is extremely, extremely sweet. Sweet and gentle. I have never been around someone so sweet and gentle. No, I do not expect earth shattering sex with him but I think it can be very nice. But I cannot tell without having had the experience - I am not good even at weather forecasts. Yes, it does seem like we are already sort of close friends who have known each other for ages - you are right spotting that. But I have a suspicion that I am just not set up the right way in the first place and become sexually attracted to the wrong people. Say, I still would have loved to have sex with ex 2nd H even though I know that he has abused me through and through, taken everything that I have had of value, and ruined my career and life in general. But I still find him attractive. So there might be something in my internal set-up. Therefore, if I keep looking for strong sparks, I am afraid that I will be drawn to a wrong person. I might need years of T to correct what is wrong with me. So I do the opposite now - I first interview and evaluate people, ascertain that they are good for me, and then decide if to proceed with having sex with them. I have interviewed Randy through and through and he is good for me. He even has a record of living with a woman who was recovering from domestic abuse, and he helped her with that. This is very commendable in my book. While I do not intend to USE him in that way (no, I do NOT - I am just looking for a friendly casual r/s on equal terms), I did make sure that he is not abusive.

I certainly do not recommend that YOU go by such unusual rules in your dating, because you do not have such unusual history that I have, but I am just explaining where I am coming from and how I have developed my criteria for partner selection.

Oh no worries HB. I understand your perspective, and I completely understand your mindset of still being attracted to your ex 2nd H. I still occasionally get an emotional pang or two (lol perhaps among others... ) for my ex, and that was an utter nightmare. I wouldn't go so far as to compare the two...just offering my closest experience.

He sounds like a great guy, and offering so much to someone in the example you posed in the woman he helped is certainly commendable. I just want HB to be happy in the long term, is all, and hence my post.

I would not have done it. I would have written: "Thank you for your interest and thanks for putting me on notice about your marriage situation. My personal rule is to date men who are either single or divorced. I wish you luck in everything."

An analogy - many years ago I was interviewed by a NYC law firm for a summer associate position. The woman who was my main interviewer went on and on about her tobacco defense practice. Tobacco defense was hot in the 1990s. I happened to think that it was wrong to engage in tobacco defense - that the firm was on the wrong side of the road, so to speak. The firm gave me an offer. I wrote a nice thank you letter rejecting the offer. I did not write that I disapproved of the firm's involvement in and earning money from tobacco defense, because nobody asked for my opinion on that matter. They were nice enough to extend their offer, and I reciprocated with being nice enough to thank them for it and reject it in a polite way.

In your situation, you think that it is wrong of him to seek another sexual partner while remaining in a sexless marriage. Did he ask for your opinion on that matter? He did not. So your reaction was unsolicited.

I believe that even though it is a quasi-anonymous online environment, the same rules of polite and courteous behavior apply as everywhere else.

Not that I think that you did anything horrible, of course, Yoda, but just offering to treat this environment just as we treat other environments with offers and rejections (jobs, college placement, graduate programs, internships, and so on and so forth). In those environments, if we do not like something, we are either nice enough to take the trouble and write a short thank-you-rejection letter, or we ignore the offers altogether and do not bother. Anything else is uncalled for.

Thank you Harley! Yes, according to his story which I do not have reasons to doubt, he went to great lengths. The woman expected him to lose his temper every time she (in her mind of course) did something wrong - because her previous partner did that. Randy, every time it happened, assured her that he is not this kind of guy, that he would not lose his temper, and that she did nothing wrong in the first place. And that repeated again and again, many times, until the woman became more confident and less fearful. That he had the patience to repeat the same thing to the woman again and again without getting annoyed that she is not getting the message instantly is great, I think. I imagine that it would have been difficult for me to say the same reassuring sentence again and again.

Something came up in my personal life and with a deadline, so I spent all day writing a letter yesterday, reshceduling Randy for next Sunday. So no report from me at all.

Aw well that sucks. Hope whatever you're working with gets resolved soon.

I emailed Randy saying that I have not cooked in several months, to lower his expectations about the food part of the date.

lol I'm sure you'll be fine Hamster. As a guy, I think I speak for most of my gender in saying that if you cook it, 99% of the time we'll eat it with a smile on our face.

Randy liked the food. We kissed a bit and I did not particularly like it, so I told him that unfortunately I needed to do something for the rest of the evening because in truth I wanted to think more about it. Before he left, he rubbed my bare arms end to end in a simple way and I liked it very much. Overall I am unsure of my next steps. I will see him again and play it by ear.

Oh and for the record he told me that he takes a medication for anxiety but did not refill it in time so ran out and apologized in advance of the evening, but I did not notice anything unusual.

Randy has been writing long letters and in the last one invited to celebrate his birthday at his apartment on Sunday night. This opens up the dilemma for me again: what to do after dinner. I guess I will play it by ear. I accepted his invitation.

On the plus side, the letters are written in perfect English without ANY lapses, not even lapses in punctuation, and since this is something I care deeply about, I find it encouraging.

hamster what is your okcupid username?

Let me keep it private .

Re: Randy's mental health: during the last dinner, he dropped the word "Asperger's" talking about fitting in socially while in school; I was not clear if it was his official dx. That is OK, either way.

He changed his plans re: birthday. He decided that his apartment was too cluttered for him to invite me. I was surprised; he visited me a couple of weeks ago and I highly doubt that his (or anybody's, for that matter) apartment is more cluttered than mine, but whatever. So we had dinner at a restaurant instead. Nothing more.