what are the best value dating sites?

lou--b

Another update from me!
Mondays date was changed to Wed, my fault, was busy Monday. Anyway turned up at agreed meeting place to find that his profile pic was at least 5yrs old lol. I would have walked right passed him if he hadnt seen me, looked nothing like his photo. Didnt want to be rude so thought Id have the coffee anyway. He had other plans...a trip to...B&Q!!!! How romantic! Needless to say it just went downhill from there, I made my excuses and left.
Onwards to Thursday
Arranged to meet halfway as we live quite a distance apart. Met at a beautiful wee beach (we both enjoy walks on the beach) He was there before me so had the chance to check him out as I parked the car lol. He was exactly as his pic. We walked and talked for ages, no awkward silences then went for a coffee. Could have sat there with him all night. He was lovely. Walked me to my car at the end of the date where we talked more, don't think any of us wanted it to end. Now as a dating virgin (Wed doesn't count!) I wasn't sure how to "say goodbye". Luckily for me, he was!! Got a lovely wee snog (he asked first!!) Been texting ever since, wants to take me somewhere nice on Monday. The best part...Im actually looking forward to it.
You may also remember my very first date cancelling on me as he had met someone IRL, well we became friends on facebook anyway and have been chatting on there a fair bit. He has given me lots of dating advice. He thinks its best to add someone on FB before meeting as you can check them out, make sure they're not married, check photos for the ring! Get a last name if not on fb and google them! keep a spare sim card so you are not giving out your real number. Still not met him IRL but as FB friends we get on like a house on fire. We are going for that drink next week (on a friends basis) so will keep you all posted. As far as Im concerned you can never have enough friends.
Good luck to everyone.

Lou

LisaB85

Still dating the guy I met in Jan but trying to work out what to do. He is a nice guy and would do pretty much anything I asked BUT I just feel like I can't be arsed with him and come across as grumpy which he hasn't mentioned but he must have noticed.

AND

I don't really want to have 'you know' with him which is unlike me.

Now the issue is I can't work out if he is not right for me or if I am just depressed/stressed in general as I am grumpy with a few people in my life. I am dealing with a fair bit of stress which is why I am trying to work out if that is the reason for it.

Any ideas on how to work out why I feel like this and how to rectify it?

lara_412

Hi everyone, have been a long-term lurker of this thead and am in need of some advice so though I would post!

I'm going to try and shortern the full story down, as I don't want to take over the thread lol.

Basically:

- I met a man off POF about a month ago. We soon met and had a quick coffee but we haven't seen each other since as he had to go abroad for work commitments. He is back in March.

- We've had long conversations and routinely send each other emails every day. He keeps telling me he has fallen for me. I haven't told him that I feel the same (because I was unsure whether I did or not).

- He told me he only had one child. I then found out he really has 6 kids!!! I was upset when I found out and confronted him. He admitted he lied and apologised. Me being me, I accepted his apology but his lie really did give me lots of doubts. At this point friends were telling me to get out of there because he could be lying about anything couldn't he?

- He is much, much older than me too. I know age-gap relationships can work, but I am only in my early 20's and he is in his late 30's. I just don't understand what he would want from me? He routinely told me he didn't want just sex. I am a student and he is a fully grown man with a good job, a car, a house etc. What does he want from me? :S

- I found out he is best friends with his ex wife. They are very close apparently. Friends have also said he might still be married and just looking for something on the side.

- He does get angry sometimes, and a part of me was wondering whether he had anger issues.

He asked me on another date for the beginning of March. He wanted to cook for me, watch a movie etc.

I kept feeling so many doubts and saw so many red-flags that I cancelled on him yesterday and told him I was unsure of his intentions. I also told him I didn't want a guy who lied to me.

Did I do the right thing? He's not speaking to me now and I feel a little sad because I enjoyed talking to him, I just couldn't ignore my bad gut feeling.

Any other advice would be fantastic. I am feeling very sad tonight & I can't sleep because of it. I just want to speak to him, but he won't talk to me.

mgdavid

lara_412 wrote: »

Hi everyone, have been a long-term lurker of this thead and am in need of some advice so though I would post!

I'm going to try and shortern the full story down, as I don't want to take over the thread lol.

Basically:

- I met a man off POF about a month ago. We soon met and had a quick coffee but we haven't seen each other since as he had to go abroad for work commitments. He is back in March.

- We've had long conversations and routinely send each other emails every day. He keeps telling me he has fallen for me. I haven't told him that I feel the same (because I was unsure whether I did or not).

- He told me he only had one child. I then found out he really has 6 kids!!! I was upset when I found out and confronted him. He admitted he lied and apologised. Me being me, I accepted his apology but his lie really did give me lots of doubts. At this point friends were telling me to get out of there because he could be lying about anything couldn't he?

- He is much, much older than me too. I know age-gap relationships can work, but I am only in my early 20's and he is in his late 30's. I just don't understand what he would want from me? He routinely told me he didn't want just sex. I am a student and he is a fully grown man with a good job, a car, a house etc. What does he want from me? :S

- I found out he is best friends with his ex wife. They are very close apparently. Friends have also said he might still be married and just looking for something on the side.

- He does get angry sometimes, and a part of me was wondering whether he had anger issues.

He asked me on another date for the beginning of March. He wanted to cook for me, watch a movie etc.

I kept feeling so many doubts and saw so many red-flags that I cancelled on him yesterday and told him I was unsure of his intentions. I also told him I didn't want a guy who lied to me.

Did I do the right thing? He's not speaking to me now and I feel a little sad because I enjoyed talking to him, I just couldn't ignore my bad gut feeling.

Any other advice would be fantastic. I am feeling very sad tonight & I can't sleep because of it. I just want to speak to him, but he won't talk to me.

you've done absolutely the right thing IMHO; plenty of warning signs there, you can't just ignore them. Stay well clear.

missmontana

Personally I'd stay well clear of him, I've met guys like this who "work abroad" you never really know where they are or what they are doing.

You've done the right thing by standing up to him. If you are emailing him begging to talk, don't, he'll just be biding his time before he replies, its probably all a game, if you do back down and agree to another date, make sure he takes you out somewhere, much safer and easier to leave if at any point you feel uncomfortable.

Mrs_Huggett

Lara-412 You have done the right thing by cancelling, he is likely to be lying through his teeth, and to lie about the existence of at least 5 of your children? When you say he hasn't spoken to you since you cancelled on him it is probably because he has moved on to the next victim of his charms. Classic sign also is the working away story, unless you drove him to the airport with a colleague of his and they backed up his story........or similar!! He was working away to keep you on the back burner, while he went through his list of ladies maybe? I am helping my mate out at the mo, and I have posted on this thread about her situation, she is twice your age, and trust me honey these blokes that are in her age range seem to be mostly dodgy lol!! Just had another thought, maybe his wife caught him out and he had to lie low for a while? Hence the working away? It all seems too contrived to me, but good luck with it if you decide to carry it on.

In the meantime my poor friend has had one date, the man was clearly very nervous, and she felt that he may have underlying mental health issues, which has just made her very sad for him, as he was a very nice person, but she doubts if she will see him again, and I can't say I blame her, she does have another date sorted out for next weekend and he is very suited to her lifestyle and personality wise so I am hopeful for her, I want her to meet someone nice so she has every support from me, and my family.

Victoriahl

I too have been following this thread for a while with interest- it's great to hear that so many people meet genuinely nice people off the dating sites!

However, Lara-412, I don't think your guy sounds like one of them... If he's lying about how many children he's got, then what kind of start is that for any relationship? There are so many warning signs (working away, the lies, the anger) that no matter how much you feel you get on via email, it doesn't sound like you're really knowing the 'real him'.
I'd call it a day now- it's easy getting swept along when you're used to hearing from somebody on a regular basis- you don't want to lose that contact, but I'd try and take a step back and see it as your friends are seeing it, and be a bit more logical about things rather than thinking with your emotions.
It's amazing how quickly you'll look back and think "what was I thinking" if you start chatting to somebody new, who's more genuine than this guy appears to be.

I went out with a guy I met online via Soulmates; we went out together for 18 months and really got on and he was great, but from the start he was constantly online and always logging onto the site. He said he just wanted to read the messages he was still receiving and that it was just curiosity- making out I was paranoid and jealous. But it transpiredafter we split up, that for the whole time we were going out together, he was on other dating sites I didn't know about, messaging random women on facebook, even putting gay sex ads online (?!). Needless to say, we are no more!
But if I'd listened to my gut instinct about his behaviour from the start, instead of trying to believe his excuses that he wasn't up to anything, then I'd have been saved months of feeling a bit paranoid all of the time.

I've recently gone back onto PoF after reading some of the positive responses off here, and been on a date with a guy a couple of times and we're due to go out again on Thursday- so onwards and upwards! I'm not sure if the spark's there but we really get on and have a laugh so we'll see (he doesn't appear to be an online sex addict so far anyway...!)
Also joined OkCupid too- just to maximise any dating possibilities, so I'm feeling quite optimistic today.

Thanks everyone!

Mrs_Huggett

Something interesting happened yesterday! My friend had joined a particular dating site and paid for a month, after getting a couple of really nice looking chaps sending her messages and some others looking at her profile etc. There was one guy in particular that appeared in the first 24 hrs, now when she joined up she sent a message to this one guy and got a polite refusal. After the first day of the months membership being up, and after a couple of emails urging her to rejoin, and no response from her the same guy suddenly appears with the same sp ie: so and so has just viewed your profile blah blah blah, I am thinking of contacting the company to ask them if they think it is fair to mis sell thier product in this way, Mmmmm... What do you all think, and have you heard of this sort of thing happening?

VestanPance

It would be difficult to prove that a profile viewing was anything but a profile viewing. You'd need to have proof the account is fake and set up by the company in order to prove the site was using underhand tactics to generate sign-ups.

Depending on how often someone uses the site and how many profiles they look at when the visit they may not always remember who they've viewed or not. Remember viewing a profile isn't a sure sign of interest. They could view a profile and think 'nah, not for me' or 'oh, it's her/him'

What happened doesn't sound particularly suspicious to me. If you're friend is no longer an active member she should have an option to delete her account or at the least no longer receive notifications of messages/viewings.

Mrs_Huggett

Just a bit sus though Vestanpance, especially when he had sent a message saying "Sorry I don't think I'm the right person for you, but good luck with your search" lol!!! Why does this particular person then decide 24 hours after the expiration of her months subscription to pop back up with the same format, Oh and ANOTHER thing, just because someone has declared thier preference for dating outside of thier own race, doesn't mean they should have to endure nasty messages as has happened on two other sites, they have given us some entertainment though, and then we have reported them.