Relationship Woes and Advice 25: Now with extra Valentine

[dehro]

yeah... what she said.

[rogueboy]

With internet dating websites like okcupid, people stop conversations for any number of reasons. The short responses you say she gave implies that maybe she wasn't interested in you to begin with after skimming your profile and initially responded to be polite

Always a possibility; I guess I was going off my own tendencies - if I'm doing something to be polite (rather than because I want to), it tends not to be a particularly fast response. Like I said earlier, more general frustration/annoyance than anything about her in particular. She just happened to be the trigger for my quasi-rant. But now it's bedtime, and hopefully I'll be in a better mood tomorrow.

[Lissou]

I'm a bit frustrated right now. There have been two events related to jobs and relationships recently. The first one was infuriating: my husband, who teaches in an all-girl institute (post-secondary, so everyone is an adult) was accused by someone from a previous class of harassment. There was an enquiry and it turns out the accusations came from the fact that he mentioned being polyamorous, which somehow got twisted into "he tried to get students to have group sex with him and his wife", which isn't something either of us would be interested in in the first place even if it wasn't wildly appropriate. (Neither of us is in casual sex, I have no interest in women and we favour one-on-one sex).

The other issue makes the first one ironic (or not, depending on whether I'm using the word right): it's at my job. I got a job recently and quickly moved up the ladder, which is nice and good for my career, but also means that my former coworkers, or I guess my former equals, are now my subordinates.

The problem is that I really go along with one of the guys, I like him a lot, and if/when I officially get the promotion (it's one of those "everybody knows this is your job now but we haven't officially made it your job title" thing right now) then company policy means nothing can happen.
Realistically, what will happen is that I will never try anything with him. I'm probably moving within 6 months or so as my husband is changing jobs (he was cleared by he still doesn't feel good at this job anymore, he said the whole work environment feels toxic to him now) but wants to end the semester first so the students don't end up being the ones paying the price. The move means I wouldn't be his supervisor anymore and could ask him out, but I would also be moving to a different state and so there are chances it wouldn't work out so well.

Plus, while I think he likes me, we never actually did anything outside of work before my promotion, and now I don't know if even wanting to hang out as friends would end up looking bad for both of us.

Part of me is thinking I should just ask him, see what he says, and quit if it's yes. Another part thinks I've worked hard and shouldn't sabotage my career (even though I have 3 jobs right now so I'd have 2 left, enough for paying my share of the bills). And of course with the incident at my husband's job, I don't want to make the guy feel harassed and I'm actually worried about coming out as poly at all now, even though I've never hidden it before (but this job is new enough that it didn't really come up since I only have the one partner right now)

I'm not really looking for advice (although I'll take it) but I'm definitely annoyed about the whole thing.

Oh, and of course there is no reason to believe the guy would be interested in the first place. We get along but that doesn't mean anything. I would really like to pursue at least the friendship though, but asking to hang out outside of work just seems like it could backfire a lot considering the current circumstances.

[Aedilred]

Oh, and of course there is no reason to believe the guy would be interested in the first place. We get along but that doesn't mean anything. I would really like to pursue at least the friendship though, but asking to hang out outside of work just seems like it could backfire a lot considering the current circumstances.

I don't think there's anything inappropriate in a manager socialising with their employees/team outside work. In all the jobs I've had, it was common and even encouraged, and the idea that it would be seen as somehow wrong is kind of baffling. Maybe it's a different work culture. Of course if you're perceived to be handing out favours to your friends over and above their colleagues, that could cause difficulties, but it shouldn't be too hard to maintain a personal/professional detachment and it is not a problem in and of itself.

Of course the waters are muddied if you enter some kind of physical relationship with them and while I still don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with it it tends not to be taken so well, and if your workplace has specific regulations against it then obviously it's a no-no.

So I'd say there was no harm in pursuing a social relationship with him outside of work, but not to take it further unless your circumstances change. I would also advise not junking your career over it, and it's probably worth waiting to determine what is definitely going to happen at your end before making any decisions there.

[Chen]

Of course the waters are muddied if you enter some kind of physical relationship with them and while I still don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with it it tends not to be taken so well, and if your workplace has specific regulations against it then obviously it's a no-no.

The power imbalance between a boss and worker is a considerable problem in relationships IMO. It's the same general reason you don't want teachers hooking up with students, even if both student and teacher are adults.

[Lissou]

My workplace does have a rule against relationships between two people if one is subordinate to the other. I can understand the reasoning, there is potential for blackmail and harassment, so it makes sense to me. What makes less sense to me is that we used to be on the exact same level and so the relationship is very much like that, but the rule has changed. If we had dated before, would I have been deemed unfit for the promotion? It's tricky.

Yeah, throwing away my career makes little sense. I think I'll just try to hang out with him outside of work and be friends, and I'll see if my circumstances change, as you said. It's possible he'll be moved to a position where I'm not his supervisor anymore for instance. Then I can ask and see. Or I might notice through socializing that we're not a good fit, or something.

[Jon_Dahl]

I always want to prepare things well in advance and I like to think myself as "a-man-with-a-plan", so...

Now that I've been doing internet dating for a month or so, I have about six interested women. I manage to keep in touch with all of them every day, even though taking turns in Skype is a real pain in the butt. And now the question:

Should I somehow inform the women that I'm showing interest to other women too, and I'm planning to cut the rest of the women out of my life at some point and just continue with the Chosen One? If so, how should I do it? Out of the six woman, three are really into me, saying stuff like "forever yours" etc. I feel bad that I just read this stuff and then I proceed to read the messages of another woman.

I think I basically have these four options:
1. I'm the interested, devoted guy to all six, but I tell no lies and I don't say "I love you", unless I really mean it. No half-truths, no lies, no crap. In the end, I just do what I what to do. Until then, everyone is "the only woman for me".
2. I ask them if they write with other men, and I make it sound like "yeah, sure you do!" and then I mention that I have received other replies too (on the internet dating website). I refuse to say anything more than this, unless the woman tells me more about the other men that have send her messages.
3. I'm perfectly honest to each one that I'm exchanging messages with five other women. That's it.
4. I just go with the flow and relax.

I'd like to have quick advice on this because I have to write an e-mail soon to a girl who is in love with me :-/

[RabbitHoleLost]

Woah woah woah
Lemme get this straight
You've only been dating these women for a month and atleast one of them is in love with you, with more than one saying things like "forever yours"?
I'm more concerned about how quickly that's moving, especially since it seems pretty casual on your end so far

I'd definitely bring up that you aren't being exclusive, especially to the one who's in love with you after a month
It might not turn out well, but you definitely have to be honest about your intentions

[Jon_Dahl]

Woah woah woah
Lemme get this straight
You've only been dating these women for a month and atleast one of them is in love with you, with more than one saying things like "forever yours"?
I'm more concerned about how quickly that's moving, especially since it seems pretty casual on your end so far

I'd definitely bring up that you aren't being exclusive, especially to the one who's in love with you after a month
It might not turn out well, but you definitely have to be honest about your intentions

Hmm, so I guess you're saying that I should go with the option #2, right? I will do that with one of the ladies and see how (badly) it goes.

[Lissou]

I think at this point, since you know at least one of them is seriously attached to you, it's definitely misleading to say nothing. People tend to assume monogamy (and hell, even you want it in the end, and to break up with all the other ones) and I don't think it would be fair to just keep going the way you have. For all you know, they have been refusing all other opportunities to be "faithful" to you, while honesty could have allowed them to look for someone who's actually right for them, too.

I definitely think you should come clean, and in the future mention that you're dating around early on because in my experience, people don't really assume it. And even if they did, it wouldn't hurt to mention it again.

[Jon_Dahl]

I think at this point, since you know at least one of them is seriously attached to you, it's definitely misleading to say nothing. People tend to assume monogamy (and hell, even you want it in the end, and to break up with all the other ones) and I don't think it would be fair to just keep going the way you have. For all you know, they have been refusing all other opportunities to be "faithful" to you, while honesty could have allowed them to look for someone who's actually right for them, too.

I definitely think you should come clean, and in the future mention that you're dating around early on because in my experience, people don't really assume it. And even if they did, it wouldn't hurt to mention it again.

The worst part is that I was keeping touch with one of them before and we were showing mutual interest, but then I fell in love with another woman, so I quit with her. Now that the relationship ended, I pled her to take me back, and we are kind of dating again (no promises are made), but I'm unsatisfied with the whole thing and thinking about quitting with her again :(

[FinnLassie]

I've said this so many times, Jon, and my point still stands: you need to lay off from the dating game for a while. You're jumping back into this stuff way too soon. Honestly, having a break from all sorts of relationship drama will just do you good.

This will also be the last time I'll say this, since I feel like you're not taking on the advice at all anyway.

[Jon_Dahl]

This will also be the last time I'll say this, since I feel like you're not taking on the advice at all anyway.

That's not fair since this forum and the predecessor of this thread were a MAJOR catalyst which gave me the courage to break up with my ex-gf 6 months ago and I'm forever grateful for that. I'm serious. If I don't take any advice at all, then how come I was thinking about the things that the playgrounders had told me here when I wrote the final e-mail to my gf whom I had dated for 6 years? I'm guessing that you simply missed all that, so I forgive you.

How obediently I should follow your advice in order to be worthwhile to receive advice at all?

[Jon_Dahl]

Ok, here's what I'm going to do... I'm going to just ask them if they are curious if I have received contacts from other women since, after all, I have a profile in a dating site. Then they will either say that "HELL NO!" or ask me about it, in which case I will be perfectly open about everything.

[Serpentine]

Tiny yayness interlude: I went out on a limb and tracked down a super-cute dude I saw out at an event last week, contacted him, and ended up at a performance he was involved in last night. I was stupidly awkward for a while, but then we got a couple of drinks and he ended up missing his train and staying at my place, where we accidentally flicked through a book about music until dawn, when he slept on my couch and ended up leaving before I got up but leaving a very nice note behind (which he said might happen). Also at one point he borrowed a busker's viola and randomly started playing it, and another time he struck up a conversation with a Brit at the pub and ended up with a contact in Melbourne's professional art scene.
He's a poet, musician, actor, author, and artist, plays tabletop RPGs, and likes cats. He is a touch wanky and full of himself, but within acceptable levels. I don't think he's interested in me, which is a bummer, and he lives in another (nearby) city, which is inconvenient, but he seems to be interested in meeting up again, and it's nice having someone to moon over for a while.
Did I mention he's super cute? Spot-on my physical type.

[super dark33]

I couldnt find a time to respond to the very nice advices you gave due to being an overpriced knob, but ill still like to thank you about them!

Well, overpriced knob and also very anxious about this post (Three times i was just about to post this before scrapping it all), in which i ask for more specific advice about Teh Romancizationings.

The only hitting on people i ever did or ever done to me was at a fight in the 7th grade (In which i won, good times...) which means that the likely attempt at romance ill do will include broken jaws. Besides that, im clueless when it comes to sense motive of anything positive, I dont know when people might hit on me- if they ever do, i dont know if they ever will!
While I have no self image problems, I dont know if the mech im living inside is considered great by the standards of any culture.

So main thing again is "I dont know, pls halp".

[Ursus the Grim]

That's not fair since this forum and the predecessor of this thread were a MAJOR catalyst which gave me the courage to break up with my ex-gf 6 months ago and I'm forever grateful for that. I'm serious. If I don't take any advice at all, then how come I was thinking about the things that the playgrounders had told me here when I wrote the final e-mail to my gf whom I had dated for 6 years? I'm guessing that you simply missed all that, so I forgive you.

How obediently I should follow your advice in order to be worthwhile to receive advice at all?

Jon, I understand your frustration, but I think you're getting a bit defensive.

Its not so much that Finn (and the others who share her view) are saying "you picked out a blue shirt? After I told you you look bad in green? See if I ever help you again!"

Its like this. You've got a pot of water - you're boiling eggs. I don't know why, eggs are disgusting unless they're scrambled, but bear with me. You take one egg out and start to peel off the shell only to realize its rotten - and has been for six years. Jon, that's a bad egg. You can't eat that. So you do the sensible thing and write that egg an email. Then, you reach back into the pot, with your bare hand, and grab another egg. The water's hot, but you don't care, you think that next egg is going to be good - but just in case, you try to grab a few more eggs, risking scalds just to hedge against the chance of getting another rotten egg. After all, if you have plenty of eggs, one of them has to be good, right? Jon, those eggs are hot, you can't hold so many eggs! Screw you, you think, and you juggle them. After all, you like eggs. Why would you put them down before you figure out if they're rotten?

The problem is, Jon, that you can't juggle eggs forever. Nobody wants to see you with egg on your face.

Tiny yayness interlude: I went out on a limb and tracked down a super-cute dude I saw out at an event last week, contacted him, and ended up at a performance he was involved in last night. I was stupidly awkward for a while, but then we got a couple of drinks and he ended up missing his train and staying at my place, where we accidentally flicked through a book about music until dawn, when he slept on my couch and ended up leaving before I got up but leaving a very nice note behind (which he said might happen). Also at one point he borrowed a busker's viola and randomly started playing it, and another time he struck up a conversation with a Brit at the pub and ended up with a contact in Melbourne's professional art scene.
He's a poet, musician, actor, author, and artist, plays tabletop RPGs, and likes cats. He is a touch wanky and full of himself, but within acceptable levels. I don't think he's interested in me, which is a bummer, and he lives in another (nearby) city, which is inconvenient, but he seems to be interested in meeting up again, and it's nice having someone to moon over for a while.
Did I mention he's super cute? Spot-on my physical type.

Yay!

I'm living vicariously through stories of happiness these days. Keep 'em coming.

[Jon_Dahl]

Jon, I understand your frustration, but I think you're getting a bit defensive.

Its not so much that Finn (and the others who share her view) are saying "you picked out a blue shirt? After I told you you look bad in green? See if I ever help you again!"

Its like this. You've got a pot of water - you're boiling eggs. I don't know why, eggs are disgusting unless they're scrambled, but bear with me. You take one egg out and start to peel off the shell only to realize its rotten - and has been for six years. Jon, that's a bad egg. You can't eat that. So you do the sensible thing and write that egg an email. Then, you reach back into the pot, with your bare hand, and grab another egg. The water's hot, but you don't care, you think that next egg is going to be good - but just in case, you try to grab a few more eggs, risking scalds just to hedge against the chance of getting another rotten egg. After all, if you have plenty of eggs, one of them has to be good, right? Jon, those eggs are hot, you can't hold so many eggs! Screw you, you think, and you juggle them. After all, you like eggs. Why would you put them down before you figure out if they're rotten?

The problem is, Jon, that you can't juggle eggs forever. Nobody wants to see you with egg on your face.

Is it bad if I laughed hard at the point where I wrote an e-mail? Thank Ursus_Grim for the sensible and humoristic approach to the issue. I will think about this and really think what want to do with my life.

[TFT]

Have an update(Less of advice-seeking and more of a off my chest type thing):

TL;DR last post: Asked girl out, said she wasn't ready for a relationship because of a bad breakup. Panic over how I deal with the situation.

Now:

Ever since I asked her out, we've gotten a lot closer. We're still doing the weekly/biweekly lunches we've always done, but on top of it we've been to the movies twice this week, the first time just me and her and the second time us with a few of my friends, albeit last minute. We're now talking on facebook for at least an hour or so pretty much every night where we hardly did before. And there's been a bit of flirting and a lot of laughs.

Also, I had a mutual friend randomly come tell me a couple of days after I asked her out, she went to our mutual friend for advice, but the only thing she said about it was that it was "good for you". I really don't want to read too much into that but figure I should add it.

With all that said, at this point we're not officially dating. As much as I'm fine with the situation as is, at some point the question of whether or not we're officially dating should be addressed. Or does it need to be? That's part of what I'm not sure of. I figure if a couple more weeks go by and it's still this ambiguous situation I'll bring it up, but I also know the ball is in her court after asking her out, especially considering how her last relationship ended.

I think part of me knows that I just need to give it time, but impatience and over thinking are getting the better of me.

[Llewelyn]

Not sure if this is really asking for advice or not, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest, and writing it out may at least help me think things through further or at least get me out of chasing my own tail. That said:

Spoiler

Show

I met someone online back around V-day online.. well actually I'd seen them around at my hangout place but I noticed this time they seemed to be interested in me a bit. I followed up on that, keeping in mind what I read here, as I started following this thread around the same time out of interest, as I'd been single for around 3 years at that point. We got closer over a couple months, and a couple months later I had a talk with her about maybe a possible relationship that ended in a maybe.

Keep in mind this is all online, and I fully acknowledge that there's no way to know if it'd work out for real until we had a chance to meet face to face and interact in meatspace. In fact, that's something I kept reminding myself the whole time, and afterwards too.

Another thing to keep in mind was there was also a crazy coincidence in that she came from the Chicago area, which is where I live now, and currently lives in Florida, where the company I work for also has some customers that I work with in IT, so there was the possibility of me going to work physically in the Florida office at some point in the future.

Since I wasn't sure how to read her answer, I just kept on not doing anything different. We spent a lot of time together playing games and chatting online with other folks, and we got closer in many ways. I knew she was at least my age if not older, but I didn't want to pressure her into giving me any information she wasn't comfortable giving me herself. Only recently did I find out her RL name, and got her cell(she'd had mine a while before that).

At some point along the way though, I'd lost the dwarf from my chariot that had been whispering the equivalent of "you're still mortal" if you get my referance - the remindsers that this could fail to work out at any point. I hadn't realized that and here's where it gets interesting:

My mom had been diagnosed with cancer last year and had been fighting it. My parents hadn't let me know how bad it was until a couple weeks ago, when she basically passed the point of no return. I'd spoken of it a bit with said online gf, as she'd lost both her parents a few years back or more- very rarely did she mention exact timeframes on things, which was what made it hard for me to pin down her age(and the right moment hadn't come up). Anyways, back in mid-October she let me know she had to go to the hospital for some tests and monitoring. I knew of a health-condition she had, and she hadn't been feeling the best as it was the past couple weeks. She also asked me to pass it on to the friends we hang out with so they would know as well. The day after she went in, my mom passed away, so I ended up being a bit preoccupied.

She had planned to load a couple programs on her laptop before she went in but as she didn't show up online in a couple days, I figured she hadn't gotten it to run, or something of that nature so I tried texting her. No response. I gave it a couple more days and tried again - again nothing. Getting a bit worried now as I'd gotten the impression it'd just be for a few days and now it was looking like it'd be longer.

Another couple related points of interest to add to my stress level: a bit before the whole mess started, my bosses had let me know they were actively working on moving me form the Florida customers to the local ones as they were trying to regionalize operations a bit more - and then during all this I found out that the Florida branch and my local branch were going to split operations and staff completely as part of all this. In addition, I'm also an avid WoW player(and she knows this) and while I'd unsubbed for a few months due to getting sick of the current raid, I'd re-subbed for the pre-expansion launch patch. Looking back, I pretty much used WoW and work to avoid dwelling too much on my mom and to try to keep form worrying too much about my online gf. But, I also needed to prepare my characters for the expansion, since I'm in a higher-end raiding guild and had been planning to hit it hard since the relase date was announced(including taking vacation then)

Anyways, Halloween came and went, and she'd said multiple times that was her favorite holiday. She'd been looking forward to hosting an event at our online venue then, adn when she didn't make it back for that, it only made my worries worse, and everyone else was getting more worried too. I let them know that I'd tried all the means I had for getting in touch, though. One guy suggested since I knew her real name and where she lived generally and he knew someone in government, he could get her address so we could send her a "Get Well" card. I didn't like the idea because as I told him, she's been a fairly private person about some of her personal details(As evinced in how long it was before I got any non-online contact info!) and I didn't want to try to find out until she wanted to tell me, though I had been planning to ask her anyways to see about getting her a Christmas present(or birthday as it's fairly close to Christmas).

It did make me wonder though, so on a whim I pulled up whitepages.com and tried her name and state, just out of curiosity. Well ti turned out it did have her address(and I knew it was hers as it was the only exact match to her name, and referanced places she'd mentioned she'd lived in the past). But it also had an estimate of her actual age. And it was a lot older than I'd been thinking - she was actually at least a year older than my mom had been, if it was accurate.

Hoping it was just inaccurate, I tried a few searches of other people who I knew the age of, and it either had them in the right range, or no age was listed. It didn't quite match with what I would have expected from the bits of her timeline I did know. And here's where my quandry comes in.

The person I've been talking with and hanging out with and doing stuff with online - I do still care deeply for her. I slept on it after finding this out last night and that hasn't changed. The age difference however feels too large for me - not only is she the same age as my parents, but even at absolute best if we got together RL and such, I'd lose her by the time I hot 70, and then have upwards of 20-30 years alone or start over, and that's a best case of how long we'd have together. I've made no secret of my age either since we first met, so she knows the age difference also. Maybe that's part of why she's been more hestant about things overall and feeling it out.

Still, it tends strongly towards shooting down the potential I thought I had seen with us as a couple, and with the separation of the Florida offices, it also removes that aspect of things too. At the same time I'm still worried about her because we're coming up on 3 weeks without word now since she went in, and with that age things could have taken a turn for the worse, and we'd never know since she lives alone and none of us has the contact info for her closest friend that she'd mentioned a few times.

I also know one of the key components of LDRs is communication, but I can't talk about it with her until she gets out, and it doesn't feel like it'd be fair to hit her with anything like this right after she'd spent several weeks in the hospital. Whatever the status of our relationship, I still care about her and want to keep being friends with her at the very least. I'm a very monogamous type of guy though so I wouldn't feel right looking for other girls while I'm with her. If she were 20 years younger, I'd have no problems whatsoever, either, and I'd probably still be interested in pursuing trying to meet up and see if it works in RL. As it is, with the other barriers, I just don't know, but I also don't want to start listing myself as single and unilaterally call a close to it while she's in the hospital, as that's not fair to her either - and there's the matter of all our mutual friends who knew we were basically a couple regardless.

And then there's all the stress recently between work, the WoW launch coming up, and losing my mom piled on top of that.

I guess I mostly needed to vent, but I've had a huge case of the blarghs with everything all hitting at once, and no idea when the transition back to local will finish or when she'll get out of the hospital. And figuring out where I go from here.

[RabbitHoleLost]

Not sure if this is really asking for advice or not, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest, and writing it out may at least help me think things through further or at least get me out of chasing my own tail. That said:

Spoiler

Show

I met someone online back around V-day online.. well actually I'd seen them around at my hangout place but I noticed this time they seemed to be interested in me a bit. I followed up on that, keeping in mind what I read here, as I started following this thread around the same time out of interest, as I'd been single for around 3 years at that point. We got closer over a couple months, and a couple months later I had a talk with her about maybe a possible relationship that ended in a maybe.

Keep in mind this is all online, and I fully acknowledge that there's no way to know if it'd work out for real until we had a chance to meet face to face and interact in meatspace. In fact, that's something I kept reminding myself the whole time, and afterwards too.

Another thing to keep in mind was there was also a crazy coincidence in that she came from the Chicago area, which is where I live now, and currently lives in Florida, where the company I work for also has some customers that I work with in IT, so there was the possibility of me going to work physically in the Florida office at some point in the future.

Since I wasn't sure how to read her answer, I just kept on not doing anything different. We spent a lot of time together playing games and chatting online with other folks, and we got closer in many ways. I knew she was at least my age if not older, but I didn't want to pressure her into giving me any information she wasn't comfortable giving me herself. Only recently did I find out her RL name, and got her cell(she'd had mine a while before that).

At some point along the way though, I'd lost the dwarf from my chariot that had been whispering the equivalent of "you're still mortal" if you get my referance - the remindsers that this could fail to work out at any point. I hadn't realized that and here's where it gets interesting:

My mom had been diagnosed with cancer last year and had been fighting it. My parents hadn't let me know how bad it was until a couple weeks ago, when she basically passed the point of no return. I'd spoken of it a bit with said online gf, as she'd lost both her parents a few years back or more- very rarely did she mention exact timeframes on things, which was what made it hard for me to pin down her age(and the right moment hadn't come up). Anyways, back in mid-October she let me know she had to go to the hospital for some tests and monitoring. I knew of a health-condition she had, and she hadn't been feeling the best as it was the past couple weeks. She also asked me to pass it on to the friends we hang out with so they would know as well. The day after she went in, my mom passed away, so I ended up being a bit preoccupied.

She had planned to load a couple programs on her laptop before she went in but as she didn't show up online in a couple days, I figured she hadn't gotten it to run, or something of that nature so I tried texting her. No response. I gave it a couple more days and tried again - again nothing. Getting a bit worried now as I'd gotten the impression it'd just be for a few days and now it was looking like it'd be longer.

Another couple related points of interest to add to my stress level: a bit before the whole mess started, my bosses had let me know they were actively working on moving me form the Florida customers to the local ones as they were trying to regionalize operations a bit more - and then during all this I found out that the Florida branch and my local branch were going to split operations and staff completely as part of all this. In addition, I'm also an avid WoW player(and she knows this) and while I'd unsubbed for a few months due to getting sick of the current raid, I'd re-subbed for the pre-expansion launch patch. Looking back, I pretty much used WoW and work to avoid dwelling too much on my mom and to try to keep form worrying too much about my online gf. But, I also needed to prepare my characters for the expansion, since I'm in a higher-end raiding guild and had been planning to hit it hard since the relase date was announced(including taking vacation then)

Anyways, Halloween came and went, and she'd said multiple times that was her favorite holiday. She'd been looking forward to hosting an event at our online venue then, adn when she didn't make it back for that, it only made my worries worse, and everyone else was getting more worried too. I let them know that I'd tried all the means I had for getting in touch, though. One guy suggested since I knew her real name and where she lived generally and he knew someone in government, he could get her address so we could send her a "Get Well" card. I didn't like the idea because as I told him, she's been a fairly private person about some of her personal details(As evinced in how long it was before I got any non-online contact info!) and I didn't want to try to find out until she wanted to tell me, though I had been planning to ask her anyways to see about getting her a Christmas present(or birthday as it's fairly close to Christmas).

It did make me wonder though, so on a whim I pulled up whitepages.com and tried her name and state, just out of curiosity. Well ti turned out it did have her address(and I knew it was hers as it was the only exact match to her name, and referanced places she'd mentioned she'd lived in the past). But it also had an estimate of her actual age. And it was a lot older than I'd been thinking - she was actually at least a year older than my mom had been, if it was accurate.

Hoping it was just inaccurate, I tried a few searches of other people who I knew the age of, and it either had them in the right range, or no age was listed. It didn't quite match with what I would have expected from the bits of her timeline I did know. And here's where my quandry comes in.

The person I've been talking with and hanging out with and doing stuff with online - I do still care deeply for her. I slept on it after finding this out last night and that hasn't changed. The age difference however feels too large for me - not only is she the same age as my parents, but even at absolute best if we got together RL and such, I'd lose her by the time I hot 70, and then have upwards of 20-30 years alone or start over, and that's a best case of how long we'd have together. I've made no secret of my age either since we first met, so she knows the age difference also. Maybe that's part of why she's been more hestant about things overall and feeling it out.

Still, it tends strongly towards shooting down the potential I thought I had seen with us as a couple, and with the separation of the Florida offices, it also removes that aspect of things too. At the same time I'm still worried about her because we're coming up on 3 weeks without word now since she went in, and with that age things could have taken a turn for the worse, and we'd never know since she lives alone and none of us has the contact info for her closest friend that she'd mentioned a few times.

I also know one of the key components of LDRs is communication, but I can't talk about it with her until she gets out, and it doesn't feel like it'd be fair to hit her with anything like this right after she'd spent several weeks in the hospital. Whatever the status of our relationship, I still care about her and want to keep being friends with her at the very least. I'm a very monogamous type of guy though so I wouldn't feel right looking for other girls while I'm with her. If she were 20 years younger, I'd have no problems whatsoever, either, and I'd probably still be interested in pursuing trying to meet up and see if it works in RL. As it is, with the other barriers, I just don't know, but I also don't want to start listing myself as single and unilaterally call a close to it while she's in the hospital, as that's not fair to her either - and there's the matter of all our mutual friends who knew we were basically a couple regardless.

And then there's all the stress recently between work, the WoW launch coming up, and losing my mom piled on top of that.

I guess I mostly needed to vent, but I've had a huge case of the blarghs with everything all hitting at once, and no idea when the transition back to local will finish or when she'll get out of the hospital. And figuring out where I go from here.

First off, I'm very sorry about your mother. I know that, on top of everything else, this is a really painful time and I'm aching for your pain

Secondly- and this is just my impression, since you were venting more than asking for advice
She knew your age? If it's accurate and she IS that much older than you and you WERE that close that you consider the two of you in a relationship
I dunno, man, that's a pretty big breach of trust in my book. I personally don't have an issue with age gaps in my relationships, even in LDRs, but I feel like that counts as withholding information that could change how you view the relationship

I'm not advising you- just pointing this out.
In anycase, I hope she's okay and has just been distracted. My love for you and your family.

[dehro]

Provided that the data you found aren't say, of her mother or a namesake and personal health issues aside, and I hope she is doing well or will recover speedily, I would invite you to consider, especially if she remains incommunicado, that you may have dodged a bullet here, in more ways than one. She has been less than honest with you, albeit by omission. At best this was out of hesitation because of fear for how you'd take the news, a news that is a gamechanger, at worst you may have encountered one of those individuals who lead a second online life beyond that of whatever character they're playing in their game of choice... One that comes with a fake persona, identity, and the ability to fish in your personal story to make up details you'd relate to, in order to draw you closer.
I am not saying that this is what happened to you, but the truth may lay somewhere inbetween these two extremes.

[Coidzor]

Have an update(Less of advice-seeking and more of a off my chest type thing):

TL;DR last post: Asked girl out, said she wasn't ready for a relationship because of a bad breakup. Panic over how I deal with the situation.

Now:

Ever since I asked her out, we've gotten a lot closer. We're still doing the weekly/biweekly lunches we've always done, but on top of it we've been to the movies twice this week, the first time just me and her and the second time us with a few of my friends, albeit last minute. We're now talking on facebook for at least an hour or so pretty much every night where we hardly did before. And there's been a bit of flirting and a lot of laughs.

Also, I had a mutual friend randomly come tell me a couple of days after I asked her out, she went to our mutual friend for advice, but the only thing she said about it was that it was "good for you". I really don't want to read too much into that but figure I should add it.

With all that said, at this point we're not officially dating. As much as I'm fine with the situation as is, at some point the question of whether or not we're officially dating should be addressed. Or does it need to be? That's part of what I'm not sure of. I figure if a couple more weeks go by and it's still this ambiguous situation I'll bring it up, but I also know the ball is in her court after asking her out, especially considering how her last relationship ended.

I think part of me knows that I just need to give it time, but impatience and over thinking are getting the better of me.

Well, yes and no. Yes, you did ask her, but she replied to you and is now showing increased affection and spending an increased amount of time either with you or in contact with you. So while giving things time is one thing, if you get the impression that she's trying you on without actually being honest with you about what she's doing, that is something you could call her on. Potentially in explaining that you're perfectly willing to try things out with her and take things slow and well within her comfort zone, but she has to also show you the respect to communicate with you, seeing as how communication and mutual respect are kinda important.

But for now, yeah, patience, showing the best of yourself without actively repressing yourself or going overbearing with the trying to woo her stuff, but there's a time-cut-off for how long anyone can and should be expected to put up with being put into an ambiguous limbo state, especially WRT relationships and relation****s.

Not sure if this is really asking for advice or not, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest, and writing it out may at least help me think things through further or at least get me out of chasing my own tail. That said:

Spoiler

Show

I met someone online back around V-day online.. well actually I'd seen them around at my hangout place but I noticed this time they seemed to be interested in me a bit. I followed up on that, keeping in mind what I read here, as I started following this thread around the same time out of interest, as I'd been single for around 3 years at that point. We got closer over a couple months, and a couple months later I had a talk with her about maybe a possible relationship that ended in a maybe.

Keep in mind this is all online, and I fully acknowledge that there's no way to know if it'd work out for real until we had a chance to meet face to face and interact in meatspace. In fact, that's something I kept reminding myself the whole time, and afterwards too.

Another thing to keep in mind was there was also a crazy coincidence in that she came from the Chicago area, which is where I live now, and currently lives in Florida, where the company I work for also has some customers that I work with in IT, so there was the possibility of me going to work physically in the Florida office at some point in the future.

Since I wasn't sure how to read her answer, I just kept on not doing anything different. We spent a lot of time together playing games and chatting online with other folks, and we got closer in many ways. I knew she was at least my age if not older, but I didn't want to pressure her into giving me any information she wasn't comfortable giving me herself. Only recently did I find out her RL name, and got her cell(she'd had mine a while before that).

At some point along the way though, I'd lost the dwarf from my chariot that had been whispering the equivalent of "you're still mortal" if you get my referance - the remindsers that this could fail to work out at any point. I hadn't realized that and here's where it gets interesting:

My mom had been diagnosed with cancer last year and had been fighting it. My parents hadn't let me know how bad it was until a couple weeks ago, when she basically passed the point of no return. I'd spoken of it a bit with said online gf, as she'd lost both her parents a few years back or more- very rarely did she mention exact timeframes on things, which was what made it hard for me to pin down her age(and the right moment hadn't come up). Anyways, back in mid-October she let me know she had to go to the hospital for some tests and monitoring. I knew of a health-condition she had, and she hadn't been feeling the best as it was the past couple weeks. She also asked me to pass it on to the friends we hang out with so they would know as well. The day after she went in, my mom passed away, so I ended up being a bit preoccupied.

She had planned to load a couple programs on her laptop before she went in but as she didn't show up online in a couple days, I figured she hadn't gotten it to run, or something of that nature so I tried texting her. No response. I gave it a couple more days and tried again - again nothing. Getting a bit worried now as I'd gotten the impression it'd just be for a few days and now it was looking like it'd be longer.

Another couple related points of interest to add to my stress level: a bit before the whole mess started, my bosses had let me know they were actively working on moving me form the Florida customers to the local ones as they were trying to regionalize operations a bit more - and then during all this I found out that the Florida branch and my local branch were going to split operations and staff completely as part of all this. In addition, I'm also an avid WoW player(and she knows this) and while I'd unsubbed for a few months due to getting sick of the current raid, I'd re-subbed for the pre-expansion launch patch. Looking back, I pretty much used WoW and work to avoid dwelling too much on my mom and to try to keep form worrying too much about my online gf. But, I also needed to prepare my characters for the expansion, since I'm in a higher-end raiding guild and had been planning to hit it hard since the relase date was announced(including taking vacation then)

Anyways, Halloween came and went, and she'd said multiple times that was her favorite holiday. She'd been looking forward to hosting an event at our online venue then, adn when she didn't make it back for that, it only made my worries worse, and everyone else was getting more worried too. I let them know that I'd tried all the means I had for getting in touch, though. One guy suggested since I knew her real name and where she lived generally and he knew someone in government, he could get her address so we could send her a "Get Well" card. I didn't like the idea because as I told him, she's been a fairly private person about some of her personal details(As evinced in how long it was before I got any non-online contact info!) and I didn't want to try to find out until she wanted to tell me, though I had been planning to ask her anyways to see about getting her a Christmas present(or birthday as it's fairly close to Christmas).

It did make me wonder though, so on a whim I pulled up whitepages.com and tried her name and state, just out of curiosity. Well ti turned out it did have her address(and I knew it was hers as it was the only exact match to her name, and referanced places she'd mentioned she'd lived in the past). But it also had an estimate of her actual age. And it was a lot older than I'd been thinking - she was actually at least a year older than my mom had been, if it was accurate.

Hoping it was just inaccurate, I tried a few searches of other people who I knew the age of, and it either had them in the right range, or no age was listed. It didn't quite match with what I would have expected from the bits of her timeline I did know. And here's where my quandry comes in.

The person I've been talking with and hanging out with and doing stuff with online - I do still care deeply for her. I slept on it after finding this out last night and that hasn't changed. The age difference however feels too large for me - not only is she the same age as my parents, but even at absolute best if we got together RL and such, I'd lose her by the time I hot 70, and then have upwards of 20-30 years alone or start over, and that's a best case of how long we'd have together. I've made no secret of my age either since we first met, so she knows the age difference also. Maybe that's part of why she's been more hestant about things overall and feeling it out.

Still, it tends strongly towards shooting down the potential I thought I had seen with us as a couple, and with the separation of the Florida offices, it also removes that aspect of things too. At the same time I'm still worried about her because we're coming up on 3 weeks without word now since she went in, and with that age things could have taken a turn for the worse, and we'd never know since she lives alone and none of us has the contact info for her closest friend that she'd mentioned a few times.

I also know one of the key components of LDRs is communication, but I can't talk about it with her until she gets out, and it doesn't feel like it'd be fair to hit her with anything like this right after she'd spent several weeks in the hospital. Whatever the status of our relationship, I still care about her and want to keep being friends with her at the very least. I'm a very monogamous type of guy though so I wouldn't feel right looking for other girls while I'm with her. If she were 20 years younger, I'd have no problems whatsoever, either, and I'd probably still be interested in pursuing trying to meet up and see if it works in RL. As it is, with the other barriers, I just don't know, but I also don't want to start listing myself as single and unilaterally call a close to it while she's in the hospital, as that's not fair to her either - and there's the matter of all our mutual friends who knew we were basically a couple regardless.

And then there's all the stress recently between work, the WoW launch coming up, and losing my mom piled on top of that.

I guess I mostly needed to vent, but I've had a huge case of the blarghs with everything all hitting at once, and no idea when the transition back to local will finish or when she'll get out of the hospital. And figuring out where I go from here.

Spoiler: Hoo, boy. I'm sorry.

Show

First off, I'm sorry that a health crisis precipitated a cutting of communications and lead to this potential discovery. Now, I would recommend taking what you've found with a grain of salt, given that she's been rather as secretive as an oyster and also remembering that as far as you know she's either convalescing from a health crisis, still in a health crisis, or that third option. :/ So as much as possible it's probably best to just keep thinking about her to a minimum and prepare for the possibility that you'll never hear from her again.

That said, if she does reappear then I would say you definitely have some things to get off your chest, like how much you care for her and how little you know about her and how she could've died for all you knew during this disappearance and you'd never have known, stuff like that, and see whether she's prepared to either open up or establish clear boundaries as to the nature of your relationship.

[Lissou]

Just some update about the guy at work. My husband and I talked about him and today they met. I mean they've seen each other before but in passing. Also... I learned he is much younger than I originally though. The only thing I knew was that he was not a minor, as they have a different "status" at work (since they can't work the same hours or all the same jobs) but it seem he's only just not a minor. And I'm almost not in my twenties anymore. That's kind of a big age gap, especially this way.
It's looking like I'm getting more and more reason to think this wouldn't work, and don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on acting on it, but I just can't stop thinking about it. Who knows, maybe it will pass. I'm convinced everyone at work is going to start asking what's up with me. I get a stupid grin on my face whenever we talk or pass each other at work.

[Septimus Faber]

I have an exceedingly complicated and convoluted romantic problem that I'm really not comfortable with posting on the actual forums... Would anyone be willing to hear a PM about it?

[sktarq]

... Would anyone be willing to hear a PM about it?

Yes (public to show that these things do get responses)

[Knaight]

I have an exceedingly complicated and convoluted romantic problem that I'm really not comfortable with posting on the actual forums... Would anyone be willing to hear a PM about it?

Sure. I have some amount of practice* with helping people with extremely convoluted relationship problems.

*Probably more than I should.

[Jon_Dahl]

I think at this point, since you know at least one of them is seriously attached to you, it's definitely misleading to say nothing. People tend to assume monogamy (and hell, even you want it in the end, and to break up with all the other ones) and I don't think it would be fair to just keep going the way you have. For all you know, they have been refusing all other opportunities to be "faithful" to you, while honesty could have allowed them to look for someone who's actually right for them, too.

I definitely think you should come clean, and in the future mention that you're dating around early on because in my experience, people don't really assume it. And even if they did, it wouldn't hurt to mention it again.

I came clean and the woman was very calm about it. I did tell her that she's the best of 'em all. Thank you once again, I always get the best advice here!

[Coidzor]

Spoiler: Argh, and such. Of venting.

Show

Y'know, occasionally it had fun parts, but this whole liking people thing has just been getting less and less enjoyable the longer it's been happening and the longer it goes on for any one person.

To the point where I'm like "**** 'em," and kinda hate them for being likeable in the first place and why I should care how they're doing. Then I hear from them and all that goes away somewhere and I'm addicted again.

Withdrawal from people is scary enough what it does to me and how bad of a person it reveals to me that I am. I shudder to think what it must do with some actual physical component to the addiction.

[celtois]

I realize I'm very much late to the party on this one.
But that's one of the weird things about internet dating Jon.
Where as in a lot of instances were one person asks the other out in person there is this assumption of exclusivity.
However in the context of an dating site this assumption is flawed.
It would be like assuming someone what a speed dating thing wasn't going to entertain other options.

The other weird thing about e-dating is that its possible to talk a lot and really get a feel for someone
without actually meeting them. The side effect of this, that I've found, not from e-dating per say but e-friendships in general,
is that people seem to be more free with their expressions of emotion. Thus I love you's etc. come sooner. Perhaps not in so much because people are being imprudent, but because there is an element of safety in expression things via a medium that has some distance. Even if its skype.

Anyway, it looks like you've got the situation handled, by some folks who appear to know you and your situation much better than I do. (I sort of passively lurk from time to time and occasionally offer advice) however I suspect that the calm reaction is what you can expect from all of the ladies you are talking to because the context in which they met you, (a dating website), facilitates that understanding.

Spoiler: For those who are curious an update on my love life

Show

Anyway things have changed in my life from the time when I used to post here with issues and stuff, long story short I've been in a happy and stable relationship for the last three years now (as of November 25th). So that's pretty swanky.