Dating : “For Love of Men”: Men’s feelings matter too

In a previous article, I wrote about why dating a single mom is so hard. This is a follow up to that idea from another date I had with a single mom.

Before I get into the meat of this article, we live in an era of people getting triggered easily so I have some precautionary words. I do not want to downplay what women go through before I complain about an aspect of male life that is difficult. Mansplaining, male-dominated sexual selfishness, domestic violence against women, the intricacies and dangers of pregnancies, the more complicated female plumbing, and sexual harassment in the workplace are clearly all worse than what men go through. The thesis of these “For Love of Men” articles is that men can have difficult times as well. Men aren’t supposed to express emotions while at the same time women want guys who can express themselves after they begin dating. Toxic masculinity harms women in the long run.

I went on a date with a girl I met on Tinder. She had similar outlooks on life as I did, she is very pretty, we both enjoy weightlifting, and we both like to research to learn everything about everything we’re interested in. We started by talking on Snapchat, she admitted that she’s quite busy and it would be hard to schedule a date with her. We texted for about a month before finally getting something on our calendars.

We met at a brewery, had a beer each and then walked to another restaurant. I usually like to start at a brewery to gauge a woman. If she can make a good first impression and actually converse with me then I won’t cut it short. Beer will loosen a person up a little. We then walked to another bar and while they were full, I said some nice things and they gave us a free basket of their amazingly delicious bread. We sat out in the hallway and ate amazing bread, people watched, and looked at the artwork.

After that I took her to a playground. I mentioned that I wanted to do this over Snapchat and from her text she said that it actually sounded pretty fun. I got in my dinosaur costume and she laughed a lot. Then we went to another bar and just talked. I bought her a drink. When we were walking back to my car, I gave her a piggyback ride for as long as I could just to prove I could do it and because I thought it would be fun, then we held hands and kept walking. I drove her back to her car, it probably took 15 minutes to get back to the original brewery where she parked. When we arrived at her car I said good night and we made out a little.

At one point during the night I said that I had to make a good impression and to try without “trying too hard”. We also talked about how we both liked the movie Boondock Saints. As she left she said “You did a good job without trying too hard. Next time, Boondock Saints!”

I never heard from her again after that. I texted her that night and didn’t hear anything. Texted her a second time a few days later and still didn’t hear anything. It was one of the most fun dates and best conversations I had ever had on a date ever so this was surprising.

Okay, here’s where I screwed up next, really my biggest mistake that caused me the most stress. I texted her a third time about a week and a half later and said something along the lines that I enjoyed meeting and getting to know her. I should have just let it go, but I wanted to say something because she had ghosted me. At that point, she blocked me on Snapchat and Instagram which I had recently followed her on.

I was disappointed. We had only gone on one date, but we had been talking for a month and it was one of the most fun dates I had ever been on.

I made another mistake and found her TikTok page…

She had posted a TikTok the next morning after our date. She explained that she was fake laughing the entire time at the playground and made fun of me for that. Talked about how the date took forever when it was maybe two and a half to three hours. She said that we spent hours in her car, it was maybe 15 minutes in my car. 80% of the video was of her complaining about what an awful time she had.

On the other hand… she also compared me to KJ Apa, who is an incredibly handsome actor on Riverdale and ended the video with saying “And it was the best night ever all because of this conversation with this guy. And I’ll never see him again”. Also in the comments section she tells someone that she has another date with “the same dude”.

Multiple levels of confusion here. She didn’t get the timeline right, compared my looks to an attractive man, we were in my car not hers, and I had no absolutely idea that she was so unhappy that night. Her body language was open, she was smiling, okay with touching me, and she talked a lot about the details of rough parts of her life.

Now, I’m not the sharpest knife in the crayon box, but I can generally tell when someone is unhappy with me or faking it. Realtors that I know tend to fake interest in what I’m saying to build a relationship with me in the hopes that I’ll buy a home through them. I work with insurance agents who have to fake interest sometimes in what their clients are saying. Finally, I’ve been on bad dates in the past. One girl most likely called her friend to bail her out and joined us on the date so that I would leave. Another clearly had a boyfriend when I stumbled on her Facebook (in that scenario it popped up on my suggested friends list, no internet searches there).

This girl could have at any point in time stopped talking to me on Snapchat before our date and I would’ve been fine, that was the time to ghost me. Had she on the date politely expressed how she thought my dinosaur costume was stupid I would not have brought it out. For example, “Ehhh, I don’t know. That sounds kind of lame”. If she had been having such a horrible time she could have made up an excuse like “I have to work tomorrow” in order to leave or mentioned something about her kids. Instead, she faked having a good time or maybe she had a good time? I genuinely don’t know and it’s the lack of closure that’s the hardest when this kind of event occurs.

One of the biggest confusions of the night was that she let me kiss her, we borderline made out in my car and she didn’t budge for a second. If I don’t think we had a good time, I don’t try to kiss a girl. When I’ve been mistaken, the girl has always pulled away or was obviously uncomfortable when I read her body language.

Maybe she did have a fun time and was genuine about having a good conversation? She told me about getting kicked out of her church due to a divorce and what happened that caused the divorce. We respectfully discussed politics even though we have different political philosophies. She let me hold her hand, kiss, hug, and give her a piggy back ride.

I’m doing my best to share the whole story, even the parts where I was dumb like I should have just let it go. My problem is that I hate being ghosted. I am filled with respect and disappointment every time a girl has told me she wasn’t interested in me anymore. I’m doing my best to share the whole story in the right timeline because I want to point out that women can at times be irrational. This girl acted like she was having a fun time while maybe being dishonest and deceitful with me.

The hard part for me as I go through dating in my 30’s is that I’ve come to the realization that some women are just shitty people. Not all women of course, just like not all men are bad, but I used to have this idea in my head that women were the fairer sex. That men are generally the ones to blame when dating, sex, and relationships don’t go well. I think that’s why I was a stereotypical “nice guy” for so long. I thought that if I was nice to women that they would like me. Women did like me as a nice guy, but not in a romantic way. With this girl I was respectful, didn’t move too quickly, and tried to be masculine without being a jerk

The issue of being a nice guy probably stems from all of the positive relationships that I have with women in my life. My mother as well as my grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and many female friends are all wonderful people. I’m now understanding that women have just as many faults as men. Some have been hurt, some are deceitful, some are people pleasers, and some try too hard just like nice guys do and it’s really off putting. What I want is someone who balances out the crazy and lets it out at the right times like I do while also actively working to maintain mental and physical well being.