I know you can't just turn off the caring, no one can. But as you said, you can work on you, making the best life for yourself that you can.
Yep, that's my plan. Like I said, I don't have any desire to take revenge on him - I wish him well, and I really don't want him to get hurt again. But I just have to keep working on moving my focus away from him, and onto myself. I'm getting better at it (believe it or not).
However, I wasn't exactly happy to discover he was off out on a date 6 weeks after we split, especially as he had paid for the dating site from the joint account! :sour: It did feel like a bit of a slap in the face that after 11 years together he could move on that quickly.
It is quite painful when your ex moves on so fast. It makes me feel like I'm discarded, unimportant.
Yep, I think it's the biggest slap in the face anyone can ever give someone whom they've recently broken up with. However, I don't know if being active on a dating website - or even going out on dates - is
actually an indication that they
have moved on. To my mind, it signifies that they are unwilling to sit with the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that inevitably result from a breakup, and work through them (which IS how you move on, incidentally). I guess it might seem easier to avoid that discomfort in the short term, but you can't run away from it forever. Although some people certainly try....
I met my partner on a dating site...and also met a few very nice people.
For sure. I'm not saying that dating sites are the spawn of all evil or anything, and I'm not suggesting that there aren't any nice people on dating sites, but my point was about dating immediately after a breakup. I have used a dating site before, and you sure have to trawl through quite a lot of unsuitable candidates to find someone decent (and you could quite possibly skip over people who actually ARE suitable candidates in the process) - and even then, you won't know until you go through the normal IRL dating process
anyway. I personally hate
everything about the concept of dating sites. They feel so artificial: the whole idea of making contact with a person for the sole purpose of evaluating them as a potential partner (or casual f*ck - whatever your poison).... it's so forced, and kinda icky. And the only information you have available to make a decision on whether to contact someone, is a photo (maybe) and some guff about their interests (plus, a lot of people lie their asses off on their profile). Who cares whether you share the same interests or not? It means nothing in the grand scheme of things whether you both love heavy metal and cheesy-crust pizza or whatever. Sure, it helps get the conversation started, but relationships are rarely made or broken on the basis of shared
interests - but they
are much more likely to be successful if you share the same
values - which are very hard to gauge through online contact alone.
I dunno, I've never been the sort of person who actually goes looking for a relationship, because what's the point? You can't
make love happen to you, you have to wait for it to find you. And of course, I hate dating sites even more now because my ex's enthusiasm for them has caused me a lot of grief. I still don't know whether he was active on those dating sites while we were together (not that it should matter now), but I think the bigger problem was that he never seemed to go to much effort to demonstrate how much he loved me and valued me. I can only assume that was because he
didn't love or value me much at all. C'est la vie...
looks can be overcome by personality and what I like to call "the presence" but neither of those things come across online so there is really never anyone I want to talk to.
Yes, this is another reason why I hate dating sites. It feels like a meat market - literally (also the reason why I don't go to nightclubs). My interest in a guy has never been based on his appearance (well, not since high school anyway!). None of the guys I've ever dated have been people who I was physically attracted to intially- that always came later on. It's always their personality, the way they make me feel, and that certain indefinable quality about them - perhaps presence is a good word for it. And because I have always had low self-esteem, I hate the thought of a guy deciding whether they want to talk to me based on one or two photos and little else. Frankly, I'm not interested in anyone who is happy to make that decision on the basis of looks
alone. People tell me that I'm pretty, but that's completely beside the point. My looks will fade in time - I want someone who will still be head-over-heels in love with me for who I am, even when I'm old and wrinkly!
During the two weeks that I did have a dating site profile (and only then because my sister made me, so she could live vicariously through me!), I didn't put up a public photo at all, and I ended up being contacted by two guys who seemed quite lovely and I had some very long, involved chat sessions with them. However, when I actually met them in person, there was no chemistry at all. So that was two weeks of my life wasted. I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how good of an online conversationalist someone is, or how many interests you have in common - the only things that matter is how you like each other in person - and ultimately, whether you share the same values. And the anxiety of going on a blind date was too much for me. So why not just get out there and do your thing and enjoy life, and soon enough you'll bump into someone lovely, and things will happen naturally, and on the basis of mutual care, trust and respect... and eventually love.
Thus endeth my rant on dating websites.
