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Notes -
Several times now, I've had text conversations with women where they seem to scare themselves off.
One kept pushing me to ask her sexual compatibility questions, which I answered as delicately and dryly as I could. She'd rave excessively about how attractive I was and how she's looking forward to seeing me again (we met once, briefly, and she tracked me down on social). Since I know it's a bad idea to build up a date this much and set sexual implications, I complemented her back but kept it light and fun.
Then the day of the date, suddenly a co-worker got fired and she has to work a double. Also "You're not expecting sex for this meeting, are you?" Well no, I was not, despite everything you've said being suggestive of that, because I was going to take it slow. I reply "Light canoodling at most." There's mutual availability tuesday, and thursday, but she suggests thursday, mentioning "she'd like more planning, usually." Now I haven't heard anything from her since.
Before this, the shape of the exact same thing happened. She started talking as though she was already assuming we'd be in a relationship with her "adding spice to my life and shaking things up." This is way, WAY more than I'd typically send when I haven't even met someone in person, it assumes too much. Then suddenly she was astronomically ill from "allergies," which continued for several days, her apparently being home from work, yet replying less than when she was at work, until I stopped texting.
I want people to turn up for an in-person date. I very carefully don't say things that create too much pressure or assume things about compatibility, because it comes off as pressuring and dishonest ("OMG I'm so into you" ...we haven't actually met yet, miss, maybe save that for after the first date). But then they themselves do that exact thing, bail the day before.
Fucking everything I do is tiptoeing around not triggering anyone's anxiety so as not to be treated as a threat, then they trigger their OWN anxieties, treat me like a threat, and presumably pat themselves on the back for having spotted a manipulative predator who was Only After One Thing.
What the fuck is going on here?
When I interact with someone in real life, I get really confused and anxious whenever they start praising me. Then they get confused as to why. This is why. Because whenever someone gives me unprompted compliments or raves about me, they swiftly ditch me, which is why I don't believe what anyone says anymore.
Some people are just crazy, or, to be a bit more charitable, have vastly different preferences and styles from you in life and relationships.
When meeting people IRL, there's a lot of screening that happens before the conversation, like being at whatever place you met at all, seeing the other person's appearance and behavior before you actually talk, etc. Online dating exposes you to a lot of people who wouldn't have passed those filters at all. So you've got to learn to do that filtering yourself.
In other words, keep firmly in mind what kind of woman you actually want and what kind of relationship you want with her, and reject women who don't seem to match that. Nobody is going to give you a pile of gold stars for going on the most dates. If you're already feeling like you're tiptoeing around and weirded out over text conversation, reject and move on, as an in-person date is likely to be a waste of your time. I'd definitely put being excessively complimentary and sexual before you've met at all in that category.
This was an actual in-person connection, otherwise I'd consider anything sexual a massive-er red flag.
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