OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / Tinder

**Posted by StraightSpouse1979** December 25, 2019 3:32 pm

Was so tired of being alone and having no one to have any communication with I joined. I know its a dating or hook up site which I am no where near ready for and once those things come up even just meeting up I freeze and want to run away! Is this normal

**Posted by Rob** December 25, 2019 7:12 pm

I met someone on catholic match. You can message back and forth with different people before deciding if you have anything in common and want to meet.

Tinder sounds very sexually oriented?

**Posted by Julian_Stone** December 25, 2019 8:01 pm

Friends of mine have had some luck with Bumble. The women make the first move (in terms of messaging), so it’s less pressure. They also have a friend matching feature, which I think I’ll try since I just moved to a new city. Good luck!! <3

**Posted by Davin** December 26, 2019 11:25 am

Zoosk is a site more for building a relationship. I actually tried Zoosk because I wanted to see if my STBX had an active profile and I was going to search the top few sites to see if she was already on the prowl. I filled out just enough information so I could do a search and was surprised to not find her on it yet. I forgot about doing it, figured the nearly empty account would get automatically deleted, but then about a month later, I started getting e-mail messages about people who I was matched with. They matched just on location but a number of them looked really interesting and had great personal stories so I reached out and made contact with several people. I told them where I was in my process and was very transparent about things and said that right now I'm interested in friendship first and will have to wait and see if anything more develops down the road.

I have had a friend from church tell me that Plenty of Fish was also good in terms of having more of a relationship focus.

Tinder is definitely about the one night stand. Unless you are just looking for casual sex, I would avoid Tinder.

**Posted by Daryl** December 26, 2019 1:08 pm

Whatever you try, be careful. Generally speaking, there's the public persona and then there's the real person. Get to know the real person before getting too serious with someone on any dating site.

Be aware there are sharks in the water. Watch out for someone who tells you little about themselves or seems like they are telling you what it seems like you want to hear. Know that no one falls into unrequited undying admiration based on a text message or a phone chat. There are predators out there who try to go from zero to 100 as fast as possible and speedily love-bomb you into a relationship. These people are often very narcissistic and looking for a new conquest or victim. They may be similar to other in-denial spouses here, looking for a new beard to appear straight. Then there are financial scammers whose end goal is to separate you from money. Often they are overseas and using fake photos and profiles. Usually they make contact with you, quickly try to get you to communicate with them away from the dating site using some version of instant messaging. Then later they need money, to travel to meet you, for some business opportunity that just "fell" in their lap or some other bogus excuse.

I'm not saying dating sites should be avoided. Just be careful out there. When you meet people in everyday life, you don't have to wonder if that's their real photo and you can also pick up on subtle clues from things like body language and vocal cues. None of that exists on dating sites.

One more thing - there seems to be an unwritten rule on dating sites that if someone contacts you, and you're not interested, the rule seems to be "don't reply, ever". When this happens to you, don't fret about it and move on. I suspect the reason no one wants to reply back to say "thanks but no thanks" is that some people don't take rejection well and then proceed to harass the subject about it. "Why not? What's wrong with me? If you met me once then maybe... etc." Pretending not to have ever seen the original contact is less hassle.

Last edited by Daryl (December 26, 2019 1:16 pm)

**Posted by StraightSpouse1979** December 26, 2019 2:30 pm

Thanks everyone. I deleted the profile. I just am not even ready for meeting people in person. I liked the one match I made that i messaged for a while deleted the profile and just texted and chatting with this person. Seems like an OK person, i am up front always about my situation and it did not seem to matter to them. Which to be honest sometimes worries me more than if they were bothered by the situation. They also live like an hour and fourty minutes away. Living the way I do gives me little wiggle room for anything anyways. Hi I am so and so and i live with my MTF separated spouse and daughter, want to date? Doesnt seem to ring very well off the tongue

**Posted by Abby** December 26, 2019 2:54 pm

I have been told that religiously-oriented websites attract men looking for women who will be trusting and easier to deceive. Some have same-sex attractions which they do not want to acknowledge because of their religious beliefs.Some have never had a successful long-term relationship with the opposite sex which after a certain age suggests something major is going on there even if they truly are straight.

It is probably best not to put yourself out there while you are trying to heal. Your vulnerability weakness will be particularly attractive to those who want to take advantage of you.