10 Years Later - From a DB'er

[DonH]

Thanks to all three of you for responding. Maybell I specifically hope you'll stick with me here and continue to give me some feedback. After reading much of what you provided I fear I'm either writing too much and all of it's not getting read or I'm doing a really poor job of communicating. Surfer you seem to be getting me more although there are still things I feel are being misunderstood. If after I try to rephrase, any or all of you are thinking "Yeah, Don, we understood and got it the first time" then clearly I have the opportunity for some growth as you guys get it and I don't. If it becomes more like "that's different than I thought you were saying," I'm right and not being clear.

LOWERING STANDARDS: By that I mean accepting more things that may not be in my check boxes. I guess it's not a lowering of standards near as much as accepting more things that I would not otherwise accept. I don't have an actual list but if I did an example would be accepting 20 our of 40 items on the list rather than 30 our of 40 - I'm lowering my must haves. Does that make sense or is that the same as lowering standards?

MAYBELL - INITIATING COMMUNICATION: You say you don't initiate, but do you respond? What happened with the latest women is we went out 9 weeks ago now - nine flipping weeks. At the end of the date I asked her out again and she said without hesitation "absolutely" yet we've not gone out. Am I wrong in thinking she's saying one thing and doing the other? She wont' return a phone call. Returns 50% of texts unless I stop reaching out then she contact me and pursues saying she's just been busy - almost like a temp check? So I re-engage and ask her out a second time - she again says "that would be great" but fails to provide any open dates or chose from a list I give her. The third attempt she finally started to give me some honesty and I thought awesome - a breakthrough. She even told a friend how nice my notes were in response to her struggling, again says it would be great to go out and back to more of the same of no response or limited response. I am certainly wanting to take things slow but 9 weeks between dates? Am I reading this wrong?

SON IS HER LIFE - I totally agree and would never expect to take that place. The thing is, she appears to be leaving zero room for anyone else. He's number one to the exclusion of everyone else, including from what I have gathered his sister. Again, am I looking at this wrong? By all means put the son first but since I asked and she accepted am I expecting too much in expecting her to response saying "these are the nights I have open, does any work for you?" (this list of potential dates I already gave her - two weeks worth - went unanswered)

REJECTION - Obviously no one wants that but I honestly prefer that or really honesty over games and guessing. If any of them are not interested why for the love of God can they or do they not just say that? If that's the case, why not say "you're a great guy but we are not a match" or whatever? Why say, "absolutely let's go out" but then have actions of the opposite?

WHAT DO I WANT - Wow Surfer that was so helpful. I was only looking at it in broad terms and my terms - not thinking that yes, I want them to be comfortable with me, feel safe with me, enjoy my company, have fun, etc. Totally overlooked a lot of it. Doesn't mean I have not wanted it but clearly I didn't include it in the list so it was not front and center in my mind. Thanks for helping to put it there.

RINSE AND REPEAT - I'm nearly positive I'm not expressing myself correctly here. What I'm trying to say is that the very things you are suggesting I do, drop back, take a break, don't try as hard, lay out your cards, etc. I did three years ago and it got me nowhere. To that end, well meaning friends suggested I do more of what I'm doing now - yet that's not working either. It's frustrating to then have you guys say go back to what I was doing - that also didn't work. From my point of view I've tried a variety of things in at least two ballparks - yet NOTHING has worked. Obviously I need to find a third ballpark? My frustration is in NOT wanting to do more of the same - both the more of the same I've done recently and more of the same I did previously - does that make sense?

I was fearing I was not being outgoing and straight forward enough - lay your cards on the table and let her know you are interested. So I do that with poor results so then I'm told "leave a little mystery, let her chase you a bit, don't tell her so quickly, three texts or calls without a response and you stop" So I try that and like I said now you guys are saying different. None of these seem to work - that's the frustration.

WHAT I"M EXPECTING - At the end of it all what I am expecting from all of these women is honesty and follow through - whatever that is. Don't tell me you are not interested and then pursue me. Don't tell me you are interested and then fail to follow-through with a date. Don't tell me one thing and then do another including the opposite. Am I wrong in that? Is this unreasonable?

I DISAGREE WITH ONE THING MAYBELL - You said "People are people; no one is of a higher or lower standard than anyone else." I could not disagree more. Michael Jordon is at a higher standard than a high school ball player. Frank Sinatra is a higher standard than Weird Al when it comes to vocals. I'm at a higher standard than the person who refuses to get a job, support himself, take care of his kids, etc. Not everyone is created equal. We may just have to agree to disagree on that one, but from where I sit it's this entire everyone is great, everyone is equal that has our country going down the dumper and the Millennials the most screwed up generation in a long, long time - but that's a whole other topic.

Again, I totally value all three of you and sincerely want to learn from you - and anyone else. If it's me I'll take that and do what I can to change, I just want to make sure I'm being clear about everything and you are fully understanding it before declaring it is me as so many other's I've talked to have suggest that: Don these women don't know what they want and are not available for a relationship - move on no matter what they tell you.

Then at the end of the day, yet again, I have to say, this all seems so much harder and so much different than it used to be. In the past if a girl said she wanted to go out - we did. If she said she didn't, we didn't. We may have not been a match in the end but they did what they said and were honest - at least much of the time. I don't know if it's all the added baggage at this age or what but dang this is hard. Or perhaps it's my baggage clouding me!

Thanks again I honestly and sincerely greatly appreciate your help and input!