u/Artistic-Sun-6661

My experience so far with dating has been catastrophic and it's hurting my self-esteem. I'm not sure if it's me and I'm doing something wrong.

Since we started ENM, both my husband and I have had very different experiences. We opened accounts on different dating apps and everything was very exciting at the beginning. My husband (40M) matched with a very nice woman with whom he connected immediately, and basically he found, in a matter of a couple of weeks, exactly what we were both looking for: a nice connection, a friendship that made him excited and that he could have fun with.

Me (40F), on the other hand, didn't have the same experience. I matched with a guy. We met. Fantastic first date. Both excited. Texts declined from his side. He was "too busy" but still interested. In the end it ended because I didn't see that he was interested enough to make time for it.

Second match, nice guy. We couldn't meet in person before he left on holiday for three weeks, and we both managed to stay engaged through text for those three weeks (that's a lot of effort). We met in person after that. Nice vibe and very exciting. After that we were both busy for a few days, and it would take a week until we could meet again. Texts declined from his side. He finally reached out and said that he'd lost excitement for nothing in particular; it just disappeared.

With women (I'm bi), it has been even worse, the few matches I did get barely replied after matching....Why is that?!

I'm very, very vulnerable right now, and I feel very bad about myself. I'm not sure why this is happening. It's good to know that I've always heard how good-looking I am, above-average attractive, fun, funny, a good friend, and how everyone likes to be around me, but this is giving me proof of the opposite, and I can't believe anything positive right now.

Has this happened to other people? Is this normal? I've just paused all the dating accounts for now, because going through this again will kill me.

I really would like to understand something that happened with a guy I dated. I'm no longer interested in him and I'm dating somebody else but sometimes I still wonder what happened through his mind and I would like to know if anyone has behaved like that so they can explain to me why.

Let's say a couple of months ago I matched a guy on Tinder, I already knew him from seeing him at the same places of our town (not a big town). We both got enthusiastic and met for a drink soon after matching. The date was great, we had fun, laughed and we kissed several times, he started to mention having a second date during the conversation. When we said goodbye we kissed again and we said we would stay in touch.

I got home after that and I texted to let him know I got home safe. We texted for 40min and we were both super excited about each other, he said he was feeling like a teenager again.

The week after the date was nice, we both reached out to each other a few times to just say hi and check in. But I started to see a decline on him initiating. After a week I said that I would like to meet again and he said that he as well but that he was busy that week. Days were passing and he kept giving excuses about why he couldn't meet again but at the same time telling me how amazing the first date was, how excited he felt,....

Long story short, at some point I was very direct and said very clearly that I wanted to meet but I could see he didn't have time and was not making time for it which to me means that he was no so interested.

He said that he really likes me, that he wants to get to know me but that he always struggles to organize his life. He said that he didn't want to keep me waiting so that he understood if I wanted to end things there and he said sorry for "being myself at the moment" and sent a big heart. He said that he would text me for sure at some point and that he would understand if at that point I already moved on.

I even felt a bit sorry for him, he seemed to struggle with something else in life that he was not telling me.

After a while of not talking I saw one of his whatssap statuses and I liked it. Just that. I knew he had been checking all my WhatsApp statuses as well, but after that day he seems to have blocked my statuses and his to me. I'm not sure if he blocked me completely because I don't text him.

I just don't understand this behaviour and I'm a person that likes answers😅 Have you behaved like this before and why? Why would you say you are interested but not make anything happen?

One of my theories is that he is not doing well mentally or he doesn't feel well with himself because I know he is not dating anybody else (it's a small town)....

Today, I just wanted to express how in love I am with my husband after 15 years. He is my soulmate.

I realised this evening when he started to play his guitar and asked me to tell him my favourite song on the guitar so he could play and sing it for me.

I said: "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. He started to play it without hesitation, in such a beautiful way. He sang it with true emotion and made me fall in love with him all over again.

Right when he finished, and I was almost in tears, he stood up laughing, came over to the couch where I was sitting, and kissed me. He joked about not being able to reach the higher notes any more and went upstairs, singing "Hello darkness, my old friend" (in a very loud, high pitch).

I couldn't have laughed harder. 🥰

That's my love and marriage story.

This person and I have been talking almost daily, having playful banter and slightly flirting tone for the last year. I know he is in a relationship and we all know that the chances that it's open are low.

A year ago we went out just the two of us and it was very fun, nothing physical happened but the chemistry was intense.

I wanted to ask him if he would like to go out again like that time (as an annual tradition haha), but I'm scared of stepping into something unethical.

Should I disclose my own open relationship casually before and see how he reacts? Maybe he gets completely weird out and then our connection changes? which would be a pity because it is a nice friendship.

Is sharing daily things with the opposite gender an emotional affair?

Is it sharing personal things?

Is it sharing personal things that you don't tell your partner?

What if you share personal things that you also share with your partner?

Is it the banter and the laughs?

And why???

My 40s (F) arrived with a transformational shift in how I see my life. Last year, my long-term partner (40M) and I opened our relationship to polyamory, and that shift pushed me to seriously look at my own sexuality for the first time. I'd never really examined it, I just assumed things. I always thought of myself as a straight woman with a secret physical attraction to women's bodies, never as bisexual.

What I'm noticing now is that attraction feels genuinely different depending on gender. With women, it's mainly physical, I don't need an intellectual or emotional connection first for the pull to be there. With men, it's the opposite: physical attraction rarely comes first. I need an intellectual or emotional connection to build, and once it does, the physical attraction that follows is much stronger, strong enough that I sometimes fall in love.

I never gave myself the chance to build that kind of intellectual connection with women, and for most of my life I assumed it just wasn't possible for me. Now I'm not so sure. I think the real reason is that I never sought out or found women who matched me intellectually, not that the connection itself is impossible.

Becoming poly made me realise how narrow the world I'd built for myself actually was. I spent years trying to fit into circles that weren't really me, and I think that's part of why I never connected with women on a deeper level, I just wasn't around the kind of women I'd click with that way.

Has anyone else experienced attraction that works completely differently depending on gender? For those who discovered bisexuality later in life, did the "shape" of your attraction to each gender ever change once you actually gave it room to develop?

**I posted this in a dating advice sub (without mentioning anything about polyamory so redditers wouldn't focus on that) and the answer was overwhelmingly towards "he is not into you". I'm curious about what you guys think".

Hi! Like a month ago I (40)(recently open/poly, married to a nesting partner and still figuring things out) matched a guy (37)(poly with a nesting partner and ADHD) on Tinder that I knew from friends of friends. For the last ten years I've seen this guy around in shared contexts but we never really talked and I always thought he was very cute! Knowing that he liked me on Tinder was a very nice surprise. We started chatting but since I already "knew"him in person I suggested to meet faster than I would have done with any complete stranger from Tinder.

The first date was amazing! We both really enjoyed, we clearly didn't want to leave and we kissed several times!
That night, after the date when we got home, we started texting and we shared how happy we were, feeling all excited as teenagers, and we decided to meet soon again....

During the days after the first date we texted casually to each other (from both sides, he also started texting several times just to know how I was doing), but I could see he is not a texter, the conversations didn't flow much. The days passed and the amount of texts started to decreased. Also from my side because I was feeling that it was not in his nature to share things over text and I didn't want to push him.

Three weeks have passed and I made sure to clearly communicate again that I wanted to find a moment to meet because I saw things fading a bit. He acknowledged that as well and he excused himself for not being good at communicating. He really wants to meet again but his agenda seems busy. He told me he would be on a festival this week and that he would contact me after that... He also said he is not good at having a long-stretched agenda.

Now I'm doubting many things and insecurities started to rise. I'm not sure anymore if he is into it, I don't think he faked his excitement during the first date but maybe the pull is gone.

Is this communication style more common in poly dating dynamics? Does his adhd might have something to do with the weird communication style? Is he just not into me and I should forget about it?

Hi! Like a month ago I (40) matched a guy (37) on Tinder that I knew from friends of friends. For the last ten years I've seen this guy around in shared contexts but we never really talked and I always thought he was very cute! Knowing that he liked me on Tinder was a very nice surprise. We started chatting but since I already "knew"him in person I suggested to meet faster than I would have done with any complete stranger from Tinder.

The first date was amazing! We both really enjoyed, we clearly didn't want to leave and we kissed several times!
That night, after the date when we got home, we started texting and we shared how happy we were, feeling all excited as teenagers, and we decided to meet soon again....

During the days after the first date we texted casually to each other (from both sides, he also started texting several times just to know how I was doing), but I could see he is not a texter, the conversations didn't flow much. The days passed and the amount of texts started to decreased. Also from my side because I was feeling that it was not in his nature to share things over text and I didn't want to push him.

Three weeks have passed and I made sure to clearly communicate again that I wanted to find a moment to meet because I saw things fading a bit. He acknowledged that as well and he excused himself for not being good at communicating. He really wants to meet again but his agenda seems busy. He told me he would be on a festival this week and that he would contact me after that... He also said he is not good at having a long-stretched agenda.

Now I'm doubting many things and insecurities started to rise. I'm not sure anymore if he is into it, I don't think he faked his excitement during the first date but maybe the pull is gone.

Should I just wait and see if he contacts me after the festival? Should I forget about it or send one more casual text somewhere this week? How do you keep the connection between dates with people that are bad at texting?
Thank you in advance!!

Edit: the answers are overwhelmly towards he is not into me. And even though it's difficult to accept, you all might be right...Thanks for commenting.

Happily married couple for the last 15 years. Communication is great, sex is amazing, connection is the best. I (female) started the ENM conversation a few months ago. My husband has always been very open-minded, and I knew we would make an easy transition to the lifestyle, so after many conversations we opened some dating app accounts and have been exploring ever since.

We've both had separate dates that went very well, but tonight, for the first time, he'll be spending the night out.

My feelings are suddenly a bit up and down, and I'd like some advice on how to handle it properly. I talked to him about it, and he was about to cancel because he'd hate to hurt me, but I told him to go ahead, because he's very excited about it and I want him to be happy. He handles jealousy about me in a very different way; he always says that seeing me happy outweighs the jealousy (isn't he amazing?). For me it's a bit different, and it's not about the physical side. Imagining him having sex with her does nothing to me, but seeing him excited, getting dressed up and making an effort for her, stings in a way I hadn't known until now. I know where this comes from, and it has nothing to do with him. I have attachment trauma, and I'm working on it with a specialist, but I'd love some advice on how to get through today. Any practical tips that could ease my mind? Thank you in advance.

P.S. Going out myself isn't possible, as I need to look after my kids. Texting friends is also a bit tricky, since not many know we're ENM.

(f40) I've struggled my whole life with friendships. I didn't have an easy childhood. My family was very dysfunctional and I was bullied in school. That combination made me very introverted and I developed a strong inner world where I always felt very comfortable. But the social pressure to have more friends (I only had one at that time) was always there so I kept trying to connect with people and I kept failing; I always ended up blaming myself for it. Fast forward to recent years, I'm less of an introvert (thanks to therapy and life going a bit better), but I still struggle with friends and I'm not sure if it's me, the world, or female friendships, which I find extremely complicated. 8 years ago I met somebody (f43) that had kids of the same age as mine and we seemed to connect quite well; I was very happy to have found her because I never had a friendship like that, with whom I could be myself and talk about some personal things I never talked to anybody else about. I really thought that was a true friendship and that not many things could break it, but I was so wrong.

At the end of 2025 this friend started to behave very strangely; sometimes she didn't answer my texts or her answers were very cold. At some point I raised this with her and a whole Pandora's box opened. I won't go into details because it is a very long story, but to summarize: she said that I did something she didn't like and then I said sorry (I ended up giving 5 apologies about that, which didn't seem to be enough). She said some hurtful things and she judged me on a personal level, something I never thought she could do, because it felt so natural to talk to each other. Now we are distanced, even though sometimes we see each other because of the kids' playdates, birthdays, etc. But nothing is the same. We used to talk every few days and all that is gone now. I recently found out that she is burnt-out and that could have played a role in all this, but I don't think that's an excuse to behave like that with a friend.

I'm currently so lost again about friendships. I realised that with this friend, even though we connected very well, we had nothing in common, and that might also be important. I'm a person that enjoys being alone, but now that I've experienced what it is to have a really good close friend, I miss it.

Is it possible to make good friends after 40? How? I always think I don't fit in with most groups of people. I'm not outgoing enough for the extroverts, but I'm also not that introverted anymore and I like to socialize. I seem to struggle especially with female friendships since I don't enjoy talking about other people's lives, kids, and houses (sorry for the generalization; I know that's not always the case but this has been my experience so far). I enjoy a lot of topics though, mainly books, movies, tech, politics, sci-fi, science, arts, music, instruments.... I also find that around this age, many people go through important internal realizations, and they might have less energy or patience with what doesn't match exactly what they want in life....

Thanks for reading everything. Any general advice or just a comforting comment, to not feel lonely, is much appreciated.

I'm in an ENM and I've met another person with whom I connect and there is clearly a phisical atraction. This person is in a relationship, but I don't know if ENM or monogamous. They seem interested in me and there is a lot of flirting, but we haven't talked about it openly, so this is still a bit mysterious and to be honest exciting for me. I believe that, soon, whenever there is a chance, something physical will happen. My question, would you ask upfront what's their relationship status? Is the ethical implication of this also my responsibility if they end up cheating?

I'm ready for your brutally honest answers. Shoot.