DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I need your advice, please. I’ve met a man at the religious outing (he is in his 50’s). Divorced 3 times but no kids. I was never married before. He had a heart attack twice as too much stress at work in USA (he relocated 8 months ago from USA to my city and bought an apartment here )
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Also, working too much was a reason for his divorces. Can it be? We had a great, respectful date, and after that, we texted for a while. He said that he enjoyed our dinner date but he did not ask me out on a second date. I even told him that I like sports and want to be part of a club. He advised a place for me to try out, but there were no plans for us together.
Then, our communication stopped for 3 months. I decided to text him & ask how he was. He told me that he relocated to another country for work shortly after our date & found love of his life over there (his sister’s friend) who he’d met at her dinner party.
I was really surprised that he did not tell me anything before.
What would you tell him in my place? He told me before that he wants to stay here for good to enjoy life & now he is saying that he relocated to another country for work?
Did I scare him by saying that my fiancée passed away a few years ago (afraid that I won’t love again)?
Can you help me please to solve this mystery?
Warm regards,
Words We Couldn’t Say
DEAR WORDS WE COULDN’T SAY: There’s really not a mystery here, WWCS. In fact, pretty much everything about his behavior is pretty straightforward. You had a date, he said he had a nice time and that was it. He never proposed or even suggested a second date. He didn’t pick up on your hint of trying to find a sports club together or – more likely – did pick up on it and deliberately chose to ignore it.
And then he didn’t text you again for three months until you decided to try to blow the dust off the lines and see what he was up to.
Now, to be perfectly frank, this is all pretty clear, and you have to work really hard to think there’s anything to this besides his not being interested after the first date.
You don’t mention what country you’re in, but in the US, if someone likes you and wants another date, they’ll usually make that really clear. If nobody says anything or suggests another? Well, it’s possible that everyone’s waiting for someone else to make the first move, but the more reasonable assumption is that they’re not interested.
Case in point: the fact that he said he had a nice dinner with you was him being polite. The fact that he didn’t propose another date or say “I’d like to do it again soon” is the hint that no, there won’t be another date.
The same with not texting. That’s what we call “ghosting” – dude basically just decided that there wasn’t really a need to tie everything up in a bow for you, and so he just quit texting. Which, while not great, is par for the course. It might’ve been helpful for you if he’d said “thanks for dinner but I don’t feel a connection” or “I think we want different things, best of luck”, or something similar. But honestly? Y’all had a date. Singular. That’s not an oath sworn in blood or even a strongly-worded promise. He wasn’t interested in more.
Everything after that, was him being polite but distant. There’re reasons why you weren’t getting more than the most terse responses from him and why he let the texting go silent: he wasn’t interested in keeping it going. I have no idea if he’s telling the truth about having met the love of his life or even if he left the country. I suspect at least some of that was him giving you a softer “no, not interested” than he could have. His saying “I’ve met the love of my life” is, at least, a reason for you to let go of the hope of seeing him again. It may not be the truth, but it’s honest, in its way: there is no future for the two of you and it’s better for you to move on and find someone else.
Was he lying about wanting to stay? No clue. I rather doubt that anyone with a shred of emotional intelligence is going to say “no, I’m here because I have to be and I’d rather be anywhere else” to a local. It’s entirely possible that he was hoping to stay and got shuffled to another location. Or it’s possible that he saw a better opportunity elsewhere and moved on his own accord. Or, s--t, maybe he’s still in the country, but somewhere else and thought it would be a cleaner break if you weren’t motivated to go looking for him.
Did you scare him off by telling him about your fiancée? No idea and, honestly, it’s more or less irrelevant. The same is true about whether he was or wasn’t telling the truth about wanting to stay. The only thing you really need to know is that he wasn’t interested in anything more.
There’s really nothing to say to him that’s either going to change his mind or make him regret ghosting you. Anything you do send or say is likely going to just vanish into the ether without a trace. The only thing you can really do here is pick yourself up, dust yourself off, chalk this up to someone just not being right for you and move forward.
There will be other people in the future. Just don’t start trying to plan a future with them until they’ve actually given you reason to do so. And that reason should be more than just one date with no follow up.
Good luck.
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