Dear Eva,
I’ve met an incredibly beautiful, very interesting woman! We’ve been texting and WhatsApp’ing for a couple of weeks. She’s a single mom, works a lot and says she’s so busy that she doesn’t have time to talk on the phone, let alone meet in person.
It’s driving me mad. I’ve told her how I feel and she insists that she warned me when we first communicated that she couldn’t meet me in person for a while due to her commitments.
What do I do?
Hey, you.
There are surely some people reading this right now and shouting at their screens: “She’s not a real person!”
They may be right. In some respects this sounds like a classic fishy scenario in which you are led to believe that you’ve found an incredibly beautiful, very interesting woman who will, in time, get access to your bank accounts and then turn out to be an evil cabal of con artists.
A reminder: never give anyone you meet online access to your bank accounts. Unless you marry them. I guess you can do it then.
That said, this ‘busy single mom’ could just be a busy single mom who hates speaking on the phone. But ... online or IRL, if you’re looking for a certain kind of relationship and you’re interested in someone with strict boundaries, it’s usually time to move on.
None of us are great at giving up hope when we feel a frisson of romance, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of: it’s human. Every romantic comedy is a tale of disinterest followed by true love. But this kind of hoping is not very productive. In the case of this woman: tell her that you’ll be happy to meet when she is free, so she should get in touch then. In the meantime, keep looking. Maybe she’ll surprise you. Maybe someone else will.
***
Dear Eva,
I’ve been noticing that many women read my messages on Plenty Of Fish, but most of them don’t respond. I’ve been trying to figure out whether the issue lies somewhere in my profile or if the problem is the kind messages I send.
In my initial message I try to make sure that the woman knows I‘ve read her profile and I try to express some genuine curiosity and interest in who she is. I don’t send boring messages like “Hi” or lame compliments or trashy pick-up lines either. As far as my profile goes, I’ve tried shorten it and make sure that it accurately represents me – who I am and what I’m like.
Since I’ve been single I’ve been spending most of my time on self-improvement and trying become a more attractive and desirable guy to women. So what’s the deal?
Hey, you.
You are not a product. You’re a man! If you’re not getting responses to your messages, I think it may be because your messages (and your profile) reveal that you’ve “been spending most of my time on self-improvement” to attract women. You could be coming off as a little too try-hard, and maybe even inauthentic. Throw that agenda out the window and focus instead on making your life one in which you feel happy, comfortable and fulfilled because you want to be – not because you’re trying to match the expectations of some imagined woman who you’ve never met. I think you might be pleasantly surprised by the connections you make then.
Love,
Eva
