People who need to keep in touch too often - Potential drama?

[Tybee Swing]

Hi ladies and gents,

We've been enjoying our new profile on Swappernet and the great respondents we've been getting. One of them is a very intelligent, articulate, attractive single guy. There's a little distance between us, not too much, but enough that we're not meeting real soon. All of the communications have been very positive, really good. We have been interested in pursuing meeting this guy, when it works out.

Then suddenly, 3 days since my last positive note, he wrote out of the blue - "hope everything is cool with us." Another day later, he wrote - "I'm a little confused as to why you all of a sudden stopped responding to my messages.
I hope it's nothing I did. I'll not bother you anymore."

Now, I haven't even logged onto our site in these two days since he wrote these notes! My husband has - he read the notes. He just called me to tell me since this second note just arrived. There has been nothing wrong, everything was going great!

I'm guessing that he saw the mail had been opened, just not responded to. Maybe he was assuming that I (female) read it and ignored him. However, I just think his current response seems very dramatic, being as I've written him as recently as 3 days ago, and all positively.

What do you think? Does this seem dramatic to you? Any experiences with people like this (and, what did you do)? How would you respond? Would you explain (hubby read mail past 2 days, I didn't), and give Mr. Dramatic another chance?

All thoughts appreciated!

[Chicup]

Well since my opinion on single males in the lifestyle is almost completely negative I'll spare you that repsonse

So I'll treat it like a couple and if a couple did this, I'd just assume they were over eager and unsure of themselves. The POTENTIAL for drama is there but it could just be one of those people who don't know that sometimes you don't have time/ability/desire to respond RIGHT NOW.

So basically I'm not saying he isn't a nutcase, only that this alone isn't proof of him being a nutcase

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by Chicup

The POTENTIAL for drama is there but it could just be one of those people who don't know that sometimes you don't have time/ability/desire to respond RIGHT NOW.

So basically I'm not saying he isn't a nutcase, only that this alone isn't proof of him being a nutcase

Thank you! I appreciate your thoughts and they are well-taken.

I'm hoping there are more messages real soon (maybe even personal experiences with this), because I want to respond to the guy ASAP - now that I've read his notes. I value the wealth of experiences on this board!

[2jersey]

It’s possible that this fellow works for a corporation and has grown accustomed to e-mail conversations which proceed at a fairly rapid and uninterrupted pace. When you are conditioned to this type of environment, the learned habits can (for some people) spill over and affect the way they view social interactions. We have seen this pattern in ourselves and many others.

You can probably diffuse his tension by managing his expectations with respect to the timeline of possible events, and the pace at which you would like to communicate.

In any event, it doesn’t seem that he has been overtly rude to you. If his actions can be considered ‘drama’, they probably fall on the relatively benign end of the drama scale.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by 2jersey

In any event, it doesn’t seem that he has been overtly rude to you. If his actions can be considered ‘drama’, they probably fall on the relatively benign end of the drama scale.

Thank you for your answer!

We didn't feel that he was rude to us, at all. He seems to have his feelings hurt (or at least, he's feeling rejected) by our not replying to him quickly. By drama, what I really meant, is that sometimes the whiny "you're not paying attention to me" kinds of notes make me feel that a person may be too needy or too clingy - or just simply too demanding. Hopefully, that's not the case.

[LikeMinds321]

My guess is that he is used to a more regular - even daily - correspondace pattern with people, and you are very satisfied with a more relaxed pace.

You have probably discovered a difference between you that will either become a greater problem or can easily be handled with an e-mail explaining that you are used to being in touch with people only every few days...to few weeks (you can tell him what you wish) but I think you get the picture.

I've run into this with people and they left me feeling that they were needy, and nothing pushes me away faster than a needy person.

Don't give up on him yet. He may simply be a very sensitive person that wants only the best for the three of you and wants to make sure you're still interested.

Let us know how it goes!

LM

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by LikeMinds321

I've run into this with people and they left me feeling that they were needy, and nothing pushes me away faster than a needy person.

Don't give up on him yet. He may simply be a very sensitive person that wants only the best for the three of you and wants to make sure you're still interested.

Thank you!

[2jersey]

Most of us probably carry some amount of ‘baggage’ from prior experiences. Your past experiences may lead you to interpret this man’s somewhat ‘whiny’ communications as symptoms of an emotionally needy individual. We do not mean to minimize this immediate concern - yet the benefit of doubt might be in order here...

In the social order of swinging, a couple engaging in dialogue with a single male probably has high relative standing, and has every right to establish boundaries and expectations. If you are still interested in this individual, we suggest that you kindly but firmly reassert yourself by explaining your expectations and limitations with respect to ongoing communications. Your honesty and clarity may be a revelation for this man, and it may put you on the track for sincere, honest and quality communication – something which is necessary in all healthy relationships (even temporary relationships).

[Tybee Swing]

Thanks, Jersey!

To all....big thanks for all the quick replies.

I've written him and explained. I'll keep you posted.

[good times]

We had this problem a quite a bit because it often takes us two or three days to get back to someone even though we check it every day. The problem pretty much went away though when we added this note "Note - If you contact us it may take a day or two for us to get back to you as we only respond to contacts together and we aren't always around the computer at the same time." to our profile.

[LOL_OMG]

I don't check our email, Swing Lifestyle, or sometimes even this site every day I believe everyone that has posted here has some great "maybe" scenarios. It also could be that he's overly anxious because of the single guy... Whatever the case, hopefully he chills a little after you correspond.

[Amanda69]

Email is so subjective, it is hard to tell what people really mean, tone etc. In saying that there are a few out there that are a bit on the over eager side of things.

The test will be how he responds to your new email and explanation and/or if he does this again soon.

I had one go psycho on me while I was away on vacation once. I came back to a load of emails each getting progressively worse. Clearly that one was unstable.

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by good times

We had this problem a quite a bit because it often takes us two or three days to get back to someone even though we check it every day. The problem pretty much went away though when we added this note "Note - If you contact us it may take a day or two for us to get back to you as we only respond to contacts together and we aren't always around the computer at the same time." to our profile.

Thanks for the excellent idea - we just added a similiar note to our ad!

I promised an update:

He apologized for assuming too quickly that we just weren't interested, and we went from there, everything positive. We even have plans to meet on a certain weekend in about a month. Aside from this one incident, he seems very cool, so far.

Maybe he's had several situations where he got suddenly dumped/cut off for no apparent reason in the past, and the people writing just vanished. Anyhow, so far so good!

[Tybee Swing]

Originally Posted by Amanda69

I had one go psycho on me while I was away on vacation once. I came back to a load of emails each getting progressively worse. Clearly that one was unstable.

YIKES!!!!!! Several years ago when I was single, I dated on the vanilla dating personals (in fact, hubby and I met that way). I feel I've honed my radar for weirdos and psychos at the emailing level through all of that experience. Your story reminded me of a couple of lunatics that I'm glad I never met in person!

[robel12550]

In case you need more verification, let's take what your pattern was up to the time of his reply thinking you were no longer interested.

Most likely you and he were corresponding in a relatively set pattern with a short time gap between writings. All of a sudden, that pattern is broken and the delay is longer.

We've run into this many times. We state in our profile and messages that we have a life outside the lifestyle and there's always something else to do (around the house, with family members, friends, etc.) so we average about one to two meetings with people from the web site per month, all things depending. And some months we don't meet anyone. There have been times when we've written to someone, they write back, we reply, then NOTHING. And we had answered a question they had posed to us. So since we can't pick up the phone and call, we're kind of lost as to why they didn't reply. (Yet they've been on the site, since we can tell the last time they were on.) So our imagination can really get a work out from whether they were just pranksters in the first place to something serious has happen to them to whatever you want to dream up. Most likely, they might have found someone else of interest that wrote after us and have "moved on". But it would be nice to know that so we don't keep thinking that we might actually meet up with them someday.

We'll bet that guy was thinking the same thing until your latest message. It's the nature of "email" basically. You really don't know if the person(s) have read what you've wrote until they reply. If they don't reply, you get to come up with tons of scenarios as to why. We've written to folks saying something similar to what the guy wrote only to find that their computer went down and they couldn't get it fixed for awhile. Then we picked up corresponding again.

Possibly the best thing to do is if your hubby had read the messages is to write back that "We're still here and we've read what you've sent. We'll need to talk about this and get back to you WITHIN such and such time frame." Then write back within that timeline.

We do.