Demographics of how we date/partner/be single

[Orema]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Ok when you *do* date do you usually date casually and more than one until you find yourself drawn more to one more than the rest? Or do you only date one person at a time, for many weeks than if it doesn't work, break things off and try again with someone else?

Single, not dating, not having casual sex.

When I date it's one butch at a time and if it doesn't work out I move on.

I have a crush on someone it's pretty strong and I'm not going to date anyone until we work this out.

[Gemme]

Single, not dating, not having casual sex.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Uli does monogamish mean you have sex outside the relationship but not emotionally have other relationships? (Non-monogamy rather than poly)

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's more a theory than an actual practice at this point, meaning we have created rules around sex outside of our relationship but neither one of us has actually encountered anyone else we wanna get it on with in the past 2 years.

It's a super fun, life-affirming sort of charge of energy when you encounter someone new to whom you feel attracted - I don't see any reason to make that experience 'forbidden' in order to maintain a long-term relationship.

Single, not currently dating, infrequent, opportunistic, casual sex opportunities.

[clay]

Partnered & monogamous. Between my previous 15 yr. relationship & my current one, I dated for about 3 years. My 15 yr. relationship ended with her death. For 2 years, I was just lost in the world. It was extrememly difficult to get back out there again. So far as for those 3 years, I wasn't serious about any of them.

I am a serial monogamist anyway.

While dating, I did have casual sex, but only dated one at a time...some longer than others.

[imperfect_cupcake]

I have never been a serial monogamist. I wasn't raised with it, my friends didn't practice it, I didn't really come across it until I went totally dyke 25/26 and started dating cross the border for butches. Then I was suddenly hit with "monogamy after the first date"

I didn't even really date before that. Hanging out with people, being friends, having sex and then one person becomes really special and I'd fall in love. Once the romance started, *then* the dating started.

So I have tried since mid 20s to get a grasp on something I'll probably never get...

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

I have never been a serial monogamist. I wasn't raised with it, my friends didn't practice it, I didn't really come across it until I went totally dyke 25/26 and started dating cross the border for butches. Then I was suddenly hit with "monogamy after the first date"

I didn't even really date before that. Hanging out with people, being friends, having sex and then one person becomes really special and I'd fall in love. Once the romance started, *then* the dating started.

So I have tried since mid 20s to get a grasp on something I'll probably never get...

I think if i had not been socialized to be monog i would probably be poly. I can love more than one person at a time, perhaps in slightly different ways, but i have experienced it before several times.

[Jesse]

Single, not dating at the moment. Very little, if any opportunity for a trans guy in this small town as far as dating goes. If there were, I would prefer to date monogamously and see where that goes.

[LOQUI]

Hmm where is the option for Single, no dating, having casual sex (I wish!)

[ruby36]

Im single femme - not dating but looking for someone special

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by LOQUI

Hmm where is the option for Single, no dating, having casual sex (I wish!)

That's what the slash is for - it means either or...

Single casual dating AND/OR casual sex

Like the slashes between the types of being partnered...

I'm not dating right now. But I am up for fwb (casual sex) so that's what I chose.

[Random]

Married, Poly, my sex is NEVER casual.. grin.. I take sex very serious.. I'm a professional like that... Not dating at this time..

[imperfect_cupcake]

For those who ONLY monogamously date people (before you are considered their partner)

are your first dates the first time you have met them?

Do you become monogamous right after the first time you meet them, on that first date?

Do you need to have a crush on them right after the first date?

If you have two people ask you out on a date from a dating site, let's say, and you don't know either of them, but they both sound nice, and you only talk to both of them a little bit before they asked, how do you decide which one you will monogamously date? And if you go out on five dates with one and it doesn't work out, have you slept with that person once?
So it doesn't work out... You slept with them once, it's just not working after five dates... Do you go back to the first one you thought was nice as well and say "hi... Um... Oops! Wrong choice, let's try dating!"

Do you need to have a crush on someone to date them?

Do you have heavy crushes on people before you sleep with them or know them well?

If you haven't slept with someone yet and someone else asks you out on a date, would you say yes if you thought they were attractive (as a person) and you were curious ?

Does monogamously dating only count if you are sleeping with the person? If you aren't sleeping with them yet can you still date other people and still consider yourself a monogamous dater? Or is it from the first date, right there that you can only date them, even if you haven't slept together yet?

[starryeyes]

Seeing someone and monogamous

[Kätzchen]

Single (for quite some time, now).

Not dating.

Not romantically involved.

Not sexual with anyone.

I am of a monogamous orientation.

I am fussy about who I spend my time with.

It takes time for me to become romantically involved.

'Crush' is not a part of my vocabulary.

[Gráinne]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

For those who ONLY monogamously date people (before you are considered their partner)

are your first dates the first time you have met them?

Do you become monogamous right after the first time you meet them, on that first date?

Do you need to have a crush on them right after the first date?

If you have two people ask you out on a date from a dating site, let's say, and you don't know either of them, but they both sound nice, and you only talk to both of them a little bit before they asked, how do you decide which one you will monogamously date? And if you go out on five dates with one and it doesn't work out, have you slept with that person once?
So it doesn't work out... You slept with them once, it's just not working after five dates... Do you go back to the first one you thought was nice as well and say "hi... Um... Oops! Wrong choice, let's try dating!"

Do you need to have a crush on someone to date them?

Do you have heavy crushes on people before you sleep with them or know them well?

If you haven't slept with someone yet and someone else asks you out on a date, would you say yes if you thought they were attractive (as a person) and you were curious ?

Does monogamously dating only count if you are sleeping with the person? If you aren't sleeping with them yet can you still date other people and still consider yourself a monogamous dater? Or is it from the first date, right there that you can only date them, even if you haven't slept together yet?

As for me: Not dating, no sex, nada. Not looking, but see status over there.

For the questions:

1. A big "it depends". I've dated fresh off the Internet, and I've dated people I already knew as friends.

2. I do seem to see one person at a time, but I don't have the "exclusive" or "going steady" talk until several dates later (or a month or so). I don't rush that talk but I like it to happen by about 3 months of weekly dating, let's say.

3. I need to feel attraction, admiration, and a good feeling around them to keep going and not friend zone them.

4. I've decided I need to feel in love with someone to make it worth it. Maybe that chops a lot of sex out of my life, but that's my feeling. And I automatically have to know them well. I'm talking the three months of dating, at least, and waiting longer than that.

5. Yes, if before the exclusivity talk and both of us were open about seeing others. However, it just seems like I'm monogamous earlier.

6. Again, I'd have the monogamy talk before sleeping with someone anyway.

[MasterfulButch]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

For those who ONLY monogamously date people (before you are considered their partner)

are your first dates the first time you have met them?

That depends on how we know each other. We may have been working together or moving in the same social circles for a while but then we decide to go the date route. Alternatively, I have met people online and then arranged to go from that contact straight to a first date. I have yet to do a blind date and doubt I ever would. I'm too much of a control freak for that.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Do you become monogamous right after the first time you meet them, on that first date?

Yes, assuming there is a meaningful connection but not by spoken agreement. I am very focussed and when someone gets my attention they get it in full. I would not feel comfortable pursuing something else until I had followed the current path to its conclusion.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Do you need to have a crush on them right after the first date?

I don't need to, no, but it would be likely if it was going to continue.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

If you have two people ask you out on a date from a dating site, let's say, and you don't know either of them, but they both sound nice, and you only talk to both of them a little bit before they asked, how do you decide which one you will monogamously date?

I'd just have to make a judgement call based on the compatibility in the two conversations, however limited. I've been in situations of talking to a few people at the same time in a getting to know you way but there is always one clear leader.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

And if you go out on five dates with one and it doesn't work out, have you slept with that person once?

Perhaps, but that's really on a case by case basis.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

So it doesn't work out... You slept with them once, it's just not working after five dates... Do you go back to the first one you thought was nice as well and say "hi... Um... Oops! Wrong choice, let's try dating!"?

Unlikely. If they didn't make it to first choice then there would have been a reason. I guess there's a possibility that you end up chatting again and discover that you have more in common and then that would be like starting afresh.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Do you need to have a crush on someone to date them?

No but based on past experience, those were probably ones I shouldn't have pursued. I think in part these answers are skewed in that I do a lot of prep work before a first date. If, after all of that, I don't feel something then it should probably stay platonic.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Do you have heavy crushes on people before you sleep with them or know them well?

Absolutely. Intimacy is far beyond the physical for me and that's not something I can do without a certain connection. For the avoidance of doubt, I know others can and I totally respect that.

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

If you haven't slept with someone yet and someone else asks you out on a date, would you say yes if you thought they were attractive (as a person) and you were curious ?

No. My focus makes me monogamous not my sexual acts. I don't tend to live this sort of life though where I have attractive femmes throwing themselves at me left, right and centre!

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

Does monogamously dating only count if you are sleeping with the person? If you aren't sleeping with them yet can you still date other people and still consider yourself a monogamous dater? Or is it from the first date, right there that you can only date them, even if you haven't slept together yet?

I don't have a rule like this but it's my preference to follow my focus. If there's one person that I'm thinking about, getting to know, crushing on etc. then I just wouldn't want to be intimate with anyone else. It would feel unpleasant.

I hope this helps.

[imperfect_cupcake]

It sort of helps. It kind of explains why I can't wrap my head around it. There are just so many differences to the intimacy for me... that I can't imagine the emotions around it even slightly. Just that its' completely foreign to me.

Yes, assuming there is a meaningful connection but not by spoken agreement. I am very focussed and when someone gets my attention they get it in full. I would not feel comfortable pursuing something else until I had followed the current path to its conclusion.

This is where some of the differences start, right away. At the first date I don't see myself as perusing anything at all. If this is the first time I've hung out with them, then I am absolutely not pursuing anything. I am only getting to know them to *see* if I want to pursue anything. So if I go out on dates with other people the same thing happens - I am not pursuing them either. I am merely getting to know them to see if I *want* to. It may take many dates for me to decide if I want to pursue anything with them.

so someone plonking a "lets be monogamous" statement after the first date scares the living shit out of me. But I don't know you. I don't know you well enough to know if I want to pursue something with you. Why are you requesting this when IMO you don't know me from a hole in the ground. It really does scare me off because I can't possibly imagine have that much focus and certainty on someone without knowing them well. I don't feel emotionally intimate and connected to someone unless there is trust. And that is well earned by knowing who they are. I am actually a very sensitive girl, and I keep my really soft parts protected until I know someone. In person. Not just yapping on line.

Absolutely. Intimacy is far beyond the physical for me and that's not something I can do without a certain connection. For the avoidance of doubt, I know others can and I totally respect that.

I agree intimacy is far beyond physical for me too. But I'm the other way round. I can only become emotionally connected in a real way, *IF* I know we match erotically and sexually. I have found out the very tough way that people on paper can match complimentary to me (dominant to my submissive, masculine to my feminine) but in practice, it can be way, way off. So I find it near impossible to have a crush on someone before someone shags me into next week with blinding chemistry that matches up. I suppose sex is such a part of me - I see sex as other people see football or hockey or painting or art collecting - that I have learned very hard lessons about things really, seriously not being there when on paper they should.
So, my crushes just don't happen until that bedroom magic explodes in technicolour surround sound. Everything else has to be there too, of course.

I sort of intellectually get it. Slightly.

I guess?

If you ask someone out on a date you know in person for a while, and have been hanging out a bit and you know you get along and there's chemistry and developing good friendship *first*? then I get the asking to be monog with dating. But it being the first time I've met them?? that really makes me panic. I couldn't possibly put expectations on someone I don't know.

Hmn. Thank for the MB. I appreciate the feedback.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

For those who ONLY monogamously date people (before you are considered their partner)

are your first dates the first time you have met them?

Not usually.

Do you become monogamous right after the first time you meet them, on that first date?


Not usually.

That would have to be one helluva date for that to happen.

Do you need to have a crush on them right after the first date?

Need to?

No.

Do I?

Sometimes.

If you have two people ask you out on a date from a dating site, let's say, and you don't know either of them, but they both sound nice, and you only talk to both of them a little bit before they asked, how do you decide which one you will monogamously date? And if you go out on five dates with one and it doesn't work out, have you slept with that person once?
So it doesn't work out... You slept with them once, it's just not working after five dates... Do you go back to the first one you thought was nice as well and say "hi... Um... Oops! Wrong choice, let's try dating!"

Initial dates are introductions. I am not indebted to them to be monogamous right off the bat and neither are they.

I've been physically intimate with someone very quickly after meeting them and also a very long time after meeting them. It depends on my intentions and what's going on between my ears, to be honest. When I decide to have sex with someone, it's based 10% on them and 90% on me.

I don't understand your scenario. I would have continued to see both people and let them know that we are not exclusive. Dating monogamously doesn't mean 'either or' for me. Dating monogamously means a higher level of exclusivity to me. In the situation you've outlined, I would express to them both that we are still learning about one another but we not exclusive until we say we are. At that point, I would make my choice.

Do you need to have a crush on someone to date them?

No.

Do you have heavy crushes on people before you sleep with them or know them well?

Sometimes.

If you haven't slept with someone yet and someone else asks you out on a date, would you say yes if you thought they were attractive (as a person) and you were curious ?

If we have not mutually decided to be monogamous, yes. If we have, no.

Does monogamously dating only count if you are sleeping with the person? If you aren't sleeping with them yet can you still date other people and still consider yourself a monogamous dater? Or is it from the first date, right there that you can only date them, even if you haven't slept together yet?

I am more of a serial monogamist, but I feel that until both parties agree upon the conditions and parameters of the relationship (exclusivity, boundaries, hard limits, deal breakers, etc), then each party can date whomever they choose. They are not exclusive until they say they are. It's not an assumption for me.

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

For those who ONLY monogamously date people (before you are considered their partner)

are your first dates the first time you have met them?

Do you become monogamous right after the first time you meet them, on that first date?

Do you need to have a crush on them right after the first date?

If you have two people ask you out on a date from a dating site, let's say, and you don't know either of them, but they both sound nice, and you only talk to both of them a little bit before they asked, how do you decide which one you will monogamously date? And if you go out on five dates with one and it doesn't work out, have you slept with that person once?

So it doesn't work out... You slept with them once, it's just not working after five dates... Do you go back to the first one you thought was nice as well and say "hi... Um... Oops! Wrong choice, let's try dating!"

Do you need to have a crush on someone to date them?

Do you have heavy crushes on people before you sleep with them or know
them well?

If you haven't slept with someone yet and someone else asks you out on a date, would you say yes if you thought they were attractive (as a person) and
you were curious ?

Does monogamously dating only count if you are sleeping with the person? If you aren't sleeping with them yet can you still date other people and still consider yourself a monogamous dater? Or is it from the first date, right there that you can only date them, even if you haven't slept together yet?

From what i get from your first line you only want input from those who date monogamously from the first date, is that correct?