POZ Community Forums
Main Forums => Living With HIV => Topic started by: PRMike on June 04, 2007, 07:34:45 pm
-
HI MY NAME IS MIKE AND FOR ME IT HAS BEEN REALLY HARD TO FIND SOMEONE TO DATE NOT TO MENTION GET INVOLVED WITH I HAVE BEEN POSITIVE FOR OVER 20 YEARS AND I HAVE BEEN DIVORCED FOR OVER 5 YEARS AND I MISS BEING ABLE TO GO TO BED AND HAVE A WARM BODY NEXT TO ME...
I HAVE E-MAILED A FEW WOMEN AND I MET ONE THAT I LIKED ALOT BUT SHE HAD TO MOVE TO GA SO IT DID NOT WORK OUT,,, BUT I AM TALKING TO THIS LADY WHICH I ALSO LIKE AND WE MET FOR LUNCH THIS PAST SATURDAY AND WE HAVE E-MAILED EACH OTHER BUT WE HAVE NOT SPOKEN ON THE PHONE SINCE AND I WANT TO FIND OUT IF THERE IS GOING TO BE ANOTHER DATE AND IF SHE THINKS THAT WE WILL CONTINUE SEEING EACH OTHER WHICH I HOPE WE WILL...
IT HAS BEEN SO LONG THAT I HAVE NOT BEEN WITH A WOMAN THAT I'M AFFRAID THAT I MIGHT SCARE HER OFF.
ANYWAY I JUST WANTED TO VENT AND SEE IF THERE'S ANYONE IN THE SAME SITURATION AS I AM ???
BYE PRMIKE
[attachment deleted by admin]
-
Hi Mike, welcome to the forums.
I've removed this post from the thread you posted it in - because you posted in the Women's forum and you don't seem to be a woman.
I'm in a long-term relationship, so sorry, but I can't really relate to your situation. I'm sure others will chime in though.
Ann
-
Hey Mike,
Welcome to the forums. Typing in all-caps in the interwebs is considered shouting and makes reading your stuff a bit difficult.
MtD
-
Mike~~
Hello and welcome to the forums. It seems to me that you have someone in mind with the lady you have been emailing but you say the phone conversations has stopped? How was the meeting? Maybe you should email her and ask her what she thought about the meeting. All the second guessing may end up driving you crazy...Good Luck and keep us posted.
-
Hi thank you for your responces and advise... i'm new to computers so please forgive me for my errors...
to Queen Akasha well the meeting was really nice we ordered lunch and while we waited we talked
about our past and our health and a few things that we each liked..
I left feeling pretty good,,, but now that i think about it i wonder if it was a mistake when the subject
of my ex-wife came up,,, you see my ex and i had a bad marriage and i told her alot of the things that
tore my marriage apart.. do you think it was a mistake? I feel the need to be honest and upfront...
well anyway thankyou again bye
PRMike
-
life is full of problems so we do what we can. Good luck
-
Hi Mike, and welcome to the forums.
You are doing pretty well for someone so new to computers. Don't mind MtD, he might seem like a tiger, but he's really a pussy cat ;) :-*
As for the date with the girl, take things a little slow, because chances are, she's just as scared as you are. Definitely send her an email, saying how much you enjoyed your lunch and your talk. Tell her how you hope to see her again soon, as it would be nice to get to know her more.
Talking about your ex could be hard when meeting a woman for the first time. Sometimes it's best to leave that for another conversation, after you have gotten to know each other more. However, what's done is done, and the only thing you can do is move forward and do your best to not make that same mistake.
Ask her if you can call her, even offer your phone number first. Meeting someone over the internet (I'm assuming here, did you meet her over the internet?) can be difficult, and very hard to trust at first. Take things slow, because it's a scary world out there.
Good luck! I hope things pan out for you!
-
Well Mike I'm sort of in the same position as you. I was married for 20 years, divorced for 3. I miss being married a lot. I haven't dated anyone as of yet.
But like REMO posted in the womens forum it seems when you read peoples profiles they expect a lot from the other party and quite frankly I disagree. I do have my standards but they are based on attraction.
Money can't buy you love... oh wait thats a song LOL
Happy hunting
Bob
-
Hi thank you for your responces and advise... i'm new to computers so please forgive me for my errors...
to Queen Akasha well the meeting was really nice we ordered lunch and while we waited we talked
about our past and our health and a few things that we each liked..
I left feeling pretty good,,, but now that i think about it i wonder if it was a mistake when the subject
of my ex-wife came up,,, you see my ex and i had a bad marriage and i told her alot of the things that
tore my marriage apart.. do you think it was a mistake? I feel the need to be honest and upfront...
well anyway thankyou again bye
PRMike
Mike, this is strictly my opinion and if it was a situation of this being myself instead of the lady,ok.
I would've been ok with the chat about our past and health. Now depending on what you said about the ex and how long you dwelled on it might have played a factor with me. To me it is ok to discuss what may have broken the marriage up but if it went to saying some derogatory things about her, I would wonder. Or if you said you still had feelings for her after 5 years depending on how long you were married to her. It's really hard to say w/o knowing what was said. I'm strictly going by the info you supplied.
But you say that you still correspond with her by email. Not sure why the phone conversations would stop unless she has just been busy or sometimes folks just don't feel like talking. The thing is that you did get a reply. Are you going to ask her how she enjoyed the date? It's good to take things slow since it was only a first meeting. And I'm sure she prolly appreciated your honesty....Next time don't dwell on the ex and maybe just discuss what you are looking for. Just my thoughts.....
-
PRMike-
Prospects for new love prefer that baggage from past relationships be left on the curb. Clean slates are much easier vehicles on which to start conversations.
I was gonna say that these fora aren't a great for meeting new lovers, but that would be disingenuous...
Brent
(Who welcomes Mike to AIDSmeds)
-
Hi Mike.
The situation you find yourself in is not exclusive to hiv + men, but being hiv+ makes it a hell of a lot harder.
firstly I'm not clear if the women you had the date with is + as well , and if you are looking only for + women. The + dating scene is full of its own special problems. You often hear + women complaining about the men on the dating sites, in forums and letter pages. But I had my own complaints about these women. Seemed to me there was a lot of double standards. Women were complaining that men couldn't commit, but come on.. when you view someones profile and its says something like "I'm sick of guys who don't want to commit, I need a man who can love me and be true " etc, - that's bunny boiler material. And if you met a women who said that in a bar or at work you'd give her a wide berth. I think people on dating sites generaly expect too much, at least the hetros. Man, you date, you talk , you fuck. Move on if it ain't right. Its no big deal. And sex is good. At least I think it is.
Anyway, i digress somewhat. I think what you are suffering from is S.L.F syndrome ( sad lonely fuck). This is when , enough time goes by where you haven't been with a women ( or man) and you start to feel you are surrounded by an aura of unattractive vibrations. A kind of desperation sets in, which sadly , is unattractive to most people - and the longer you go without , the less confidence you have, which also is unattractive to most people
So ,how to get out of this? Like I say, its not exclusive to poz people, but we got to work extra hard. OK. Here are my tips.
1. Use everything at your disposal. Hiv dating sites, support groups etc, but please. Don't give up on neg women either. If you read my post 'True Love' , it will show you what can happen out there in the real world.
2. Try to get laid. I don't know the law in your part of the world regarding disclosure , or your moral/ emotional take on it. But if you can just get laid a few times , that can boost your confidence dramatically and women will feel that. Its like buses,you wait forever but when one comes then you can be sure a few more are coming along right behind.
3. Be a player.. Women love a guy who is a bit of a bastard. 'The art of seduction' is a good book on... well, the art of seduction. I haven't read "The Game" but it may have some good tips too. I'm sure you have plenty of your own resources to pull on.
And it doesn't matter if you are looking for love and relationship. You still gotta be sexy first. Its not gonna be a good start to date someone based on sympathy and sadness. Be sexy. I know its not easy, but like i say, us hiv + guys and girls really have to pull out all the stops. And remember,as an hiv + man, even if you are dating + women, you still have to compete.
And of course, you don't have to be a real bastard. Its just a game.
4. work on yourself. Don't believe that another person can bring you happiness or security alone. Those things come from you. A spiritual practice, therapy, art, work, whatever floats your boat,- but get that boat afloat first.
OK. I hope this helps a little. Good luck mate.
-
Hi everybody, well my lady friend did call me last night and we spoke for alittle while and she said that she enjoyed our lunch together which made me feel good but at the end of the conversation she asked me if i would'nt mind being friends which i said to her that it would be ok with me,, I also replied that i could not force her to be my woman and she had a good laugh at that,, so now i guess it's up to time..
well thank you everybody it feels good having someone to talk to.
bye and have a great day always PRMike
-
3. Be a player.. Women love a guy who is a bit of a bastard.
Goatwriter
I'm still reading through the rest of your post but just had to respond to the above comment you made. Speaking as a woman, who has many women friends, I think I can speak for all of them when I emphatically respond to that with:
Um…the hell we do!
Many of us may make the mistake of going out with bastards, due to bad choices and allowing men to behave like bastards towards us due to insecurities, but that doesn’t mean we necessarily love it. Many of us have just been repeating unhealthy patterns, due to ignorance and self issues in need of addressing.
Merely my opinion but, any man who is a bastard to a woman is not a man worth knowing. Just as any woman who is a bastard/bitch to a man is not worth knowing either. In fact, any human who is a bastard/bitch to any other human is not worth knowing, in my books.
Just saying.
With respect and, like I said, still reading…
Melia
-
I had the same reaction to Goat's comments as Melia did.
And when I got to the bit where you (Goat) said "And of course, you don't have to be a real bastard. Its just a game." I thought to myself - game-playing is just as bad.
Mike, one thing I learned the hard way is that the more desperate you are to become part of a couple, the more elusive relationships seem to become. I might be in a long-term relationship now, but I wasn't always.
About six months before I began the relationship I'm in now, I decided that I might well end up alone, but if that was going to be the case, then I'd better be happy with my own company. As soon as I started living for me and developing interests other than an obsessive search for a partner, I started getting offers left, right and center. I had a pick of quite a few and guess what - I most certainly did NOT choose the bastards!
So the score, for me, is: Bastards-0, NiceGuy-100
Ann
-
Goatwriter
I'm still reading through the rest of your post but just had to respond to the above comment you made. Speaking as a woman, who has many women friends, I think I can speak for all of them when I emphatically respond to that with:
Um…the hell we do!
haha, that jumped right at me too.
But he is right though that you need to spread yourself thin, reach out to as many women as possible via the net, work, social networks whatever, because even if nothing turns out with them, you will break out somewhat of the cycle of feeling nothing is going on sexually.
Moreover he is right that desperation isn't sexy. For me as a woman it's nice to think that someone just wants to get to know you, and isn't necessarily looking for a warm body to fill the void as soon as possible (although, we are all desperate in that sense, but it is possible to accentuate another side without denying your needs).
I know that there are a lot of poz women out there looking for love, I believe they are not more picky than neg women but maybe more guarded b/c when life deals you too many a blow you start to cower, and look at small things as indicating danger.
Next time try not to talk too much about the ex; and I also suggest, instead of sitting and talking about painful things - and for us HIV+ many things are painful, something which always worked for me is doing something on dates like playing pool, bowling or whatever, even going to the movies. I know it sounds goofie and may not be applicable to everyone but for me that takes the stress off "the date" and puts you in a situation where you are interacting and laughing and also see small (sexy) things in each other's behavior. Of course in a movie people usually don't see/talk but then later you talk about it or you make fun of the movie if it was crap. What I'm trying to say, all my good dates where such in which something was done, we went somewhere, we did something, and the bad dates were ones in which we interviewed each other over dinner or alcohol.
Having written all these advices I still don't know what the F I am talking about and it's all a bit of a stumble in the dark even when it works - but isn't that the case for everybody?
Take care & good luck,
-
Hi again, wow there are so many things that ran through my mind when i read the latest responces to what i asked but one thing is for sure and that is that i'm not a player nor a bastard, i strongly beleive that if you want to find a good woman you have to treat her like a lady and respect her that is why i hide nothing and i try to let her know that i want someone to love and have that person love me back, it may be because i was married for so long but i like knowing that there is someone in my life and that we will be there for each other through thick and thin..
yes i must admit that i haven't had sex in over 5 yrs but i'm not into hookers and i dont want to make love to a non positive woman and take the chance of infecting her, i dont think i could live with myself knowing that i was the cause of hurting someone so that is why i want to meet a woman that is also positive...
I know that there is alot of guys that dont give a damm about the actions they take but i do and i rather wait until i meet that special woman,, well i just want to say thankyou for your opinons..
bye always PRMike
-
PRMike, welcome to the forums. If nothing else, it sounds like a nice friendship might blossom with this lady. That's pretty valuable. It also sounds like you have a great attitude so I think you should just continue putting yourself out there, on the Internet, support groups and other social situations, and I bet you'll bump into Miss Right sooner or later.
-
Dear Mike.
just because some of us poz guys have sex with neg women, doesn't mean we don't give a damn. In my case , I've done the research and I believe that if due care is taken the risk or passing on infection is minimal.
There is a greater chance of you killing someone by driving your car, and about the same chance as being struck by lightning or infecting someone by having an accident at work. but its a personal choice, and for a long time I also only wanted to date poz women. And I met some wonderful ones too.
Hello Girls. Yes, I thought that would get you going. I did say "a bit " of a bastard. I'm actually a very nice guy, but nice is not always enough. At least not in the seduction stage. when love comes around, sure , then you can be nice pretty much all you want.
A recent BBC documentary looked at all the literary figures that have stoked the romantic imaginations of women. From Mr Darcy to Heathcliffe and our modern day movie idols.. the bastard does have a slight edge. Its not about being a real bastard, its about putting a bit of edge and sexiness into the proceedings.
-
Hey Mike
I agree with Keyite in that even if nothing more develops it sounds like you may find a nice friendship blossoming with your lady friend. Also you do have a great attitude, this bit especially stood out to me:
i strongly beleive that if you want to find a good woman you have to treat her like a lady and respect her that is why i hide nothing and i try to let her know that i want someone to love and have that person love me back
It's comforting to know that there are still gentlemen out there who think like that.
I also agree with Ann in that the more desperate one is to find a relationship the more elusive they seem to become.
I actually cherish all my friendships now; I have some wonderful friends, male and female, all over the globe. Until a few years ago, I had spent most of my adult life in long-term relationships and friendships had always kind of taken second place. Not any more. My family and friends are the most important people in my life now.
I still hope for a relationship, but I guess I am nervous of the whole dating notion, having never done it. And for now, to be honest, I'm just not really that bothered. The desire for a relationship is important to me, just not SO important anymore. Which is ok.
Anyway, I wish you all the best luck in your endeavours, Mike. :)
On a slightly different note, I feel compelled to respond to the following:
A recent BBC documentary looked at all the literary figures that have stoked the romantic imaginations of women. From Mr Darcy to Heathcliffe and our modern day movie idols.. the bastard does have a slight edge. Its not about being a real bastard, its about putting a bit of edge and sexiness into the proceedings.
In my opinion, the stuff portrayed in movies/novels/song lyrics etc above 'love' and 'romance' is mainly misleading and mythical bulls**t. It’s not healthy and it’s not realistic. And because this bulls**t is splashed across our TV screens/in our literature etc at every given opportunity, most people are brainwashed into thinking that that is how love and romance should be.
For example:
The idea that love is pain = utter bulls**t.
The 'treat 'em mean, keep ‘em keen' notion = utter bulls**t.
The mythical image of bastards being sexy = utter bulls**t.
The list is endless...
However, many people believe what they read and see, soaking it all up like sponges, day in and day out. And then said brainwashed people go out and try to form relationships based on such beliefs. Hence the level of dysfunctional relationships, often resulting in separation/divorce or, even worse, 2 unhappy individuals stuck in a situation that sucks.
I am tired of hearing about the distorted notion that love and relationships are about game-playing. Relationships should never involve playing games - and by games, I mean mind games - of the 'messing with someone's head' variety.
I’ve said this before in other threads and I’ll say it again: Too many people behave so inappropriately towards their partners in relationships and often don't even realise they are doing it or, even worse, don't care that they are doing it. And too many people settle for much less than they actually realise they are worth. So both parties remain stuck inside unhealthy dysfunctional relationships, unaware of how much better things could actually be. ---Sigh--- Folks, IT REALLY DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY! (capitals intended)
Apologies to Mike for going a little off track, but I just had to get that off my chest.
Melia
PS: Sorry Mike, forgot to say: Welcome to the forums! :)
-
Hi sweetasmeli thankyou for your kind words and advise, as for being a gentalman well i was raised to respect women and i must admit that when i used to drink i was a machista ( male ego) really bad..
and i did not like the things i said and did so i stoped drinking..
well thankyou again bye for now always PRMike
-
Hi I just want to wish you guys a Happy Fathers Day also to all the single Moms.
May you enjoy this day with your children. :D