I recently went on my first date in over a year with a guy, who seemed very promising. He comes from a famous family of artists and philosophers, lived abroad, speaks multiple languages and seemed chivalrous and well-mannered in his general attitude, but then again that bar is in hell.

I suffer from a chronic case of loneliness as I crave a romance that's based on an intellectual connection with someone, who's lived a similarly international life as me and has knowledge and interest in the arts and humanities. I have girlfriends like that but as great as they are, they cannot give me that romantic connection. Finding men like this is so unbelievably difficult, and so I've been on my own, without even as much as a kiss for years on end and frankly I hate it, because I have a high libido and a very soft spot for romantic love and I'd love to share it with someone.

So this man came up and I was super-stoked as he did seem like the literal needle in the haystack and quite promising. This was my first date since finding FDS and I did go into it with a new level of awareness. Thanks to FDS I came to the understanding that lots of the academic/artistic guys I've met in my past were high-strung narcissists and that there was the possibility that this one would unfortunately be like that too. This turned out to be the case and I thought, I share the experience for it may help another woman to avoid guys like this.

The date itself consisted of rather interesting conversation, which in the old days would have immediately thrown me into a pickme-mindset. It is so difficult to find men to have intellectual conversations with and with so many men in my past I had to dumb myself down and only talk about gossip, material goods, to me boring hobbies like sports or cooking or current events, rather than ideas or structural analysis. Even those who are interested in politics, usually talk about it like they would about sports, firmly rooting for "their team" and being very tribalistic and small-minded about it. I always feel like talking to children with most men and when a guy comes up, with whom I can converse the way I'd like to, a scarcity mindset always used to take over and render me defenseless against other red flags. Even pre-FDS, I would have always noticed the red flags as painful stabs in my heart, but dismissed that sensation as "just me who is toxic/irrationally jealous/insecure over completely normal things" as this what society (and many exes) have conditioned/gaslit me to think.

Not this time around. I vetted this apparent HVM as stone-cold as I would have vetted the most unappealing gamer. The red flags started even before the date started:

I arrived 5 minutes early at the restaurant. I texted him that I was there and then stood outside in the pouring rain (under my umbrella) waiting for him for over 10 minutes. Eventually, I started to walk up and down in front of the windows of the restaurant and by chance caught a glimpse of him sitting at a table inside. He saw me too, smiled and waved at me to come in. He hadn't waited outside for me (I was 5 minutes early, so idk how early he had been) and he hadn't been waiting in entrance for me. He didn't even come outside to get me, he chose to sit down at the table and wait until we made eye contact through the window to wave me inside. Old me would have dismissed this as clumsy miscommunication of two nervous people at a date, but actually no, it's kinda rude. First strike.

He was very polite and well-mannered during the date, got up from his chair to greet me, made good conversation about interesting topics, paid for everything without hesitation. He mentioned he was looking to get married (I'm in my late twenties, he's in his early thirties) and wanted to start a family in the near future and that flings are out of the question for him as he needs that emotional connection to enjoy physical love. Sounds good.

He then started to talk about his exes in very positive tones. One of them had supported him through a serious bout of depression and helped him to go to therapy for his childhood issues, which he then managed to overcome. He expressed the enormous gratitude he felt towards her for essentially turning his life around. As someone with a very abusive childhood myself, I can empathise with struggles like that. However, it irked me to hear this from him.

I always was kind, loving and doting to every man I dated, I never really dumped any of my childhood trauma on them. My trauma manifested largely in low self esteem and terrible fear of abandonment, which instead of easing or calming, all of the men I ever dated, exacerbated by dumping me out of nowhere in order to be with other women. So many of them ghosted me and posted photos of their new girlfriend on facebook the next day, others just turned very hostile trying to get me to react angrily, so they could justify dumping me and moving on with their side piece. I never did get angry and instead desperately tried to change whatever bothered them about me (they never could name anything in particular) to show them my love and save the relationship, while they would get angrier and angrier. I felt so helpless and worthless in these moments. It was soul-crushing each time and built up so much additional pain to what was left from my childhood trauma. I would have given an arm and a leg to just have a boyfriend, who'd give me a secure relationship without cheating, who I could depend on staying and loving me. Despite my own pain, I gladly was the therapist to so many of these boyfriends (even when they claimed to be suffering emotionally due to their cheating on me, I ended up comforting THEM) and yet they could never extend any of that empathy, love and protection to me. Being held/hugged, protected and loved was all I ever wanted from a man and so far I've never gotten it. I only ever had myself and I managed to overcome my trauma all by myself. I'm proud about my strength, but it was very lonely.

So back to the present and this date. This guy tells me about the girlfriend, who helped him through his childhood trauma so selflessly. I asked why they broke up and he said "Oh she was amazing, a great woman, witty, smart, driven, but you know... she wasn't the one". So this guy had the luxury of having the love and security of a doting woman by his side while he was battling his demons and thanks her by dumping her because she's not good enough to be "the one"? Yikes okay.

He then told me about his masters thesis and how another girlfriend (who he described again in the most flattering terms about her character, abilities and intelligence) helped him so much with his research and experiments, later even connected him with a famous scholar in his field, who then published his thesis. But they ended up breaking up, why? "Well, we matured a lot during this time and had different plans for the future, so we decided mutually to let each other go" ... right, this girlfriend supported him so much through his studies, but he couldn't adapt his future to include her? Riiiiiight.... okay.

Further down the conversation, he mentioned his most recent ex, again in the most respectful words. He said she would make a great mother, that he was so grateful to have met her and how his mind had wanted to marry her, but his heart couldn't, because something was missing and she wasn't "the one". He contrasted that relationship with the one he had prior, where there was this kind of "spark" according to him and where he was convinced the woman was "the one". However, that woman chose someone else (who he thinks isn't good for her in the long run ... clearly making it sound like, he's just waiting for her to be single again) and closed the door on him.

So he broke up with the most recent girlfriend, who obviously had just been used as a rebound, "to let her go" and by the sounds of it things became messy at that point. He said he wrote something to her, he shouldn't have written and regretted very much and still wanted to apologise for. He then told me about his struggles with depression since that last relationship went sour, said that "of course none of this is your problem, I'm sorry I shouldn't bring this up" AND CONTINUED to talk about it, obviously trying to use me a therapist. He thought saying "of course none of this is your problem" absolved him from the act of doing it. I have my own problems and I sure as hell don't dump them on someone I'm seeking to date (a) because I don't share trauma anymore for my own security and (b) because it's rude as hell to burden a stranger like that. I cut him off and said with a polite smile "I'm sorry, but I can't take on anyone's pain" which startled him for a moment. Obviously he's used to getting a sympathetic ear from women.

When telling me about his past relationships, he had not one bad word to utter about his exes. As we all know, the bar is in hell. In my experience, I have rarely met a guy, who didn't speak poorly about at least one ex and if they didn't speak poorly of any, they didn't speak about them at all. As a child, I was verbally (and physically) abused by my dad every single day. He never said anything nice to me, told me every day that I was ugly, stupid, that I shouldn't have been born, that I was the worst thing that ever happened to him, that he was ashamed of me. He never used my name and instead had a very cruel male nickname for me. In middle school, I was badly bullied and always called "it" or "pig".

With this background, hearing a man describing his exes in such flattering and respectful terms would make my old pickme-self think that he must be high value indeed, remaining completely oblivious to the very damning context. Not anymore though, I saw right through this guy.

He eventually proved me right by proposing to have a casual relationship with me. He even dressed this up very nicely as him "wanting to be frank and truthful" about what he "can offer right now" and that he "wouldn't blame me if I ran for the hills", but I should know he "isn't one for flings or one night stands" and he "would hope that it would develop into more down the road".

Big, big yikes.

He was well spoken, well versed in philosophy and politics, cosmopolitan and traditionally minded. Yet he is a serial monogamist, who used all the women in his life and then discarded them when he fancied something "better", dressing up this LVM-behaviour with respectful words and making it sound like he's on an earnest, intellectual quest to find himself and "the right person, the one" to share his life with. But none of this is earnest. All of these women sounded great, most likely were great and yet, they weren't enough. I'm great too, yet I wasn't enough in his eyes for anything more than something casual while "he finds himself". Even if he (rightfully) thinks he isn't in a position for a serious relationship, the least he could have done was to propose friendship or going separate ways, rather than insult me with casual sex.

It's the first time I managed to see past the window dressings and read between the lines. This was only possible thanks to FDS. I love this place so much! :-)