I was seeing a man for about six months. We met on OLD and he seemed like one of the few that was different... he was sweet, very courteous, always volunteered to pay, etc. We were both extremely conscious of the pandemic and it was refreshing to see someone that took it as seriously as I did, since the guy I'd been seeing previously lied about it and unknown to me had been putting us both at risk with his behavior.

This man and I liked a lot of the same things and had similar views on life. I really liked him and saw a lot of potential. With that in mind, I maintained an objective view without being too cold towards him because we weren't yet exclusive, didn't let myself get swept up by that idea of 'potential', and in doing so I saw some red flags.

  1. He lived at home with his mom because his former roommate left and he (supposedly) couldn't afford the apartment by himself in spite of making a great salary. I found it odd that he couldn't have just found another roommate, but whatever. He kept telling me he was working on finding another place but it never seemed to work out. With his salary and the number of available apartments in our town, I found this very suspicious.
  2. He was obsessed with a few female celebrities. Like, attending all of their events, posters on his wall, and getting tattoos level obsessed. This man is 33. I didn't know about this until a bit later, he'd mentioned them in passing initially but not to the extent that I'd think of him as a potential stalker. The tattoos he had were mostly symbols related to these women and I wouldn't have known of their meaning if he hadn't told me. Seeing the other stuff was the beginning of the end for my attraction to him.
  3. We dated for six months and the relationship never escalated emotionally, but he kept putting in so much effort and we saw each other very often, like 3 times per week. He always made things as easy as possible by meeting up with me near my place, since I'm on the edge of town. Whenever we did do something further away he always drove me home. He never pushed for us to head back to his or my place, he always gave me space and respect while also showing interest verbally and in his actions. For this reason I was giving him more of a chance than I normally would, as I was waiting until after he got an apartment to bring up the idea of a relationship.
  4. He always expected me to do all the planning. Where we went, what we ate, all of it was on me to figure out. His lack of initiative eventually turned me off, because I was starting to feel like a tour guide and could see that a relationship with him would be nothing but 'I dunno what do you want to do?' Just once, I would've liked to enjoy a night that he planned with us in mind in the same way I did for him.

In the end, I cut things off because things weren't going anywhere beyond the dating phase. The intent was there, but it stayed the same the whole time and he never mentioned anything about taking things further with something like meeting his friends, even though they all knew about me. I knew all about his family, his life, his work, and yet we never got closer in a romantic sense.

We agreed to remain friends (I know, never again). Things seemed fine for a few weeks until he texted me about needing time alone, because he figured in being friends I would've changed my mind and wanted a relationship with him. Um, what? The whole time we dated he could've mentioned something, anything, about what he wanted. He was fully aware that I was looking for one, it's not as though we were just aimlessly seeing each other.

My whole point of this very long post is that even if he shows up, even if his actions and words match and everything is pointing towards things going somewhere, these things are a two-way street. We cannot do all the work while he sits by and goes along with it. He was aware of what I wanted, but couldn't get enough nerve to broach the topic until I called things off. And even then, he lied about being okay with staying in contact in the hopes that I wasn't serious about the boundary I had set. I try to adhere to the idea of 'if he wanted to he would', and in this case I assumed if he had really wanted a relationship he wouldn't brought it up. Either way, just like someone who can't make up their mind, there's no reason to waste time on someone that has all the intent but no action.

tl;dr - If someone can't step up and tell you what they want after the third month, regardless of how great they seem, it's time to cut your losses and move on.