EDIT: I have put “high value” in quote marks to indicate fictitious tone. I do not think the following example is a HVM, I think he is a LV-in-HV clothing. Just clearing this up as some comments pointed out that it wasn’t clear!

not sure whether this post is interesting to anybody, but I’m hoping it might help others to read an account of what I have learned from living with a single man.

Background: after a relationship with a NVM I wasn’t sure that I wanted to stay in my state so I moved into the spare rooms my current landlord/housemate has- found the place on the Internet. I also started reading this sub and slowly absorbing its’ information. Living arrangement wise, it has been great, but I am moving into my own place soon.

Now my housemate is what a lot of nonFDS women would consider a catch. He is good looking, has a great career, owns a home, has hobbies, extroverted, clean, respectful, doesn’t say toxic bullshit, cross boundaries, etc. We are not each other’s physical type so romantic or sexual attraction has never been an issue, so it’s given me the chance to be a fly on the wall in a situation where I’m not personally invested .

Very soon I noticed my housemate’s dating habits. There was a steady stream of women coming and going- some would come back, some were one-offs. Almost all of them looked like one another. None of them were just a “in-out” , late night booty call situation- there would be engaged conversation, dinner, drinks, a sleepover. What most people outside FDS would consider an okay date.

I started noticing the different ways he would communicate with each of them. (They would always hang out in the lounge room so any time I was cooking or eating I didn’t really have a choice).

There was a very clear difference in how he treated the women.

The women who were aloof, carried an air of disinterest? He pulled out all stops to keep conversations going.

The women who were eager and put effort into the conversations? He would sit back and frankly, be less interested. His body language was less open.

There was no discernible difference in physical attractiveness between these women.

When i knew I wouldn’t be staying here longer, I started calling him out; partially because I felt bad for the women and partially because I was just curious and wanted to know WTF. He admitted he had been “casually seeing” one of the women for years (!!!!!) , and had recently been thinking about making things serious, but she told him it was too late.

I asked him about one of the girls, who was the nicest of the bunch (in my not so humble opinion), and had very obvious strong feelings towards him. The conversation was basically “Don’t fucking hurt her pls”. He acknowledged knowing she really liked him, and knowing she was a great girl. This girl has been around for around six months, so it’s already far too long by my own standards.

... and now he is exclusively dating a girl he has only been on three dates with, who has been saying no to hanging out with him for years. They haven’t discussed exclusivity- he’s just automatically cut off the others. He can’t explain why this one is different. Maybe she subscribes to FDS. Maybe she’s just emotionally unavailable.

So, in short:

Don’t settle for a quasi relationship just because a guy *seems like a catch- he is not a prize.

*If he isn’t committing after a couple of months, ditch- he’s not going to, until it’s far too late.

*Do not do house dates until you are committed. It doesn’t matter if he pays for everything, let’s you stay the night, introduces you to his housemate, brings you donuts in the morning... it doesn’t mean shit.

*Keep dating others until he’s calling you his girlfriend. Do not get tunnel visioned

*Do not buy into “men can’t talk about feelings” bullshit and believe that him not telling you anything about his life is because he’s a ‘private person’ or ‘just like that’ ‘taking it slow’ or that there’s nothing to tell. He should be initiating conversations about emotions and you should always know more about him than he knows about you, not by doing the digging, but by letting him do the digging, only giving a little, until he gives a lot to show you it’s safe to open up too. Men CAN talk about life difficulties and emotions.