My messages are bad and I know exactly why
Looking for somebody who will judge me on a conversation rather than an opener
I have written and deleted this post six times, which is precisely the problem I am trying to describe. I freeze when I am trying to be liked. What comes out is either three flat sentences or something so carefully hedged it says nothing at all, and then I read it back the next morning and understand exactly why nobody replied.
Twenty nine, Kreuzberg, two years around this. One arrangement, four months, which ended amicably when they decided they wanted somebody older. They were kind about it and I have come round to thinking they were right.
In person I am fine. Not charming, but fine. I hold a conversation, I ask questions, I do not talk about myself for an hour. It is specifically the written first contact that defeats me, and this board selects almost entirely on written first contact, which is an unfortunate arrangement for a man like me.
I am not asking for allowances. I am explaining it once, so that a stiff opening message from me is legible rather than a warning sign. If you write back and I sound like a different person by the fourth exchange, that is the same person unclenching.
What I would like is something ongoing and slow, with a couple who already talk to each other well. I can host. I have no schedule to protect and no rush about any of it. And I will not disappear, because I know exactly what that feels like from the receiving end and I am not going to be the cause of it.
Before the first drink Replying goes through the connected platform, so nothing about you is shared until you decide to share it. Take contact slowly and keep identifying details back until trust is earned. Meet somewhere public the first time, with your own way home from it, and if you are a couple then go together. Tell someone outside it where you are going. Never send money to someone you have not met. And if a post or a reply reads wrong, flag it rather than talking yourself out of the feeling.
Before you answer a post like this
Answering as a couple means screening him together rather than one of you doing it privately. Start here.