Why does he keep his online dating profile up if he likes me?

Dear Ms. HeartBeat:
I met this guy in a dating website almost 3 months ago; he’s 46 and I’m 38. We started exchanging emails, then chatting and finally phone calls. He’s a serious man and a bit reserved exactly as he describes himself in his profile (I mean not secretive but he likes to go slow and I prefer in that way too).

Everything seem to be going well between us, he calls me and as I do also, he’s attentive and affectionate with me and we get plans to meet each other in December (he’s going to come to visit me and he says want to find a job here, which is perfectly possible ’cause he has worked before in my country).

We know until we meet in person nothing is settled, but we keep going and we both are almost sure we will be compatible in the real world as we are in the virtual one. The only thing that bothers me is he keeps his profile active in the dating site we met on. He told me his subscription was over, but this site gives the possibility to read profiles even to answer emails or chat if you don’t pay. I deleted my online dating profile soon after we met, not because him but because I had decided do it anyway.

He’s right now working away from his town and doesn’t have friends or relatives there, so I know he’s a bit bored and not comfortable living in that town. I don’t know for sure if he is contacting other women in the dating site because he told me his subscription is over (have to say until this day all the things that he tells me have been true). The only thing I know is he is there every 2 or 3 days. Is this a red flag? I’m very interesting in him but I don’t want to be foolish either.

I’d really appreciate your comments.

Signed,
Am I Going the Wrong Way?

Dear Wrong Way:
I think you are getting in too deep and confusing a budding online friendship with some sort of committed relationship. You haven’t even met this guy yet, but here you are already trying to analyze him to death. This man is not your boyfriend. You are not dating him. You don’t know if anything he has told you about himself is true. You don’t know if what you perceive to be his “reserved nature” is actually a man that is hiding something. You don’t really know anything!

Likewise neither of you owes the other any sort of loyalty as you have no ties. To me that means he can have his profile up as long as he wants on 59 different sites if that pleases him. He also has the right to continue looking for the right woman and to talk to or date as many women from the site as he likes.

You took your profile down and that was your decision. You claim that taking it down had nothing to do with meeting him, but I’m suspicious that you are lying to yourself and therefore lying to me. This guy may take his profile down later if you two meet, hit it off and decide to create a formal relationship, but there is no guarantee of that and you shouldn’t expect it either. In 99% of the cases, what seems to have great potential online goes up in a puff of smoke once the two people meet and there is no chemistry.

So, right now you need to ease up girlfriend. Continue to go out with and meet new men because you are focusing on this guy to the point that you are acting like someone totally desperate with nothing else going on in her life. Seriously, you are acting like a teenage girl with a celebrity crush or some kind of scary obsession.

You are in the prime of your life and at the peak of your sexuality. You should be out having fun in a confident, mature manner, meeting as many eligible bachelors as possible. Check out the events and social happenings in your area, and make online dating no more than 25% of your options for meeting new guys. Get out and have some fun with your girlfriends, take a class that interests you, develop a new hobby, join a gym … do more with your time so you aren’t thinking about this guy so much.

When and if you meet Mr. Right you will happily commit to him and he to you. But don’t expect committed relationship type behaviors from a man you are not committed to and haven’t even laid eyes on.

MsHeartBeat

Relationship and dating advice columnist of Ask HeartBeat! Has enjoyed dishing out insightful yet hilariously funny advice, tersely worded reality checks and "let me slap you upside the head" wake up calls to men and women around the globe since 1991.