Dating/Relationships

I Dumped A Guy For Talking About His Ex

A match made in awkwardness.

This is a surefire way to dampen any mood on a first date and you’d think that almost everyone knows about it. Unfortunately, not everyone does. Take it from someone who actually went out on a date with a guy who made this error.

I had set up a meeting with a man I met on an online dating site. He was a single dad, and — apparently — he was looking for love. He seemed to have great potential after chatting online with him for several weeks and we exchanged photos of one another over the course of our communication.

When we finally met in person, he was definitely everything he had advertised physically and he seemed to be satisfied with my appearance in person as well. This IS important considering some online daters don’t accurately describe themselves looks-wise (you can read about my experience with that here.)

We met at an agreed-upon location in our separate cars and then I allowed him to drive me to the restaurant where we planned to have dinner. Inside his car were dozens of empty gum wrappers from a brand of gum that’s supposed to help people stop smoking cigarettes.

My date explained that he had recently quit smoking and that the gum was really helping. He was chewing as he spoke to me and judging by all the wrappers everywhere, he used a lot of this gum.

“Yeah, after my ex and I broke up, I started smoking again and now I’m trying to be done with that.” He said as we drove along to our destination.

I took the opportunity to chime in briefly regarding my most recent ex and then I changed the subject to what kind of hopes and/or goals he had for the future.

Unfortunately, the attempt to change the topic from his ex to other things did not work. My date spoke about his ex the entire way to the restaurant as well as during our dinner.

This was bizarre, as he had not mentioned the ex at all during our online conversations. Apparently, his ex was the mother of his young son, and although they had never been married, from his account they had been a happy little family for a good amount of time. It seemed as though the breakup was her idea and it also seemed as though my date had not gotten over her yet.

I get that the person you have kids with may need to be in your life and have a significant role in your day-to-day life, however, if you’re putting yourself up on a website advertising that you’re single and looking for love, you should at least be able to express interest in the person you choose to go out with instead of monopolizing the entire conversation with ex talk.

Before we even finished dinner I knew that this guy was not going to be a good match for me. I was genuinely disappointed. He was cute and I really enjoyed talking to him online. Instead of asking me questions about myself or my interests, he went on and on about his ex, how she had hurt him, and how happy they had been previously.

This was definitely not what I wanted to hear about on a first date. I realized that this guy had some serious inner work to do before he would be ready for a new relationship.

The story of an ex or exes is bound to come up while dating someone new but this was bordering on obsession. I knew if things got more serious with this guy, it would be a disaster. He was plainly still very much in love with his ex.

We ended the date on friendly terms and a few days later he asked me out for another date. I attempted to diplomatically let him know that he had more work to do getting over his ex before he should put himself on the dating scene, or at least before I was willing to enter into a relationship with him.

He did not take this well. He seemed eager to go out on a second date with me. I figured he was just desperate to get over an ex whom he clearly was not over at all.

He was essentially trying to force himself to be over his ex by dating someone new. Unfortunately, when there are unresolved feelings about a relationship that burned you badly, the fake it till you make it mantra doesn’t work.

Even if he did genuinely like me, I didn’t want to be a rebound fling and I could tell that’s exactly what I would have been. I wished him well and offered him good luck with quitting smoking. I was disappointed but glad I didn’t pursue any more dates with this guy, especially since a young child was involved.

I learned that as much as we might really, really want to be over someone we’re still in love with or who has hurt us, some things — and people — do just need extra time to heal.

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By the way, I also have a podcast about being a stepmom. Check it out if you’re interested.