What a great comment! Thanks for sharing so opening and honestly. We’ll be gentle with you — won’t we ladies? No flaming him — he’s changed his ways.

Now, ER, could you just get the word out to the rest of the guys who haven’t had the same insights you did? Maybe send them copies of “My Name is Earl” first season? I love that show!

We hope to see your comments in the future.

My new year’s resolution is stop being a dog with women. I shudder to think about the number of women I’ve hurt over the years. Never intentionally, but I now know that the end result has often been that a lot of women I’ve seen have ended up with shattered egos and broken hearts.

Like most guys, this never bothered me in the slightest, as I wasn’t really aware of the extent of the damage I was causing. Then late last year two things happened – First I saw “My name is Earl” on the TV. Second, for the first time in my life I had my heart broken by a woman. Yeah, I know you’d expect this to happen sooner to a 38 yeay old man, but it hadn’t. So how does seeing “My name is Earl” and getting my heart broken make me want to change? Simple – Like Earl in the TV show, I realized that karma was probably giving me a taste of what I had made women endure for many years, so I too decided to “…become a better person”. Corny…but true.

So this year no more of the following:
“The Vanishing Act”
I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve done the vanishing act on women after having had sex with them. And when I say vanish I mean I have the ability of totally disappearing from the face of the earth. I won’t answer her phone calls, emails, Sms, etc… One day we are hanging out – the next day, I vanish.

Why have I done the vanishing act on women? Because I was too chicken to tell them the truth, which is….that the only reason I was with them in the first place was for the sex! In most cases I had no intention of seeing these women more than a couple of times (for sex), so once I had what I was looking for…puff…I vanished.

So now my resolution is to not go out with women merely for the sex, but to date women that I think have the potential to be longer term partners. Once I do have sex with a woman, and if afterwards I get that irrepressible urge to disappear, I will now explain to the woman that I would like to be her friend rather than boyfriend/partner. I know I can do it….

“Serial Dating”
This is part of the reason that I end up doing “The Vanishing Act”. In the past I have spent so much effort dating women that I knew right from the start I wasn’t really that into them. But still I went through the dating routine just so that I could sleep with them. I know it’s bad…but it’s the truth. The urge to have sex with as many women as possible is often very strong and too hard for me to resist. So in 2007 no more serial dating (i.e sleeping with as many women as possible). To give you an idea, off the top of my head I’d say that in 2006 I must have slept with at least 20 different women (unfortunately not all at once).

Gatti, don’t fret over the online guy you’d like to see. In all probability he was only out for an easy shag. He then decided that you weren’t worth the effort and he’s moved on. At this point you have a couple of options. Either you can try and win him over, or you can move on to someone else. Trust me when I say that from my experience it is much easier to find someone else that it is to turn someone around to wanting to see you.

Good luck to everyone with their dating in 2007.

xxx,

ER

And what, exactly, is your definition of a world class date? Just so I have my expectations in order.

When someone contacts me who doesn’t click on the page, I’ve felt such a sinking feeling and have been tempted to just duck and run, not answer and hope they go away. I’ve been steeling myself to send a kind “No thanks”, as you have suggested and feel a lot better for having done it. It’s happened to me as well, and while not completely pleasant, it’s better than no answer at all.

I suppose my main resolution is “Do not take it personally”. Because of my past experiences, I tend to take on all the blame, “It must have been something I’ve done!”, and this is not a good position to be in when dating. Stuff happens, and it is just stuff and not anyone’s “fault”. One situation did shake me, when a very promising contact made plans with me to call next and meet ASAP and then (on Christmas morning, dammit…) sent an email that someone from before had contacted him and he was going to pursue that, that he couldn’t have two relationships at the same time. I answered gracefully and then saw that he was logging onto the dating site every day.

Oh, he’s not interested in me, he’s getting involved with someone else, but…he’s still looking??? I was annoyed, sort of upset, definitely confused. I wrote a short message asking if perhaps he was still available and there had been some misunderstanding (my “it must have been something I’ve done” gene kicking in). The answer was, no, I’d done nothing untoward, what he’d written was true, but he just checked into the site to see what was happening with some “fans”. Oh.

So, am I not good enough to be a date, and also not good enough to be a casual friend? Or perhaps so tempting that it would distract him from this new, old flame? Or am I simply being lied to and let down gently, as was my first reaction, the “it’s not you, it’s me” thing that guys do? To think too much in this way is the path to madness…

So one of my resolutions is to learn to let go, quickly, and without letting it affect my self-confidence. And to realize that if it was going to work, it would work. Basta.

I’m sure this will be added to and amended as the year goes on.