r/OnlineDatingAdvice

i, F16 recently met this one boy on a dating app. he says he is 18, turning 19. that age gap may seem bad, but we were both over age of consent in our states. mind you, we are planning to do long distance, that’s why i say states. i am turning 17 this year too. i bring up how it’s crazy to think im 17, my birthday etc. he always counters that with “oh yeah it’s so weird turning 18.” sometimes he slips and says 19, sometimes 17. whenever the subject of age is brought up he always seems to get a bit distant and closed off. he also does look older. pretty young, clear skin. but he is every tall with facial hair.

i don’t know what to do, is it possible im being lied to?

edit: next year for schooling i’m going to be doing half trade school half highschool. when school is brought up he says he is already graduated and is doing half trade school half high school too… how are you doing half highschool if one is already graduated?

he also has endorsed the fact that he doesn’t want to text in imsg. only on instagram. because “his parents see everything”

I feel like I can attract.

Men I meet at work or through friends ask for my name, chat/flirt a little bit, find me on Instagram and add me.

Sometimes I get their follow request weeks after I've met them, and sometimes we have no followers in common so I guess they tried to find my socials and succeeded?

But then nothing more comes out of it...

Are they expecting me to text first?? All the times I've texted a man first it went horribly so I don't want to do that...

Why don't they ask me out if they are interested?

I've never used dating apps because my wish is to meet someone while I'm out and about... But at least people on dating apps want to meet. Lol

Any advice is much appreciated

I'm still very naive when it comes to dating so I'm being very cautious

Hi everyone, this is one of my first posts on Reddit, so please bear with me. English is not my first language.

TL;DR, I (19F) recently (a month) met a man (29M) through a small online study community on Discord. We live in different countries but relatively close geographically (90 minute flight distance). We have been talking regularly for about a month and have mutual interest, but are not officially dating. I turn 20 and he turns 30 this year.

For context, we initially interacted within a group setting (study server with multiple people, sometimes on voice/video). Over time, we started talking privately. The connection developed gradually through conversation, movies and shared study sessions.

At some point, we both expressed mutual interest. I had jokingly flirted before, and he later said he liked me and suggested we “take it slow and see where it goes.” Since then, we’ve been talking regularly (text, calls, and occasional video calls). There has been no pressure, rushing, or expectation of exclusivity from either side.

We have acknowledged the age gap (19F / 29M). He is aware of it and has not dismissed it as a concern. From my perspective, communication has been respectful, and there has been no pressure regarding time, attention, or boundaries. I am still fully focused on my studies and daily life, and this connection has not interfered with my routine.

However, I told a friend (20F) about it, and she reacted very strongly against the age gap. She is concerned about power imbalance and potential risk, especially given I am still young and not fully independent yet (though I am working toward independence in the next year or two). She believes the dynamic is inherently unsafe, while I personally have not felt uncomfortable so far.

This has left me unsure how to interpret the situation. I can understand why the age gap raises concerns, but I also feel like I’m being cautious and not rushing anything.

I’m not trying to justify anything or prove a point — I genuinely want outside perspectives to make sure I’m not overlooking something important.

There's this guy I met online through a game we mutually play, and he lied to me saying that he's the same age as me, when he's in fact 4 years younger. He's very sweet but still lied to me when we initially met. I don't know if he thought we would have just played a few games together and never speak again, but now we've been talking for several months and we get along well as friends. I only found out because a mutual friend said his age. I don't know how I feel about this. I was beginning to catch feelings, but now I'm unsure. I feel cheated out of the truth, everything else was going great though. Would this be a sign to just stick to being friends and drop all possible feelings? Would I be crazy for still talking to him and being interested? I'm 28 and he's 24. I need some advice on what to do from here...

When I’m dating, I obviously have the goal of getting to know them. What interests them, their goals, what they care about etc.

The problem is, whenever I ask questions I pursuit of learning these things, I’m often met with two scenarios:

Either they give me a short, dry answer that’s difficult to go of or they give me a very in depth answer but it’s regarding a topic I’m not very knowledgeable of so I feel like I can do is provide very basic surface level commentary or pepper them with more questions.

Either way, I feel like the convo stalls other person gets bored.

What I’m looking for are lore dumps and more substantive convos that really help me get to know the other person better.

Now obviously, my first thought was “maybe my questions are too broad or generic” so instead of asking “how’s your day been” I try to ask about specific things they talked about like “How did your midterm go?” Etc

But I still often get the vague and sparse messages

My second thought well maybe the other person just isn’t all that interested, which was def the case some of the time but I feel like I’ve had this same issue even with woman who did turn out to be interested and whom I ended up cuffing.

I’d appreciate it if someone more socially ept than I could give me some advice on how to cut through the filler and get to really know the other person.

I’ve been dating this guy for about 4 months. I’ve seen him a total of 4 times. He’s very consistent with checking in daily but mostly texting maybe once a week a phone call. <\~\~\~

On our second time that he “invited me over” he ask to borrow 200$. Yes…not a good choice on my behalf but he promised to get it back to me the very next day!

He told me he has to go to the bank to take out money and it’s hard with his work schedule because he just can’t go to the ATM? <\~\~ What??? That part right there!!!

It’s been three months since he borrowed the money and at the time of asking for it he said he would pay me the next day.

I have brought it up twice and he lashed out on me saying that I’m judging his character over 200$?

Wait what??

Then he told me I’ll get you your money and just remember it’s over because of your choice to make this about money?

Am I losing it or is this totally some form of manipulation? May I add he works in law-enforcement.

I started speaking to this guy on Instagram at the end of Feb, he was travelling at the time but it turns out we lived (in the uk) about 2 mins from eachother, had loads in common etc - spoke for hours, FT eachother and agreed to keep speaking until we could go on a date when he was back (April time). Agreed to speak everyday until could go on a date when he was back and we did for about 3/4 weeks and then he said he’d met someone travelling and they were gonna travel together but he was sorry. They travelled together for about a week and then from socials looked like they went their separate ways. After about 2 weeks we started liking each others things on Instagram again so I decided to shoot my shot and message again something casual. We never spoke about the girl situation but we started speaking everyday again, was very flirty, spoke about dates, had a laugh. None of this was one sided, he would send me pics and update me, offer me information I hadn’t asked for and ask about me. Then last Friday he travelled home. I put a post and a story on my Instagram which he didn’t like (for the first time since re speaking) but he continued to speak normally to me over the weekend, again, telling me about coming home, his plans, asking about me. We spoke over the day on sunday (3rd of May) and then on Monday morning I realised he’d left my last message on read and he hasn’t responded since. He’s not put anything on socials but has watched my stories I’ve put on this week, quite quickly (one in the space of 2 minutes) suggesting he’s active on socials and I know he wasn’t going back to work for a few weeks. Leaving me on read seems very deliberate and harsh and I’m so confused? Can anyone offer advice?

I’ve meet this guy from hinge (we both have looking for „nothing serious“ written in our bio) and we texted for about two days before I showed up at his house after partying. We’ve meet up like 4/5 times in the evenings during the weekend in a time span of 3 weeks. That’s pretty much the only thing we do. Have sex. It’s great sex and he cares about me after the sex. A lot of cuddling and a little talking.

He has told me during sex and dirty talk that I’m his and his dick is only mine. Don’t know if he really means it tho.

And he has asked me if I get tested regularly because we have sex without a condom.

I am realizing I think I might like him a little more than I thought and can imagine spending more time with him.
Should I ask him if he is seeing other people and is having sex without a condom? Or would that be too much of a exclusive talk because we both are actually not looking for anything serious?

I’ve been thinking about trying international dating lately because I’m more interested in something long-term than casual conversations that don’t really go anywhere.

My experience with the usual dating apps has been pretty mixed matches happen, conversations happen, but a lot of it feels surface-level and never really turns into anything meaningful. I came across Luludate while looking around, and it seems more relationship-focused than the usual swipe-style apps. But I’m also trying not to get pulled in by good marketing, because a lot of dating platforms look promising from the outside.

For people who’ve tried international dating platforms, how do you usually tell whether the people there are actually serious about relationships? Do you look at profile quality, verification, how conversations start, how quickly people move off-platform, or something else?

I also saw someone mention that they reported a couple of suspicious profiles and support reviewed them further, but I’m not sure how much that actually matters in practice. Would appreciate any advice on what red flags or green flags to look for before spending time on a platform like this.