I received a message through one of the sites from a guy I had gone on a date with back when I first started internet dating. His name was Mark. We had met only once before and to be honest our date was fine and he was a lovely guy, but I actually felt he was intellectually on a different level to me. He had degrees coming out of his ears, he owned a very prestigious company, lived in a very expensive part of the city and didn't really do it for me looks wise. I never got back in touch and neither did he. His message to me was to say "Hi - fancy meeting you on here" and just appeared to be a friendly email to see how I was. I emailed him back and we got chatting. He asked me if we could meet again as he had really liked me when we first met, but had the impression I wasn't interested.
If I'm honest, I knew in my heart of hearts he was not the guy for me, but I'd reached that point that I began to wonder if I was being too fussy and maybe I was passing up decent guys based on their looks and maybe I shouldn't be so shallow. I also thought that maybe I had been wrong about the intellectual thing with this guy, because if he was happy to see me again, he obviously hadn't felt too intelligent for me. So I agreed to meet him again. He invited me into the city for a drink and said that if I wanted, I could stay at one of his properties and that way I could have a drink. I agreed. He met me at the property and showed me round and told me he had bought me bread, milk, eggs and stuff, so I could make tea and do breakfast the next day. Wow, how considerate. We went out and he took me out to dinner. We actually had a very nice evening and although I didn't openly fancy him, I was intrigued by him and I liked his intellect. Although he was intelligent, he wasn't overpowering with it and he made me very comfortable.
To my own surprise what followed in the coming weeks was a relationship. It wasn't anything heavy, it was just we seemed to enjoy each others company and we saw each other at weekends. Unfortunately, after a few weeks I started to get cold feet. I knew why. I needed someone who excited me and although he was lovely and ticked lots of boxes, he didn't excite me. I began to realise that I was seeing him to fill a gap. I had no intentions of it being longterm and started to feel guilty about using him for personal gain as a temporary measure. This wasn't fair on him. He was a nice guy and although I could have continued on as a "better than nothing" type thing, I decided I couldn't, as he was too nice to play around, so I ended it.
I learnt a good lesson through this - never go back and give someone another chance. If it didn't work the first time, it's unlikely to work a second time. If he didn't "do it" for you the first time, he won't the second time.