I've had a lot of bad online dating experiences and I'd be grateful for a perspective specific to them. I am a little picky about who I talk to online as I want to know the person has seen something they like about me specifically and aren't just trying to get a date with any old woman. However, these few conversations start out well, the guy mentions meeting and then they disappear and I don't know why.
Most recently I match with a guy on Hinge (which is rare). He sent me a message almost instantly and I was pretty damn pleased! After a couple of messages he said he had to dash but gave me his email address so I said I'd respond to him via email then. I didn't understand this request really but since I didn't mind too much I did it anyway. I got a reply from him at something like 4am the next day obviously having been out and I sent him a response later that morning. I then didn't hear back. I waited a couple of days, saw he'd been online and emailed him to say I was sorry if I'd offended him and wished him luck in his search.
Later that night he emails me saying I didn't offend him but he'd been really busy with a friend visiting and that he fully intends to reply and meet up for a drink. I left it for around 24 hours, nothing more from him so I sent another simple message saying it was fine. He replied like 10 mins later saying it might be easier to chat via sms and asked for my number and gave me his. Again, why is texting easier than email?? I again waited till the next day and I said ok and gave him my number. He then responded a one liner about it being sexy getting my number. A couple more one liners back and forth and 2 days later and he hasn't even texted me. I don't know what this guy's deal is. Surely he realises I'm going to lose interest if he doesn't make a plan to meet up with me? And if he's not interested in me, why is he dragging things out?
I'm so confused. I would have liked to have met him just to see but he's showing an extreme lack of interest and follow through. I don't know whether to give him a break and wait it out or just forget him and ignore any further communication from him. I'm not sure why or how someone loses interest so quickly but yet still sends flirty one liners and takes more than a day to do even that. I know the guy probably isn't bothered about meeting me, I just don't get why that changed so quickly. Also, I deleted my profile because I just got tired of it all.
My experience with Hinge has been abysmal. As I've said in all of our online dating workshops, Hinge and Our Time appear to have the most scammers out of all the dating apps.
I'm telling you this because it's very possible you matched with a romance scammer. First, you mentioned that he messaged you instantly. That's a common move for scammers. They want to give you their offline contact info as quickly as possible.
If he is a scammer, that would also explain the weird timing of his texts, his flakiness, the lag time between responses and his lack of interest in meeting. But what really concerns me is how eager he was to get you off the app. Scammers try to move their matches to regular email and texting because most dating apps monitor all communications, looking for flags like requests for money, threats, odd language, etc.
Now, if this guy is real, he's dragging things out because either
a) he's not interested in meeting
b) he's juggling multiple options
c) he's unavailable i.e. already dating someone else.
As a general rule, anybody who makes an already arduous process more difficult should be approached with caution. In this case as well as with scammers, stretches of time between replies also indicates your match is otherwise occupied. Someone available and sincere about meeting in person is going to make sure you know they're still interested so you don't unmatch them and move on.
Trust me, people who string their matches along like this are well aware they're risking never meeting their match. They don't care, either because they're frauds with other marks they're focusing on or know they can make matches effortlessly and won't have any trouble moving on if they get ghosted. It's pointless to ask someone if they're still interested, because nobody is going to say they're not. They're going to say whatever they think they need to say to continue the ruse. Whatever works for them is their top priority, not the other person's feelings.
It's frustrating when the matches we make are few and far between. We hold on tighter because they're so infrequent and we worry we might not make another match - one we're truly excited about - for a long time. That's what keeps us holding on. My suggestion to you is to throw this one back in the water, so to speak. Forget about him. If he returns and is ready to set up concrete plans to meet, great! If not, you've already mentally cleared room to focus on someone else.