Search Results: dated you for your looks

Have you ever dealt with friends who are in silent competition with you? How did you notice? What is the best way to deal with friends like that?
What did these friends do? Did they, for example?

* Minimising your success.

* Go mute when you tell them about your success, accomplishment, or just good news?

* Try One-Upping you.

* Show "Copycat" Behaviour. (for example, you tell them about becoming good at playing basketball and suddenly they want to play basketball too when they were no interested before you said/showed you are getting good at it.)

* Forcing Competition: They act as a "rival friend" rather than a supportive peer.

A example, you're interested in dating a woman or guy, and suddenly your friend wants them too or the person to be interested in them more than you or wants their attention as well, claiming the person you want to date is just fun to be around etc).

* Did they maybe try to hijack or try to dismiss a compliment someone else gave you in their presence?

(For example a women complimnting you on your looks and your friend stepping in and tells the woman someing like ''Oh he is just tall, all women love tall guys'' .

Or another example a guy calling you beautifull in front of your friend and your friend telling them ''it's because she is wearing make up''.)

In January 2025 I was chatting to a man briefly on an app. I liked him and he suggested meeting up. Things were going fine, we talked about expectations etc. prior to meeting. He also mentioned that he’d had a stillborn baby in his last relationship. It left me speechless but I offered a lot of empathy. After that admission, he retreated a few days later and said he didn’t see us going anywhere, which contradicted everything we’d chatted about and our similar values.

Fast forward to September, he reached out again and we ended up chatting for a couple of months every day. He arranged a date with me. The pace was slower this time, we didn’t jump right into talking about the serious stuff. Consistency was there, he was incredibly kind. We met for the first date and it was nice. We laughed, he told me a little more about what he’s been through (loss of brother, rehab, stillborn baby, loss of partner, rehab and then turning his life around). We made physical contact and hugged and he told me I looked lovely. He arranged a second date before the first ended and I met him again. We chatted a bit more, not too much in-depth but enough for me to know he liked me. We admitted we liked and were attracted to each other. We hugged again and before that date was over he arranged the third. We met for our third and went to the cinema. When he said goodbye I could feel more closeness in his hug and goodbye. This time he never arranged a fourth date.

I noticed more intimacy in his replies after this date and he said he hadn’t been sure whether to kiss me. I said I was happy for that to unfold naturally. But after the kiss question? I noticed a slight stall, things weren’t moving. When I asked if he still had time for dating, he deflected the question back to me and side-stepped. Basically saying we’d been busy and that distance doesn’t help along with us not being ‘excited’ to talk to each other. A bizarre reply, because it contradicted his actions completely.