Search Results: how to tell if someone is interested

There’s been this school that I’ve been trying to get a job at for almost as long as I was at the last school I worked for ( 2 years?). This is a recruiter I dealt with before & I’ll start with saying I finally got the gig. The application process was always tedious: indeed apply, questionnaire that can probably add up to about a paragraph, interview with recruiter (this guy) and finally panel interview w/ hiring team. The furthest I made it over a yr ago was to that panel interview & got that rejection email, every other time after they’d send the questionnaire & I got a rejection email shortly after. Well this time around, I made it to the panel interview, was told this was the last step & then am told they want to meet me one last time to ask questions to gauge my experience & my expectations were very low but tried my best and guess it worked out this time around.

This time when I first met with the recruiter, he just went on almost an hr talking about company culture and kind of tested me too. At one point he said he wanted to hear from me because “he felt like he was doing most of the talking”. Every time he’d give info or give an order he’d always end with that *reassuring* “okay” & it kinda threw me off at times. He did warn me when we first met that he thinks the hiring team would want to meet with me and they did. Yesterday, he calls me to tell me that they extended an offer & I told him I wanted to move fwd but needed to let them know I had a NYE event scheduled after I met with them & wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be an issue. And he said I threw him a curveball, I didn’t do anything wrong but he wanted me to speak with the hiring mgr before moving fwd bc he didn’t want to speak for them. He said it should be fine but that curveball comment threw me off. You know when you just feel like someone may be reading you wrong? I come across maybe as too reserved to him but I answer “okay” and asked questions to show interest almost every time.

You know when you just have a gut feeling? I’ve been on and off the dating apps for years, it’s come to the point where I’m not as interested & I swipe on matches/reply to msgs every few days or every other day. Dating apps are the only way I’ve tried dating as I dont have a social life but dating apps have been successful for quite a few people I know. I’ve never had a real relationship, I saw someone for a few months maybe 5 years ago & something told me after I saw him that’d I’d be single for a long time. With him it felt like settling & I refuse to ever be with someone that made me feel like that again.

I had to use dating apps bc I’m not very friendly & I don’t get approached in person. I’m told I’m cute/attractive & I will say I have a very low sex drive (haven’t masturbated or had sex in 5 years). I don’t think this is a huge deal considering this isn’t something that will be an issue that early on, a guy can’t just look at my profile/see me in person & know that right off the bat.

I get matches (never been the issue) but it’s always: ghosting, fizzling out, lack of interest (can go both ways), feelings not reciprocated, just not a good match & some guys are just crazy. A lot of the time, I expect the guy to be a certain way from their profile & I just get disappointed because they’re so different even though they didn’t catfish me, am I being unrealistic? I just always have a gnawing feeling like guys aren’t attracted to me, I’d get told once in a while that some guy looked at me/found me cute but they never do anything about it (it’s always word of mouth).

Maybe this is an irrelevant comparison but I mean I can do everything in my life but find a LTR with a man like buy property, get decent jobs etc but what gives? I’m told I’m attractive but being pretty much 30…I can’t help but believe it really is bad luck.

So on a dating app maybe 2+ months ago, I talked to someone anywhere around 1-3 weeks. Maybe daily or every other day, he eventually suggested meeting up and the weekend he asked, I had to work. When I suggested another time when I was free, he was out of town. He eventually follows up when he’s back asking if we could meet and the times weren’t lining up as I was adjusting to a new job (didn’t tell him that) & he sent the last message asking if I wasn’t a night owl bc he was proposing meeting after work. I never followed up and I don’t know why I self sabotage/chicken out. I’m not romanticizing, I find him attractive & would consider him but I just get antsy yet feel apathy when it comes to (potentially) dating. Should I follow up and see if he’d be open to meeting up or just leave it alone? Tbh if I was him I wouldn’t give me a chance which is why I haven’t reached out recently. Well today I sent him a message & I’m kind of regretting it atm:

Hey.. so I know this is random but I do hate that I went MIA a few months ago. Truthfully at the time I was adjusting to a new job/ was a bit antsy & I really don’t want it to come across as going back to the drawing board because I haven’t met up with anyone since I joined the app this yr. If you’re up for a redo then that’d be superb

Someone that I work with recently said that they hope they only live to 50 and if they don't, they'll see to it that they only live to that age. They said they can't imagine living another 20 years in this "horrible world." I thought that was such a weird thing to say because they seem so successful in their job, & full of life but yet they don't seem like they have a real interest in living when they told me that so casually. Maybe they were just trying to get attention saying something so drastic.

I was interested in this guy in my program until we had this conversation. He said that he had a preference for women with pale skin and light hair. He said that he doesn't find black women desirable and that he's unattractive to them. For reference, he's white and I'm a black woman. When I told him that what he said hurt me, he got defensive and said he wasn't being racist and that it was just his preference (even though I never told him he was racist). He called me emotional and said I was guilt-tripping him.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on preference? I personally don't have a preference when it comes to race or skin colour. I'm curious, if you date someone who's not your preference, does that mean you're not attracted to them?