I've done that with setting traps with women that I didn't trust. Done the confronting them with the evidence of their lies and they still kept lying. You don't want to believe it yourself, even when the evidence is staring you in the face. You can even find yourself making excuses for them.

I'll say one thing about this story that I'm getting from the way that I'm reading it. This friend of yours sounds like a bit of a dipshit. He's been screwing a woman that he apparently saw no red flags with that went to feed the cat when he was trying to get into her pants and then because he discovered that he'd lost some money he suddenly doesn't trust her and thinks she's a whore.

Really?

I've got to say man, I'm pretty fast with women but this pal of yours must be a real operator to be banging a chick that he didn't even get to know well enough before he bedded her for this to be some Sherlock Holmes type mystery. That or a dipshit. One of the two.

Yuh. This is what a female friend would say to an arsehole if he asked her.

I don't really want to sound like Joyce here and I have no idea what sort of people your pal and this woman are but if she's a tea leaf she could be some sort of addict. I'm pretty good at spotting them myself. I wouldn't assume that they're bad news just because they have some sort of vice but you can tell pretty quickly when dating a woman how responsible she is with money.

If she never has any money in her phone and only texts that's a red flag. Likewise if she taps you for a loan when you're only just getting to know each other. Then there's her favoriting a bunch of pawn shops on her Facebook page. I could go on but you probably get the point.

On the other hand, if she isn't a moocher and does things like buying you drinks sometimes you may have a keeper there. You can tell pretty damned quickly with a woman that you're dating whether she's likely to rip you off or not.

Now, guys like you maybe don't see these red flags because it's so wonderful to be a gentleman and pay for everything. You want to do that and you just don't want them to pinch it out of your wallet. Sucker. If he's doing that he's already paying for sex and probably could have got better for his money.

And we have a winner.

I was in an abusive relationship with an extremely demanding woman that wanted to be pampered and what you said. For the life of me I don't know what made her damaged goods, as far as ex boyfriends go, apart from that she told me that her last boyfriend was just a waster. I talked to her about abused women and she didn't have much sympathy for them and she said that they wouldn't keep going back if they didn't like it. She said that she had been lucky and that all of her boyfriends had been nice guys; including me, believe it or not.

She constantly nagged and mithered me and it was all, "I had this from my ex. I'm not taking it from you." I was clean and sober when I met her. A woman like that can drive a man to drink.

Where I'm at years on and after the last one that I met turning out to be a total liar when she seemed to be a really nice genuine person is that I'm probably going to find it a bit hard to trust somebody now.

It isn't that I have trust issues in the sense that I'm a control freak stalker, although I had to go onto the internet and bloody Facebook to try to find out just how much I had been lied to. I had good reasons to be suspicious and I turned out to be right.

I'm the opposite of a control freak. I don't even like to call them anymore and I won't believe that it's a relationship until they're calling me regularly and not messing me about. It's not turned me into a demanding person. I know that I can't control women. I have no control over a relationship. Not unless I back off.

Yeah, it can be hard to feel sorry for them sometimes. Especially if you're a guy that was nice to them that they messed about.

Then you're less inclined to be such a nice guy (mug) with the next one that comes along. You know you're just going to get used here and all you're going to get out of it is a bit of sex until she starts to get feelings for you that she can't handle. You end up being like them and won't give them more than they're giving you.

It's not always that they've been abused by other men. Some might have been abused by their siblings or parents. Then for complex reasons they tend to end up in abusive relationships. They're damaged goods because if you're a nice guy to them they just keep pushing you away and for reasons that I don't entirely understand they will only get into a relationship with a control freak. Well, they will only stay in a relationship with a control freak.

That's why "nice guys" avoid them. It's very sad.

Guys that ask me questions like that wouldn't know what to do with a woman if they had one. I don't think that they're looking for advice. I think that it's a vicarious thing.

It's a question guys often ask me. It's a hard one to answer. I don't like to say to them, "By not being an arsehole."

I know that there's a lot more too it than that. It does also help to have all your own teeth and not still be an outpatient at the local mental hospital.

I don't even know what you're complaining about. You could meet loads of nymphos in a loony bin. You must just be crap at chatting up women.

That's the way that these conversations usually tend to go.

Women's phone numbers?

Uh, no. I don't have any of those and don't really know where to get them either. Honestly.

It's not really possible for me to travel to meet people. There are hardly any datable women in my area on here. I just come back for the forums and I suppose I've found it helpful sometimes to talk about my problems with women.

And I really don't think that by doing that I'm making myself look good to anybody. I only just recently stopped drunkposting.

Knowing that someone cares I suppose. I don't really miss her drama but at least she was telling me how she felt and was actually putting an effort into the relationship.

Give me a break. I've had girlfriends since I've been on here. They weren't right for me.

What's your excuse?

Get over your shyness. It isn't that nobody will give you the time of day. It's just that you've built a wall up around yourself.

Yeah, alright. Point taken. Best I can hope for in this scenario is paying child support and maybe custody at weekends.

Worst mistake of my bloody life.

I didn't say that I was against it.

Neither do they when they can't even make up their minds if I'm boyfriend material.

Well, I don't know. It's a two way thing and after I get over the initial rush when a woman messages me I'm usually just not feeling it because her emails aren't very interesting and she doesn't seem that bothered about dating. They're just expecting me to chat them up or entertain them and it's one thing to do that when I'm sitting in the same room with them and quite another when it's an email correspondence. I usually have to put most of the effort in and it feels like wasted effort because it's like having hundreds of crap dates where you tell some boring person all about yourself and they're not even interested in seeing you again and the feeling is mutual.

It's a bit different when they're not local and the prospect of a meeting is highly unlikely anyway. That's a penpal and I've only done that a couple of times because when I take the time to sit down and write someone a proper letter I don't want to just get a couple of lines and a smiley face back.

A nymph that owns a distillery.

I'm just not telling. Don't even ask me. Let's get to know each other a bit first and maybe I'll propose later. You can always try to entrap me if you like. I'll believe you when you say that you're on the pill...

I'm not sure that I've really thought this one out properly.

I just don't even bother anymore if they don't live close enough to make a date after exchanging just enough emails to see if we're looking for the same kind of thing and might be interested in each other. The LDR crowd can do what they like but I'm not wasting my time and getting jerked about by people anymore that just want to email and won't make a date.

"Oh, I need to feel comfortable and trust you first." Piss off, time waster. If you won't pick up the phone or just meet me no amount of emailing from me is ever going to convince you that I'm not a nutter and if that's how you think that you can discover if I am then it's you that's buttoned up the back.

Many people find it hard to just ask for someone's phone number when they are interested in them and need some pretext for doing so. It feels too forward to do it otherwise, even when you can tell that they're interested in you. It's a bit like when you ask them if they want to go and see a movie or have dinner together sometime and you might actually have to do that as well after you've managed to get their number. Christ knows why but it's all part of the mating ritual.

How do you go about this?