Very well said, Roxyredhead. Thank you, and everyone who has posted on this thread.

Very true. After a painful divorce, I am dating this time around with no particular checklist in mind, but with an open mind that love may come to me in a form that I had not anticipated nor imagined. But in order to truly explore the possibilities out there and find the man that I am truly compatible with, I need to date the possibilities and explore my compatibility with each one. The problem is in trying to do this exploration without hurting people, and without sabotaging relationships that may have real merit.

Despite all the advice on this thread, I am still wrestling with this dynamic every day, as my feelings for this guy I call Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True are growing everyday, and his feelings for me seem to be too. However, I find myself in a quandary because a guy that I happen to like very much, a guy I call Mr. Wonderful, has just come back into my life, and I feel that I need to explore whatever it is that exists with him. He is a great guy. To add to this complexity, I have narrowed down the dating pool to four other men who seem to be great guys that I want to explore my compatibility with. At this point, I have stopped answering emails from any other men, and am just trying to narrow down to one from the six that I am dating. I have not gone further than kissing with any of these men. I know that this situation may appear terrible and unethical to some, but I think I made the mistake of not "dating around" and not really exploring the possibilities to find the guy that I am truly compatible with before I decided to get married the first time. I am afraid to make that mistake again. I am in this to find real compatibility, and I'm not playing around.

The problem is that December will be the month in which I get into "real trouble"/real ethical dilemmas with these guys that I am dating, as my relationships with Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True and Mr. Wonderful will have progressed to a point by that time where a real decision needs to be made about the exclusivity of these two relationships or these relationships will stall and probably fail. For example, even though Mr. Too-Good-To-Be-True knows that we are not in an exclusive relationship and has not asked me whether I am dating others, I know that he may not be happy when I go out with him on a Friday, and he wants to go out again, for example, on the same weekend, and I have to tell him that I can't because I made plans to go out with Mr. Wonderful.

I guess no advice board is going to be able to guide me through this minefield.