A
male
age
41-50,
*dam197
writes:I'm a 37 year old man. Haven't dated in about 15 years. I don't get asked out, likely because I'm not physically attractive (been told this multiple times). I have OCD. Actually a subset of this (~20%) which results in obsessive, obtrusive thoughts without any real compulsions. I've been on a high dose of an SSRI to control the symptoms for almost as long as I haven't dated. I was diagnosed with OCD and related anxiety and depression shortly after my first relationship ended. That relationship went down in flames because I could not stop thinking about my girlfriends sexual past. Eventually I ended it (she would have soon anyway) because I was repeatedly hurting her emotionally, and that was due in part to her knowing what I was going through. She didn't have much of a sexual past, just 2 partners, one was a boyfriend of 3 years, the other a 10 month casual partnership. I had no past. I thought the unequal experience level might have been the problem, but subsequent relationships have proven this untrue. However limited a partner's past, I can't seem to stop thinking about it. To be specific, and graphic, I can't not think about the incredible pleasures she would have experienced with them. The passion and the intimacy that I can't be a part of. The erotic desires she would have fulfilled having the bodies of other men moving inside her mouth, her vagina, her rectum and between her hands to release their seed inside her and upon her skin to their mutual satisfaction. The feeling of their lips on her lips, neck, breasts, belly, thighs, bum and clit. The sensation of orgasm she gave and received both with and/or without love. Their semen pooling inside her as she runs her fingers through his hair and cups his ass. All of her firsts with another lover.I don't think you can understand how painful this is without actually having OCD. Some OCD people, like myself, have a nearly eidetic memory. So I don't feel the same about events in the past as other people I am told. It all stays vividly fresh. So, if you think you can handle it, imagine your current partner in a situation described above, passionate sex, as good as it gets, with someone else and imagine it wasn't years ago, but yesterday. If you are capable of this it should cause you pain. If you are like me you won't be able to stop thinking about it.A few days ago a friend at work offered to set me up with a friend of hers. I got excited about the idea. I checked out her blog and she seems amazing on virtual paper. Then my old obsessions started to resurface. I haven't even met her and I'm dreading the possibility that I might have to face this demon again. I don't know what to do. I've done the counselling thing. I'm maxed on the drug dose and it took several different ones to get one that worked. I acquired various sexual experiences after my first breakup (including casual sex and a same sex partner) to try to even the playing ground for potential relationships but apparently my inexperience was/is not the problem, her experience is. Not that I've ever been with a virgin, but I don't think that would help either because I don't think I could trust the instincts of someone with no reference points. I know others have had this problem. It help to read about their experiences but it doesn't solve my issues. I don't know how to move forward. I find myself trying to plan for the inevitable moments when the past comes up. Do I put a wall up? Do I explain the situation? Do I tell her to put her cards on the table, tell me everything she feels I should know and might inevitably discover so we can determine weather I can handle it or not? Do I heed the warning signs and not peruse this?
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female
reader, fishdish  +, writes (18 February 2015):
 Well the people you're choosing are definitely not pretty on the inside..why would you choose to be with them if they're so down on your looks? In any case, 3 womens' opinions are not the world's opinion. May be hard to see that from your perspective but it's true.
A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (7 February 2015):
 Guys who are (apparently) successful with women have told me that getting girls is akin to being a salesman, and involves first talking to many prospective potential girls first, for them.
One told me that for every extra nice girl, where there was mutual attraction, and who he has then gone on to date - there were 99 other girls he approached.
he is never bothered by rejection as he never takes it personally.
The only thing is that I suspect that he asks 100 girls on a regular basis. Because he is extraordinarily successful with women.
I personally never found him attractive and he was always too much of a ladies man for me.
He is friends with my guy so I do still get to see him regularly. Fortunately / wife of his friend now. If he does ever flirt I completely ignore him. he is learning to stop trying to flirt as his flirting has no effect on me.
I have been told by the above flirty guy that that getting girls who he wants to date and who want to date him and where there is mutual attraction is entirely a numbers game.
Based on your stats - asked 84 girls and scored those girls you did connect with - your stats suggest that if you could get over your concerns about rejection - then if you did approach 100 different girls on a regular basis you would end up with a nice girl where there is mutual attraction on both sides.
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A
male
reader, Adam197 +, writes (7 February 2015):
Adam197 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionFirst girlfriend was on the rebound. Told me she wished I looked different.Second 'girlfriend' was cheating on her semi-estranged boyfriend with me. I did not know this. She said I was "pretty ugly".Third girlfriend would not have sex with me face to face. Said she had to think of someone else to enjoy it.Guy friends tell me I have low standards for looks. That a lot of the women I find attractive are not attractive, in their opinion. Yet women friends tell me I set my standards for looks way too high, that I am asking out women out of my league. This rejection 2 days ago makes 84 consecutive rejections over 17 years. That doesn't even include the dating site rejections where the women stop responding to emails one I send a picture.
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (6 February 2015):
PS: one little comment extra:
You said that you ''Don't get asked out'' much.
Adam in a (possibly conservative) rural area it is not the role of others to ask you out.
It is you who need to take the initiative to do the asking.
So you hear about an event being put on within driving distance of you where there will be lots of people?
Then ask ''where can I get a ticket to that event''
You hear a project is being mooted to improve the community? Then ask, ''How can I join....??
The nearby hospital or school calls for volunteers to help with.... Something? Then phone them up and ask, ''how can I help?''
You hear that someone is giving a talk on ....'' name a subject'' so you contact the organiser and ask, ''interested in attending, where is it being held?''
You find a new girl behind the counter when you go to pay for gas, so you introduce yourself, say hello (use her name if she has a name badge) and ask her where she's from. Then next time you visit town you go to the counter and say ''Hello (her name) how are things? How are you finding settling in?''
By the third visit you should have learnt enough about her to know if she single or not. If she's available then ask her out. Maybe for just a meal.
Getting to know a potential date as just a potential friend, on several occasions before you ask her out is a great strategy to minimise being rejected.
It IS your role in these situations for you to do the asking.
And if you involve yourself more IN your community then you too will also start receiving invitations too.
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (6 February 2015):
Hi Adam,
Sometimes stressing over what cannot be, for one particular relationship, is not such a successful strategy as the alternatives.
The alternatives involve you working on improving your own self esteem first. Learn to Like you and eventually love you, more than you do now. If you don't like you now then how can you convince others that you have the potential to ne loved and to love back.
Work on breaking down some of your long held beliefs about WHO you are. Because you are probably far nice and more attractive to that special person out thwrw
The next stage is embracing life more often via a hobby or two as an alternative to persistently reviewing the past alone whenever you get an opportunity to do so. All this mulling over the past many times is a Millstone that does you no goof..
Then reaching out to people more often. Volunteer in your community.
Talk, no matter how briefly, to at least 7 people daily. It helps to improve your own mental health. Even a brief ''Good morning to you,'' said to the shop owner before you purchase something.
As the pool of potential partners may ne limited in your rural area then occasionally visit further afield and visit an event in more built up area. Sometimes doing that helps to give you more to talk about when you do meet someone you'd like to date.
And once you are ready to date do recognise the Frog and the Prince syndrome. Just as girls often need to kiss a number of frogs before she finds her prince - similarly you do need to ask out many different girls (and yes some will reject you - So what? If they reject you then they are NOT Worthy of you.
Similarly allowing ''what might have been, but couldn't be, and will now never be'' to be a dominant theme that is revisited hundreds of times is NOT helping you at all.
Going over every little supposed thing that went wrong, and the ''if only this and if only I was this or that, and why couldn't it have been this way, not that way. And the ''I NEVER NEVER EVER .... '' is a very demorlising waste of time when it comes to dating.
And I'll tell you that at 18 i was pushed into a studio photo shoot. Hated the picture. Thought I looked horrible. But a year later I was part of a group photo. I decided I looked worse. Started to realize the previous photo was not that bad. But regarded the new photo as depicting me as ... Well just utterly the worst. Vowed no more photos. Then had to submit to an engagement photo. Started to recognize a pattern. I was seeing each new poto as worse than the previous ones. Much much worse.
Eventually the penny dropped. After I married I admitted to myself that the photo of that 18 year old was actually a nice looking girl.
Now I actually display that photo. I am now rather proud of it. I can now admit that my own thinking was the issue, not that photo of me.
And the photo of me that I had to submit recently for a conference being held in another 3 years time (where I'll be a speaker) was taken 3 weeks ago ang guess what? I like that photo. So eventually I worked on my self esteem and recognized that my original perception of me was the problem.
My perception about me was unrealistic and it was me who had to work on ridding myself of an unrealistic perception of the my looks.
I was not half as horrible as I had judged myself to be.
You really don't need to hold onto ideas that are holding you back from learning to appreciate and value you for all the good points within you.
Now about dating. It's a numbers game. Even a dedicated serial dater will tell you that.
Serial daters ask out 100 girls and get up up to 99 rejections. Even then they date the 1 % and reject most of those. Until they find ''the one'' where there is mutual attraction and love blossoms.
So a girl rejects a guy? She may have self esteem issues or confidence issues of her own. She may imagine that the guy will be repulsed about her perceived ''wrong'' points that she thinks will cause the guy to reject her. So she rejects the guy first out of fear.
That rejection was about her, not the guy.
Chemistry is an amazing thing. It can be the difference between two people connecting versus two people not connecting. Even though the two couples may seem similar.
And some very different couples are the result of chemistry. I am sure that thousands of very pretty girls have thrown themselves at George Clooney. Finally the chemistry clicked between him and a tall, elegant, highly intelligent lawyer. The actor who looked like he would never marry and a lady who's never been a part of the Hollywood scene and not an actress finally found the chemistry just right.
Looks are not always the major component of why a couple has the chemistry. It may instead be a shared sense of humoir. Or a kind disposition. Or the level of intelligence. Or the patience they each display. Or perceived similar backgrounds that resonate.
The alternatives? When someone rejects you?
To recognise that it really is not all about you.
I will give you some examples.
Once I met a serial womamizer. Not a great way to be, imho. But that's what he was/is. Although he definitely tried I rejected him as I found him shallow. But he persisted for a while. Eventually he saw it was futile. He was a bit shocked that his every strategy had no effect on me. (i was definitely not in a relationship at the time). He thought ''not in a relationship right now'' meant an easy conquest.
I chose to discuss my actions in a de-brief with him.
From the start my rejection was all about a promise I made to myself a long time earlier. That was, after witnessing a neighbor's life of serial womanizing and seeing how distresssed his wife was as a result of his womanizing, i decided that I would never ever consider such a guy as I felt it would only lead to heartache. He did not factor in my single minded determination. It would have made no difference if he was many positive things - because I felt that he would eventually be unfaithful.
Good looking attractive people are rejected all the time for reasons that are not about their level of attractiveness.
People with average looks DO Succeed in attracting a stunning looking, or an average looking person all the time. It is not about the look of the person.
It can also be that a person is rejected by the other person only because there is too much happening in their lives that they are NOT READY for ANY RELATIONSHIP at that time.
Once again it's not all about you when a person rejects you.
Finding the right person is though about loving you first. Self confidence and self belief will help you far more than good looks.
There are thousands of couples out there where one partner has the looks and the other party does not. And yet the couple adores each other. Chemistry is a wonderful thing. So is self confidence.
I suggest that you see the film ''The King's Speech'' with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush about King George V stammer and how it was overcome.
Yes it was not OCD. It was though an over-whelming debilitating health issue that the King thought could not be fixed.
The therapist took a different approach. It is a film that may inspire you.
There are always solutions, we just need to be persistent about.
For instance sex therapists. They do exist. There is even a Board of Examiners in Canada for sex therapists. They specialize in different sexual issues.
But they don't all put a neon sign outside their premises, for obvious reasons.
They are familiar with such strategies as Skype. Canada is a big spread out land. I am sure that Skype is a possibility some therapists would consider to help a potential client in a rural area.
So living in a rural area is not going to preclude you from getting Skype or using skype or receiving therapy via Skype.
All I am saying (and this applies to many things) - is that exploring alternative approaches (instead of rejecting a suggested possibility as impossible) is a great strategy to consider when you get the time to do so in many situations.
I wish you well in the future.
One of my friends married a guy (bachelor) who was in his 40s when he finally married - she was 12 years younger. They now have two children. He chose to delay looking for a life partner while he cared for his elderly parents.
He was pessimistic initially about finding someone.
Then finally his work colleagues engineered a situation to send the two of them to a work conference together. Something clicked and they became a couple and went on to marry.
And it turns out that her sexual history was more varied than his. She was completely open about that. He had the confidence to recognize that she had seen more in him than all the guys she'd ever dated.
They have since been very happy and contented together.
I wish you well in the future.
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A
male
reader, Adam197 +, writes (6 February 2015):
Adam197 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionAbella, thanks for the input. I'm pretty rural. There are no sex therapists locally. The idea of a support group is intriguing. I will look into that.
In any case, I met the girl. She said she wasn't interested. The friend that got us to meet doesn't know why she said no. I got the feeling if she had been approached by someone taller, thinner or better looking the response would have been different.
Back to zero prospects.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (6 February 2015): The best way to try to get past it ..like others have said is not to find out about her history .I have OCD in a minor way and I know how difficult that may be as it is the main bug bearer with a OCD as your thoughts keep repeating them selves and that is the difficult part.But of course you have avoided things like this for years as you know the stress it brings .I have something similar to you where I feel my partners would not be getting as much pleasure as they could and I have read the story's about women saying things like that do not matter. But lets be fair as blokes we want to feel happy about that .But if your main concern is history then try your hardest not to find out .Oh and in terms of people actually having OCD it is becoming more common now and people are more ok with it .good luck
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A
female
reader, Abella +, writes (5 February 2015):
Hi Adam,
Your writing is very expressive. Have you considered writing? I think there is a story within you that is yearning to be put on to paper. You are expressive and you explain your myriad of difficulties very very well.
Separately and additional to your own therapy and counselling for OCD could you ask your Doctor to refer you to a Registered Sex therapist to help you work through your dating woes that are made worse by your OCD.
If your Doctor knows of none then the peak body for psychologists in Canada would probably know of some of the Registered sex therapists in Canada.
A good one could help you through some of the issues that are railroading your efforts to date.
You really cannot be as unattractive as you think if others are actively setting you up on dates.
Beauty is the eye of the beholder.
And trust me, people do not set up dates for people who they think might repulse the other party.
Is there an OCD group in Canada that you could join to see how others with OCD deal with their problems?
Perhaps someone else with OCD who has solved (for them) the same sort of issues that you have been enduring might have some suggestions that could help you.
In the interim I do hope that your situation improves
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A
male
reader, Adam197 +, writes (4 February 2015):
Adam197 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionJust to respond/clarify: It's not a trust issue. As far as I know I've never been cheated on & I would never do it so trust isn't something I think about. I guess I trust until given a reason not to and that's never happened.
I don't use social media. Never have. Don't even have a Facebook account. I just read her blog because it was recommended to me.
I do watch porn. With the SSRI I need a lot of stimulation to be successful. However, the porn I watch is almost exclusively homemade by average looking couples that appear to be in loving relationships. I think that's setting the bar at the appropriate height.
Being upfront about not wanting to know about her past is something I've considered, but when people start talking about what they like or don't like there are implications there that are hard to ignore, enough to let my imagination off the chain.
Thanks for the advice.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (4 February 2015):
 IF the SSRI you are currently on is not working then I suggest you discuss it with your psych to see if switching to another medication would help.
Does your OCD spill over into other parts of your life or is it JUST about your love life?
In have a child with OCD (he is a collector and a worrier)
My spouse has OCD traits so I get it.
I like things JUST so but my head will not explode if it's not that way so I don't truly think I have OCD...but again I get it.
You seem to have a very vivid imagination about what kind of a sex life your partner may have had in the past.
I will tell you this: I have had over 100 partners in my life male and female. ONLY ONE was ever able to bring me to orgasm consistently and guess what... he's not the one in my thoughts when I am being sexual either with my current partner or alone) The person I think of now to make me climax is my current partner who is without a doubt the WORST lover I have had in 40 years of sexual activity. But it does NOT matter.... BECAUSE I LOVE HIM he's the one that does it for me.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2015): I'd mention right from the start that you respect her past and you would rather never hear about any past relationships she may have had.
Phrase it in a way that doesn't make you sound judgemental about her having a past.
But the key point is to not know whether she's a virgin or not or how many partners she's had. This info only feeds your OCD
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A
female
reader, fishdish +, writes (4 February 2015):
I would NOT go telling her about your OCD-induced serial distrust of women the first time you meet her, unless you never want to see her again. You say you've done the therapy thing but it seems clear that you haven't really developed (or been able to practice/enforce) the skills you learned there on what to do when you're triggered by a compulsion. First of all, NEVER look up anything about anyone. If I were you, I would get rid of facebook or other outlets of social media that you may use to "investigate" a female of interest. If you haven't stopped already, don't watch porn. That'll enforce the mindset that people are having mindblowing sex all the time and set the bar impossibly high. I'll get back to this.
You're making a lot of assumptions about one's sexual past-- that it was consensual, that it was good, that it was the best she's ever had, or will be the best she's had, that she received pleasure at all. You're assuming she was [sexually] taken care of by other men, but if that were the case across the board, she'd still be with them!
I'm not OCD, so I could be wrong, but it does seem like part of the core issue could be insecurity, the question of how can I ever measure up when all this other experience is always going to be her point of reference? I've been with four guys, ranging from one night stand to an 8 year relationship. Guess what? They all kind of blend together. I couldn't even tell you which one I'd want to sleep with again if given the option. Maybe my experience of having average sex with average people is unusual, I dunno, but I'm just saying my bar hasn't been set impossibly high. and also, again, there's a reason I'm not with any of those people anymore, so I'm not thinking about how disappointing it is that I'm now having sex with someone different or new. I have no idea if this was helpful. I recommend getting an appointment with your counselor for a refresher course on how to deal with these thoughts. SSRI's only do so much.
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