A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Now this is probably going to sound a bit doom and gloom. But it's something I've put a large amount of time pondering over and I guess it's the "elephant in the room" for my life.I have used this site for many years now. Constantly posting for help. I have also offered some advice when possible but on the whole I've probably asked more than I've given.And the general queries I raise are about relationships; or to be exact relationships that are just about to pick up but don't.You see to say I've had bad luck with the opposite sex would be an understatement. But I almost have the skill of "having a girl kiss my face off one week and then want to be only a friend the next week" down to a tee.I have been stood up a ridiculous number of times on dates and far too often get the dreaded "silent treatment" leading up to a date.This would definately be easy to answer if it was simply down to me dating a specific type of girl; however the girls I'v dated range from various different occupations, age groups, backgrounds and mentality.Whenever I meet someone that I like who appears to like me and I attempt to start something; there's always something outside of my control that makes it that much more harder to form a relationship.Maybe the person needs to go away for something for a week and the place they are going has terrible signal (most recent example), maybe the person has just recently started the worst job of their life (another example) or maybe they are heading home for the summer and home is the otherside of the country (I think you get the idea).I don't really get the opportunity to meet women my own age. My job doesnt really present that opportunity and I was socially outcasted at a young age making it hard to have childhood friends. I have a social circle but there's no options within that.I also live alone in a city where I know no one. I have tried online dating for a long time but that so far has been pretty unbearable. Mostly no replies and when I do the conversation doesn't last and when it does and I get a date something will go wrong.So yes obviously the problem is me. I am the common denonimator after all. But any attempt to fix myself has been met universally with the opinion from others that there's nothing to fix. Whether it be from strangers online on sites designed to help with these things or from close friends. The general opinion seems to be that I'm "a catch". And yes on the list of cliches for a guy I tick a ton of them.So the thing is; I think I need to look at this from a different angle now. I've spent most of my life with the desire to be in a relationship. I want a family one day; but the fact is I'm not entitled to that and it realistically may never happen and judging by the way my life has went so far, I'd lean more towards it not happening. So this is what I need advice on. I need to change my line of thought so not to desire this anymore and to instead be contempt with life outside of this. But changing your mentality is a hard thing to do; so that's why Im asking here as I dont even know where to start. How can I change my mind on this? Reply to this Question
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female
reader, janniepeg  +, writes (19 July 2014):
 You mean you want to be content with life outside of this, as opposed to contempt?
What needs to change is how you initiate a conversation with girls and how to get them interested. I've tried online dating. I find that very few of them know how to break the ice. However it is none of my business to teach them because I am there to pick a date, not to become a dating coach. If you want to catch an interest, there are things you just don't say. Here are a few examples that would lead me to delete or block a person immediately. I find that the majority of male profiles to be miserable or hilarious. They also seem so sad and has nothing to offer.
When was your last relationship?
Busy here?
You must be getting lots of messages from other guys.
Wanna cuddle?
Hi. How are you?
Do you like travelling (or other interests)?
What are you doing this weekend?
I would respond to a person who read my profile and could relate to me. If there is a question about me that prompts an answer, then there is a greater chance I would respond to that person. A bigger picture of yourself attached to the message would also help. Smiles would help. Any comments on my profile, common interests, things that we could enjoy doing together, would also help.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (19 July 2014): People can smell desperation from miles away. You want something so badly, that you permeate with an over-eager desire to make a woman your girlfriend.
Trying too hard, comes across as too needy. You try even harder when you see that your date is slipping away, or she isn't displaying enough affection toward you. You panic.
The fact is, she may be quite conscious of how over-zealous you are in trying to establish a "relationship." You don't rush people into being committed to you. It isn't something you "make" happen. People commit of their own free-will. That is when it has meaning.
Cut the self-pity. You deserve to be loved, and it will happen. Not as instantly as you demand that it should. You're intelligent enough to know better.
Try the emotional-approach, and stop letting your logic attempt to manipulate your date's feelings. There is nothing you can do to "convince" someone they must love you. There is no performance you can deliver to sweep them off their feet. Just be yourself, be "instinctively" romantic. Allowing your feelings to tell you what is appropriate for the mood and the moment. You look for signs that she likes you, then you try to rush those feelings as soon as they become apparent to you. I read your posts carefully, and I think I've figured out some of your problem. One kiss, and you're head-over-heels!!!
First of all, you are not on a mission. Just stop it. Cut it out!!! You are not going to walk out your front-door, and find someone who will fall in-love with you today. It happens when it happens.
It might take years to happen. So you date for fun until it happens. YOU don't have fun, because you live in your head.
Always trying to figure-out a plot to make the woman of the moment your girlfriend. If the right chemistry is there, it is spontaneous. Once you establish both your feelings are on the same page, you take a "wait and see" attitude. Save "effort" for an established relationship. When the time comes to keep it working, when the commitment is in progress. Dating should be "effortless." Going with the flow. No preconceived notions and no expectations. The less pressure, the better.
Seriously?!! Do you ask for advice and actually listen? If you give advice, you should be able to figure these things out on your own. People trust your advice to come from a place of experience and true wisdom. Not what just sounds smart.
Stop making every date your "potential" girlfriend. Putting everything into place in your mind, before it happens in reality. They know you don't feel what you think you feel for them, because it is much too intense, and happens far too quickly. To put it simply. That's creepy. I may have told you this before. Not to hurt your feelings. Just putting it straight to you.
You're approaching women with "intent." This triggers the fight or flee instinct in women. They back away from guys who seem too eager. You think they should give the opposite reaction. Women are unpredictable. That's how they roll.
You go out with a plan, and everything you do is contrived or over-thought. Women are not stupid. They are highly intuitive creatures. You don't catch them with a stick, string, and a box. They know when you're trying to trap them. They like a guy with confidence, they find that alluring. Not cockiness or conceit. We guys tend to confuse the differences between these words.
"Trying too hard" comes across as awkward, subtly manipulative, insulting to their intelligence, and somewhat scary. It should comfort you to know that "can and does" happen to each and everyone of us! That is, when we set our sites on "making" a relationship happen. Instead of allowing one to develop through the natural process of human-attraction.
You are too much "in your head" and not allowing your natural instincts to kick-in and guide you. You try to make things happen within your plan. You try to create a process that you can control and adjust according to your desires.
You take too many steps to rush things in the direction that you want them. This is pushy.
You have to wait for a woman to establish the way she actually feels about you. That sometimes could take longer than you may be willing to wait. So they make you a friend; because you come on too strong with affection, thinking that will hurry them along. It doesn't. Unless you find someone as desperate as you are. You don't like the desperate-type; or you might have a girlfriend by now. Somehow desperate and needy people aren't attracted to other desperate and needy people. Making an observation here, not insulting you.
You have given a list of every "type" you have tried; which means you are searching with conviction. You are far too intense, man. You are losing hope from frustration. That is your major problem. You are in your early twenties. Life is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I'm much older and far less jaded and cynical. It's supposed to be the other way around. You are in the prime of your life! Things fall into place when it comes to love. It happens when people don't expect it to. With the most unlikely people on top of that.
Not being there to hold our hand and coach you; I do pickup on your very "intellectual" approach. You focus too much on how to get them to submit to your will, and don't allow nature to take it's course. You are very anxious to have someone "to have and to hold." Your posts reek of how frustrated you are by the negative results of your "efforts."
When you stop trying, that is when it will happen. Maybe my advice should be, just give-up trying?
My young friend, you have to relax and let things slowly happen through natural attraction. Love is evasive and happens spontaneously. You scare people who like you away; because you are "demanding" that they love you.
Just because you get a female's attention, doesn't mean she is easy prey. You don't pounce. That will make her feel you'll be too possessive of her. She will not feel comfortable being around a guy who always declares how lonely he is, and how elusive women have been.
If you articulate to your dates the frustrations you have; as you do in your posts; they will see that as a red-flag.
A relationship with you would be a very draining experience. Over-giving, going over-board to express your appreciation, far too much emphasis on focusing your attention on her, idolizing to obsession; and throw in some weirdness. All because you want them to feel how much you want them. You'll end up getting the opposite of what you hoped.
The truth is, you don't truly "care for them." you want to "succeed" at finding a girl who will agree and submit to being your girlfriend. Then you will no longer feel like a failure. You have the right heart, but the wrong idea about love and how it works. You don't have a molecule of patience. You have a strong sense of entitlement, and demand immediate results. Women don't like that my friend.
Stop asking what needs to change; and not changing. You already know what you're doing wrong. You keep doing it.
You let your desperation get the better of you, and that's it in a nutshell.
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A
female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (19 July 2014):
 "I need to change my line of thought so not to desire this anymore and to instead be contempt with life outside of this."
Maybe that's the answer, after all. Because wanting something badly makes you blind to so many red flags. Say, if you want to date a woman because you want to have a family, then your goal is not to be here and now with this particular woman, enjoying her company. Your mind is far far away in the future already. Women do this too, but what happens is that they come off as needy, clingy, too much too soon... It's like people can smell it in the air.
I know, I've dated men like this, and the second I feel like only a womb, instead of the unique individual that I am, I am out of there. Same with men. If they feel like sperm donors, they are gone within seconds.
The trick that I have found is to do like you are now attempting to do: be okay with life if it DOESN'T happen like in the fairy tales. Be okay with the thought of possibly being alone for the rest of your life. Make alternative plans that will still make you happy. Traveling, or doing charity. Maybe adopt and be a single parent? Maybe be a foster parent? There's lots of children who need good foster homes, that you way you get to give someone your love, who also needs you. It'll also bring meaning to your life.
That's my plan, anyway. If I end up with no husband and no children, then I will be a foster mother. I want to have foster children anyway, when I am older and "wiser" (because they need proper adults with enough life wisdom to stand through it all). Not caring sooooooo much about getting that perfect family, wedding, wife/husband/kids etc, well, it takes the pressure off.
There's no quick fix and I don't know why you have been unlucky in love. Your friends are probably right, you're probably a catch, but there's something amiss in the way you go about things. Or the women you choose. Your post, btw, reeks of self pity. Maybe you send off too much of this in real life as well, and come off as desperate and not in charge of your own life.
Not giving a flying hoot will probably do you well. So how to get there? That's up to you, we can't teach you how to grow mentally. That's on you alone to figure out. So for starters, stop looking elsewhere for answers, and look inside yourself. That's where the change needs to be made, and that's where you'll find the answer to how to get to where you want.
I would recommend NOT going online for at least a week. If you rely too much on technology to fix your problems, goodle too much, ask too many questions for help and advice.. well, it's all words, and none of it will help you. It just works to distract you from the real task: looking within yourself.
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