Dating: How's your luck? - Page 931
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We are extremely close to shutting down this thread for the same reasons the PUA thread was shut down. While some of the time this thread contains actual discussion with people asking help and people giving nice advice, it often gets derailed by rubbish that should not be here. The moderation team will be trying to steer this thread in a different direction from now on. Posts of the following nature are banned: 1) ANYTHING regarding PUA. If your post contains the words 'alpha' or 'beta' or anything of that sort please don't hit post. 2) Stupid brags. You can tell us about your nice success stories with someone, but posts such as 'lol 50 Tinder matches' are a no-no. 3) Any misogynistic bullshit, including discussion about rape culture. 4) One night stands and random sex. These are basically brags that invariably devolve into gender role discussions and misogynistic comments. Last chance, guys. This thread is for dating advice and sharing dating stories. While gender roles, sociocultural norms, and our biological imperative to reproduce are all tangentially related, these subjects are not the main purpose of the thread. Please AVOID these discussions. If you want to discuss them at length, go to PMs or start a blog. If you disagree with someone's ideologies, state that you disagree with them and why they won't work from a dating standpoint and move on. We will not tolerate any lengthy derailments that aren't directly about dating. | ||
B.I.G.
3251 Posts
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany535 Posts
On May 03 2017 10:37 B.I.G. wrote: Fear driven dating. Sounds like a lovely idea. Look man if you can't get yourself to be interested in your fellow (wo)man's woes and wiles it's hard to connect with people in general. Almost nobody opens up completely when they just get to know a person. I probably phrased that terribly. While at the moment I feel a bit anxious that it won’t get any better, I wasn’t fear driven dating, it only made me try out different ways, that I had previously ignored. Previously I had never really tried actively dating, it was just something that natural occurred and seemed like the only serious option to me. I had failed to realize back then that it was only possible due to the proper circumstances (school, especially later on with courses where you meet a more mixed set of people, later on university. I already got a degree from a different university in a different subject where it is more like 50:50). I also don’t really actively date right now as I seem unable to really have affection for someone that fast. I am more or less trying to meet as many women as possible and getting to know them to some degree, but as I said it doesn’t really work because I either lose interest, things were going to slow for the women I was meeting/dating and she lost interest. And from the women I got to know this way and which I am still keeping contact with I am not interested romantically in any of them. So basically I just made a few more friends and some acquaintances, which nice, but not really what I was aiming for. Sure it's nice to talk to people about common interests but in the end it's interesting because it helps you build a connection with that person. Actually I think that if only talking about your hobbies and interests you are the boring and superficial one. I disagree with you on this though. Unless your hobby’s are something that only vague interests your and is just a matter to pass the time, if believe it tells you a great deal about someone. Of course this isn’t the only thing I talk about/am interested in, it was just an example/a start. I find it much harder to get to know someone if there is nothing to connect you, but I made it work. Of course I am interested in someone’s woes and wills. The latter for example often represents itself in serious passions. It is not that I am not interested in women, or can’t bring myself to it, those who are interested tend to be either taken or not interested themselves though. I also never denied that I might be superficial and boring. As I said, maybe I am just fishing out of my league. Though I feel like I am at least somewhat interesting but apparently not to the right people. On May 03 2017 13:24 IgnE wrote: do you find other people boring? Not all of them, but quite a lot. Or rather, I find big parts of most of other people boring. I often find it very hard to enjoy excessive amounts of time with someone without getting bored, I can’t really help it. In my circle of friends there are only a few which I regularly and often because of it. The others I still meet occasionally, but not that often, unless they need aid in some form. I am the type of guy that most of his friends see about once or twice a month and that’s it. Some have suggested I just might be an introvert, but at least I can safely rule out. I am a confident public speaker and generally like spending time with people who I find interesting. The frustrating part is that I seem very selective and I don’t really know what I can do about it. I really not doing it on purpose of given it any thought. Maybe ‘bored’ isn’t even the right word and I am rather just uninterested, I don’t know. It is hard for me to get the right message across on this point as I am not really sure myself what makes me interested in other people. What I listed in my initial post was just some stuff I found as a common denominator of ex-gfs, friends and people I find interesting or attractive. | ||
farvacola
United States18803 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany535 Posts
On May 03 2017 19:16 farvacola wrote: Artesimo, if you don't mind me asking, do you find yourself having difficulty enjoying things generally? Outside your dating problem, your description of hobbies and boredom suggests that you are troubled by more than an inability to develop lasting connections with others. I would focus there before attempting to analyze the how or why you aren't seeing relationship opportunities. I would rather phrase it like my standards for excitement are a bit higher regarding many things. But there are quite a lot of things that I genuinely enjoy and completely get lost in, I don’t feel like I got some serious problem there. It is also not that I don’t see any relationship opportunities just with anything but hanging out with people for a long time and somehow things working out it doesn’t seem to work. I can definitely attest though that I am not very fast on developing lasting connections. When I developed such a connection, I value it a lot though. I am not a complete loner, I got some really good friendships. I guess I am just a bit too selective here as well. A big problem of mine is that since I am really slow at bonding, or finding people interesting, so my approach to casual dating was a bit aimless, where a lot of problems stem from. I am going in without a real goal since at that point the other person is mostly a blank slate. I also don’t really understand how dating works out for everyone else lol. I never really felt some mentionable initial attraction towards someone I don’t know, besides "hey she seems like a really cool person"… I might also just see things a bit too grim at the moment. Maybe I am burned out on dating after over the past years I probably met and/or dated more women than in all the years before combined, which only made things seem worse to me. | ||
ragnasaur
United States804 Posts
there are quite a lot of things that I genuinely enjoy and completely get lost in That sounds like a good place to focus some of your efforts | ||
NewSunshine
United States5818 Posts
On May 04 2017 04:43 ragnasaur wrote: I remember when I would go out with people I thought were boring, I would google stuff like 'how to hang out with people you think are boring'. I started realizing that I could make the situation not boring for myself. Alternatively I could choose not to hang out with boring people in this first place. Learning to be interested in others, and make good small talk over things you think are boring, will eventually upturn the notion that someone is boring, but also learning that you just won't gel with certain types of people is important, and that goes a bit beyond whether someone is boring or interesting to you. In my case, I started feeling much more generally social once I learned to take interest in the happenings of others' lives, things that a few years ago I would've thought boring and a waste of time. This habit has since served me very well with the group of friends I spend time with, and my current girlfriend. The act of actually listening to what someone says, and responding to the last thing that person says each time, is a great way to let a conversation flow naturally, and that interaction can feel much more interesting. If you try to develop a "plan" for a conversation, in an attempt to make it interesting, it almost always backfires, because it sucks the natural flow out of a conversation, and it's really easy to say something with either awkward timing or intonation. Giving honest impressions, and quickly formed responses in the moment, makes conversations a lot easier, and generally more fun. Once you get the hang of that, then you need to learn to be honest with yourself, about how you really feel interacting with specific people, and whether you wish to continue it. Getting the hang of good interaction on your end is important, but that's only half of it, the other half is finding someone you have really enjoyable interactions with. That's the numbers game people talk about. | ||
Artesimo
Germany535 Posts
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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Artesimo
Germany535 Posts
On May 05 2017 04:38 IgnE wrote: how much time do you spend overtly novelty-seeking on your computer as in games or internet? Sorry, I don’t really understand that sentence and have to guess a bit. I guess you mean like how much time I waste on playing games/browsing? Actually not that much anymore, gaming was usually one of my activities for the weekend, which I had to neglect a bit lately. Steam says 5h in the last 2 weeks. You can probably double that time though, if you include reading up on games. I don’t waste much time on browsing, I usually check out news etc on daily basis while having dinner and the rest mostly happens in transit or in/between lectures. Fun browsing almost exclusively happens, when there is a reason for it, like looking something up that struck me etc. Aside from job/uni related research of course. Checking news and stuff probably also doesn’t really count since it is almost mandatory and not really a deliberately chosen activity. Or did you mean gaming/browsing on purpose to avoid something else? I probably can deny that on the basis of what I written above. I would like to add though, that gaming isn’t a mindless hobby for me. I really like games/gaming in the same way your friend who is a movie-nerd likes movies. He is not only able to tell you which movie is awesome, he can also tell you what makes it awesome and how it gets achieved. And I like to figure out how to outplay the system behind games etc. I like to think I am a bit more sophisticated than the average gamer. can you sit still by yourself without distractions or do you get bored/antsy? Do you mean literally without distractions, or just without watching TV/whatever? I probably could deal with literally doing nothing, but rather not waste the time. I am not really the kind of person that does something just to pass the time but on the other hand I don’t really like to waste my time either. I can make use of my time on my own pretty well, since I like to think about stuff or I write/draw/read as long as that doesn’t count as distraction. I believe that is a sufficient answer? | ||
IgnE
United States7681 Posts
in any case that doesnt seem to be your problem. just asking. | ||
Skynx
Turkey7150 Posts
On April 18 2017 05:02 Skynx wrote: Today i went on a 3rd date with this girl. Its going pretty good. She decided that since we're gona part in few weeks we shouldn't become more than friends, hmm now where did i hear that before? | ||
ZerOCoolSC2
8781 Posts
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waffelz
Germany711 Posts
On May 03 2017 08:03 Artesimo wrote: + Show Spoiler + This is more a rant than anything else so feel free to just skip it. I just have to vent a bit about my frustration with dating. You hear everywhere that university is one of the best phases in your life in terms of dating, which is probably true. It just hasn’t really worked for me so far though and realize I am getting a bit anxious because of it, because I feel like my chances will only get worse. The good part about this is, it led to me trying to change things up for a little over a year now, the bad pat is that it only made me realized how screwed I am. My biggest problem is, that I only seem to be really attracted to features you usually only discover after knowing someone for a bit and me in general not really relating to anyone unless there is some special reason for it or they really amaze me. I am now 27, attending university in a field with very few women, currently doing my bachelor thesis. Probably will go for my master degree right after this, so at least I got 2 more semesters. My hobbies also are either not really a great way to meet women: gaming, reading, extensive discussions about complex topics (which actually isn’t that bad for meeting women, more like being bad in general for meeting other people. It seems like there aren’t all that many people who enjoy discussions), I draw a little bit, am generally creative and I enjoy programming and everything around computers. The only expectation is probably that work out on a regular basis, though I am not enjoying it at all, I just need it to relieve stress. I also haven’t really seen women at the gym I go to since it is not really a casual one. So casually meeting girls on campus/through my hobby’s isn’t really working, but I already realized that during my first year. At first I tried to replace one of my hobbies with something else I might also enjoy but with a less male dominated audience, but wasn’t successful. I didn’t really manage to pick something up that didn’t made me miss the time I was missing out on my other hobby. I also tried to work out less/cut it completely but soon had to realize that this doesn’t really work. I don’t drink alcohol and don’t see the point in going out just to drink/eat something with friends but I tried it anyways. For a while I joined different friends/people I know, whenever they were going out over the weekend, which made me meet more people but overall it wasn’t successful. It is just something I can’t really relate to and even though I occasionally enjoyed it, overall I always had the distinct feeling of rather doing something else. I also often had great trouble connecting with other people I met that way. This might sound a bit condescending but while talking to them, a good chunk just made me feel like they just more or less where there because they didn’t really what else they could do. Which is a major turn off for me in every regard: people that don’t seem able to do something that is truly worthwhile (to them) with their time. I still occasionally join them, because you never know and also because they keep insisting. At least I am entertaining I guess. I also went to a bunch of events from faculties that have more women in it, but also without any real success. I even tried just randomly striking up conversations which proved to be rather difficult. Not in terms of opening the actual conversation, but rather choosing the other person. I really don’t care that much about appearance, or at least I believe so. So I just followed a simple routine, checking out if someone sticks out as somewhat special, either by their behaviour or how they dress/ the people they are with. If there is no one left that seems obviously interesting, just remove everything that repels you from the list and go by opportunity. This is probably the “casual dating” approach. My gripe with it is that of course people tend not to be totally open towards strangers. In the end I didn’t had any real success, I got some new friends but that’s it. One of my biggest annoyances was when I met someone that actually had some interesting hobbies or something like that, but they didn’t told me about it until very much later, at which time I already had written them off/already got bored. Or they get bored, since they got some expectations themselves and expected more than hanging out for a bit. I often read in here that it is important to get physical relatively fast and after my experiences I feel the same, at least when dealing with random hook-ups/causal dating. I tried it for a bit and definitely got better results in terms of it was much more often me who decided that it won’t lead to anything, but at the same time I wasn’t really comfortable with it. It didn’t have to force myself to do anything, but it was rather a case of not having anything against it then actually wanting it. So I ditched this attempt as well. The last thing I tried was dating apps where of course my more reserved approach in terms of physical contact got even more hindering, but overall it wasn’t a much worse experience than my other attempts. Though the competition is much higher, and even though I am pretty fit, my face is probably just average and I also don’t dress in any striking fashion. Previously I mostly banked on my character and charm which doesn’t really work if your supposed match never matches with you because there are simply physically more attractive people out there. Plus the expectations with those dating apps are often much different. Also I don’t really enjoy spending time with people that are very dependent on validation form outside and my experience so far told me that you seem more likely to meet people like that on these apps. This is also the only approach that I stopped pretty fast. While it was much easier and more efficient, it also seemed to yield the worst results and I felt like it was affecting my general attitude in a bad way. At this point I am trying to come to some form of conclusion to make this at least a bit constructive. I feel like my anxiousness isn’t all that unjustified, I will probably not be able to meet that much people that easy after university which I can spend lots of time in a casual fashion. Later on, university gets replaced by work and dating your colleagues seems like a bad idea. If everything goes smoothly, I will also be 29 then, and the fact that I really would like to have children makes me feel a bit more pressured as well. One big problem is that I am probably too picky but I don’t really know what to do about this. It’s not like I am dismissing people because of a certain trait, I am just rarely interested in someone. You could say it is hard to persuade me that you are worthwhile to pursue. The problem with being attracted to really awesome people is probably that they are really awesome so they have a lot of options to choose and there is a lot of competition. I am possibly just fishing way out of my league. Going at this from a perspective of “look, you are not really that awesome, so why don’t you just settle for something like X, it is probably the best you can do anyways” doesn’t seem very healthy though, plus it seem completely alien to me since as I said, I am not rating people and have a lower limit but idk. And with growing age, the chances that awesome people are still single only get smaller. Not really a helpful thought. I accepted that dating is a numbers game, to somewhat ensure success, you basically have to try a lot, but given my lack of success and discomfort with this approach makes this difficult as well. I know that there isn’t really anything bad about dating multiple women at once or multiple women in rapid succession, as long as you are open about it, but I never really felt comfortable while doing so. I felt like the person you are dating or semi-dating deserves more than you split attention. Idk, probably a bit too much idealism on my part but unfortunately something I not really seem able to change. The pool of people I get in contact with on a regular basis won’t grow so there isn’t really another alternative to casual dating, as long as I want to increase my chances. I guess I just have to ignore my discontent on this. Though this still leaves the problem that so far I never had any real motivation to pursue someone when coming from this angle. I probably try harder to replace one of my hobbies with something more social that I enjoy. As I said, I already tried though due to being very limited financially and timewise due to having to work while attending university, this was mostly limited to semester breaks, and even then there were a lot of financial limitations. At least that’s something that should improve after I finished my studies and therefore something that I should keep in mind. Going out more/socialize more: I don’t really like going out for the sake of it, though I was able to convince one of the groups I go out with to add a place with board games etc. to our regular locations. It is at least something that I enjoy most of the time and where I am able to meet people that seem more to my taste. Quite a lot of them have beards though, but it’s a start . Other than that I could probably try to propose other social activities / do some on my own. Not really having anything particular in my mind though, with lots of stuff like this it is a bit unfortunate that doing them solo doesn’t work quite as well. Like the board game place, sure you can go there on your own and usually find a group where you can join in but overall it is much better if you are with a group of people and then just merge with another group. Meeting more people with similar interests: This is pretty hard since most of my interests are not that social. The most social thing is probably gaming and programming, which both are meh in terms of dating / meeting people in general, at least when it comes to gaming. Programming works quite well for that, but only for a very special group. I also would like to add, that I am not depending on a relationship, even though it might appear otherwise due to my rant. I have a lot of stuff that I enjoy on my own or with friends but I would also really like to have a family at some point. And I also greatly enjoyed whenever I was in a relationship, which should always be the norm, but I was really enjoying every bit of it and it felt just natural to me. I know that I am really good at and feeling really well in the role of a partner and I greatly enjoy the feeling of supporting someone to excel. So far I was in 3 relationships which lasted over a year and which I would describe as serious and I take some pride in the way those ex-girlfriends speak about me/our relationship up to this day. It is not that I need a relationship to be happy, but I have come to realize that being in a relationship brings out some of my best qualities while also giving me some happiness that I so far wasn’t able to get anywhere else. To me it just seems like something really worth to achieve. And at the same time it greatly frustrates me, that most of the things my female friends complain about in terms of relationships/partners is stuff that I seem to be able to fulfil so seemingly without much effort. That and the annoying cliché of having a reputation of giving the best relationship advice in my group while also being single, even though this might be a bit exaggerated. Working on my fear of running out of time is currently probably the easiest and most realistic thing to do and avoiding to become desperate. In the long run I either have to find a way where I naturally come in contact with other people on a regular basis without any expectations or intentions and otherwise find a way to change some circumstances that made the attempts described above ineffective. And I guess while not having any success, at least it make me understand my perception of attraction in a better way and what definitely doesn’t work for me. So yeah, rants over. I am a bit late to the party but nonetheless: Could you elaborate a bit on what makes people „awesome" in your eyes? Is it just that they are good at something (because lots of people are, you sometimes just have to look harder ) or is it more about their behaviour/attitude that makes them good? Like are you drawn to competitive people or something like that? Also, when you say you like to think about stuff, you might want to check if that gets in the way. If you rationalize too much it can kill feelings pretty well and especially makes things very complicated Last, if you had most success so far by meeting people in a natural way you might want to try replace working out with a sport with mixed teams and that you don't dislike. Martial arts usually have some women, as long as it is only sport, and it is a lot more fun in my opinion. Since you don’t like working out anyways it might be a nice alternative. I also think since you are trying new stuff and meeting new people, you are on a good way I guess. Not much but sometimes slowing down and letting things happens works. I am not saying you should stop trying to date on purpose, but you might want to watch out not to burn out on it. You said something along those lines and it is a thing I have observed multiple times, especially when it comes to appdating tinder etc.. If I recall correctly, bloodwhore can tell some stories about this. | ||
B.I.G.
3251 Posts
For guys 1)"Son, the best way to get over a girl is to get under a new one." 2)"Go off, have fun, raise hell, and chase the women... " And then one for the ladies 3)" Do not date, sleep with, or marry a man unless you would be proud to have a son exactly like him" So in a nutshell they are saying guys don't think too much and fuck around and ladies save yourself for the right one. Thinking like this obviously is hardly new but the hypocrisy of it is more and more starting to bother me. Worst part is I still catch myself thinking like that. A girl in her late twenties once told me she had slept with 50+ guys and my knee jerk reaction was wow what a ho. This while realizing I would've slept with a 1000 girls without second thought if I could've gotten a way with it without serious consequences. Rationally, if the girl doesn't have psycho ex boyfriends, STDs, or kids why do we care so much what she does for fun? I think rationally many will agree that we have some serious double standards in our society in this regard yet still many of my friends who are otherwise very progressive in their thinking still have aforementioned mindset. What do you guys think? Why does this way of thinking seem to be hard coded in our brains? | ||
WarSame
Canada1950 Posts
If you want it from an evolutionary perspective, having a child was riskier for a woman than a man, because they invested a lot more in the birth, and were obviously infinitely more likely to die from the birth itself. There is also the idea that a man can get hundreds of women pregnant at once(think of the Sultans with 600 women harems), while a woman can only be pregnant with 1 man at a time. So having more partners doesn't help women much(besides more support for their children), while for men it directly increases the spread of their genetics. Women are also generally less horny than men, and have a generally different sex drive than men(passive vs. spontaneous), which makes the "sexual market" position men as buyers and women as sellers. These differing risks and rewards mean women would generally want the "highest price"(or best return, such as a good partner) for sex/children that they can get, and men want the "lowest price" they can get. Imagine you have a monopoly or cartel on some good, and people start giving the good out for free. It lowers your price and probably won't make you happy, so it is in those women's interest to try to shame or suppress that sort of activity. Cultural norms sometimes arise spontaneously, but they often are strong exaggerations of underlying ideas. Religion, etc. can change how we view things like this. Our current slut shaming mindset as a society stems from those inherent gender differences, but plays them up a few degrees. Thanks to modern technology(condoms, birth control, IUDs, medicine for childbirth) we have separated almost all of those concerns/risks out from sex(with a few, like rape, and STDs still fairly prevalent). However, societies and cultures are often very slow to respond to changes in the actual state of our society, so we are seeing a lag where acceptance of promiscuity is slowly seeping into a mainstream attitude. Personally, I would look slightly different at a woman with 100 partners than a man with 100 partners for 2 reasons. First, women tend to be less horny so I imagine that would be a rarer occurrence. Second, men are encouraged to sleep around wayyyyyyy more than women are, and it's easier to go with prevailing social norms than against them, so it's socially easier for a man to sleep around that much. Plus, I do feel there might be something wrong(at least from my perspective) with people who are so into casual sex with so many partners(because it requires a huge investment of effort and time that you could subvert with a FWB, for example). | ||
IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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LemOn
United Kingdom8629 Posts
Also women are less horny lol where'd you hear that :D | ||
WarSame
Canada1950 Posts
On May 23 2017 01:48 IgnE wrote: women are less horny (citation needed) Here, for example. I don't have access to the full paper but the abstract supports what I'm saying. I was arguing this with my girlfriend who said women are just as horny as men, but most of the actual studies on it that I've found tend to favour men being hornier or within the confidence level(with men still generally being hornier in that case). If you want more sources I will try to go back and dig those up again. | ||
Artisreal
Germany9233 Posts
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