[Riggs]

So, maybe I could just ask for some help venting about the hapless little comedy that is my sad attempts at steady romance? Maybe someone else can sympathise?

It’s really… it’s just tragic. Funny tragic. I’ve been doing, well, call it taking some inventory. On a lot of things. Things that I often try not to think about. This has turned up as one of them.
I came into my late teens with a skill set that’s useful for a lot, but not for relaxed socialisation. I also brought along a somewhat crooked sense of trust. There was this one girl that I sort of thought was interested. We went on a date, once. When I asked about a second one she said she was torn up about some drama with some other guy and didn’t want to get into something new right now. I backed off and nothing more happened.
Some time later another girl tried to ask me out for coffee. A couple of times. By this time I was so messed up, socially, that I couldn’t deal with it, so I dodged.
A few years later. A girl in a class I was taking seemed to come on pretty strong. And I discovered something about myself - I’m actively repulsed by girls that assume I’ll fall for sexy charms when I don’t find them intellectually stimulating. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s just a fact that I feel insulted when a woman assumes that waving her eyelashes at me will make me fall for her. I stonewalled her.
Then I met someone. Someone… special. Really special. I fell in love with her. It’s not a memory I like revisiting. Turns out she’s lesbian. And also, it turns out that I need to be on my guard. Because if I think I’ve found a place where I can get some emotional fulfilment, I’m very easy to manipulate. Given that I’m fairly well off, with a nice car and apartment, that’s a lucrative and useful prospect for the savvy. I finally walked away from it.
Years later. I meet someone who’s in the same club as me. To me it feels like there’s some clicking. I try to make a few advances, but nothing happens.
Some time later. Same story, another woman: Club, clicking, nothing.
Somewhere around here. The girlfriend of a friend of mine started flirting with me. I stonewalled her and then spiralled into very dark thoughts about what I would do if I were given the launch codes for the US nuclear arsenal. And if I could just... I've seen people do what my friend's girlfriend did, more than once. Just, for ****'s sake, break up with the old one first. Please.
Another year later. I meet someone during work. By this time I’m so ground down in the romance department that I’m essentially reduced to an apathetic wreck, so I don’t really do anything. Instead she takes a sort of initiative, which results in us doing a sporting activity together regularly. Things seem good in a way I have never experienced. Up to a certain point. Then I must have done something wrong, because she breaks off our activities together and completely stops reciprocating when I suggest doing something together. Half a year later she asks about advice for the sport we were doing, because she’s heading out to do that with an old guy friend. I’m still trying to figure out why I was supposed to just be okay with being asked for advice like that.
Finally, another year. This time: I’m smart and funny and maybe one of the best people she’s ever met. Really, I’m just an amazing person. But it’s in the air that because I don’t share her religion, I’m sort of out of the race by default. You know how it is.

Damn it. Trying to talk about this is not fun. But I feel stuck. And I don’t want to be. Thing is, all of the above has left me with more than a sprained self confidence. Which in itself is pretty disorienting to me, since my natural state is a sort of easy going arrogant assumption that fear and hesitation is something that happens to other people. But beyond that, it’s left me not knowing the game. Just as a simple technical challenge, I have so precious little positive experience to use as a frame of reference that I don’t even know how I’m supposed to behave. The way I feel for the field of romance at this point is like being airlifted into an alien culture, where people speak a language I don’t understand. Honestly… I don’t even feel like I belong there. I mean, constant negative reinforcement is supposed to teach you something, isn’t it?

Got no advice for you because i´m a dumb 18 year old with a computer but, if it helps, your dating life is not as terrible as mine. Because mine is non existing. But come on, is having a partner really that important anyways? There are other valuable types of relationship one can have.

[Riggs]

Each to their own and for those who are content without a partner I have no objections. But to me, it feels like a hole in my life. Maybe in particular because I feel like I've never been able to put my best foot forward, because I don't know the steps. I have many students who come to me because their education earlier in life haven't given the tools and understanding they need. I often work with both unwinding their their anxities around the subject and building up their grasp of the subject. I could use a little of the same, I think. And it sometimes makes me bitter when people seem to shy away from assisting me, given how much I've assisted others with their problems.

Originally Posted by Riggs

Each to their own and for those who are content without a partner I have no objections. But to me, it feels like a hole in my life. Maybe in particular because I feel like I've never been able to put my best foot forward, because I don't know the steps. I have many students who come to me because their education earlier in life haven't given the tools and understanding they need. I often work with both unwinding their their anxities around the subject and building up their grasp of the subject. I could use a little of the same, I think. And it sometimes makes me bitter when people seem to shy away from assisting me, given how much I've assisted others with their problems.

It makes me bitter when bad people get all kinds of dates and relationships while nice and kind people feel as if something is wrong with them because they don´t have a partner.
My (probably terrible) advice is that you either a) focus on something else entirely and distance yourself from dating for awhile, the come back at it with new eyes or b) the complete opposite, go on as many dates as you can, get fkn tinder or something, and just put yourself out there like you have nothing to lose.

[All Is Revealed]

Dating is not an easy task. It can take hundreds of dates before you find the right person. Believe it or not, the right person for you might currently be married or in a serious relationship. It's all about timing. They may end up getting divorced or breaking up, and then meeting you later in life.

Also, the hundreds of couples I've met are unhappy. I believe if you wanted a girlfriend, you can have one today.

Would you rather have a girlfriend today and be miserable, or be happy while you find the right one?

[Misssy2]

Riggs...this might be why your confused....

Cause dating is not a game...and you don't have to "know how to act"...you just have to be yourself.

Even starting your post...you said it would be a comedy read...and yes you write well...articulate well...and it was a good read...but life is not a show...

Be yourself! Thats all...You haven't had a positive experience you say and maybe that is because you are not presenting as you....

[All Is Revealed]

Originally Posted by Misssy2

Riggs...this might be why your confused....

Cause dating is not a game...and you don't have to "know how to act"...you just have to be yourself.

Even starting your post...you said it would be a comedy read...and yes you write well...articulate well...and it was a good read...but life is not a show...

Be yourself! Thats all...You haven't had a positive experience you say and maybe that is because you are not presenting as you....

So true! This is why so many relationships end in disaster. Lots of acting involved. When the show ends, the relationship is over.

[sky457]

^Absolutely regarding acting in dating

[Riggs]

OK, look, sorry, but I'll have to bite back a little here. The way you put it, it sounds like you think I write for show. Excuse the French, but GOD DAMN IT I'm tired of hearing iterations on that theme. I don't write and talk the way I do for show. This is me. This is how I think. This is how I feel. This is what I experience. The fact that you find it well articulated and perhaps even entertaining was, and is, of absolutely no concern to me. To state how my spontaneous experience here is: I try to say something about how I honestly feel, and I'm told to stop acting. Yea, that really leaves me eager to open up to people. It reminds of all the times when I've just given up on social interaction, because people get their panties all in a twist after I use some (in their esteemed opinion) fancy word.

And as for dating being a game. Well, in a certain sense it is, just as with all social interaction or just life in general. There are certain rules, traditions and expectations. If you don't know them, things are objectively more difficult. If you place someone in total isolation for the first twenty years of their life, what emerges will not be a socially functional creature. And one of the things he'll need to learn is: What are the rules? When do you say thank you, in what end of the line should you stand, what is money, when is it appropriate to hug someone, when can you walk up to a person and talk to them, when is it not okay for someone else to touch you. All of these things are an interplay between your personal assessment and the (often unspoken) agreements in society.

I'm not looking for ways to put up an act. I actually resent the accusation that I am. If anything, I'm looking for some understanding for the fact that I feel handicapped in this area and could use a little bit of guidance. Like a lot of people actually do get. Only they are spoiled by not having to think of it as receiving guidance. It's something that becomes very clear when you look at it from the perspective of someone who had to develop coping and survival skills during the years when a lot of other people learned the basics of such things as romance and dating.

[sky457]

Hi Riggs, I didn't fully read your post and I apologize. I was just agreeing with the acting statements, not tying it to your post.

After fully reading your post, it seems like you're trying to figure out who you are by going through your dates. I am at that place right now too because I went through a lot of really bad relationships and it is the first time I've been thrust into the dating world. It's not necessarily an act; but you are trying to figure out your limitations, what you don't like, and what you have to offer.

I am at that place right now and I still trying to figure it out. I'm there with you.

[Misssy2]

Riggs.... I sincerely apologize for offending you. There is nothing worse than opening yourself up on the internet to be made to feel worse.

Not talking to you in person I took your post as...I'm not going to say anymore..lol...because I obviously did not see the internal pain this is causing you and the courage it took you to put it out there.

My opinion remains the same thou...because after all the years I have had and all the men I have been in relationships with..I finally learned that to find the one...I truly have to just be myself...and not necessarily conform to societies dos and don'ts when starting a relationship...because my "true" self ends up showing after a period of time.

Like those please and thank yous...that is just not me...but I will tend to act like that at the start of a relationship...Now...I just try my hardest to pick up on WHEN I am acting as if I am politically correct.

Riggs...you will find someone eventually don't give up and always be yourself.
Again, I am sorry for offending you.