My attitude towards love and relationships

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I just decided I'd post my personal beliefs and ideas on here, and see if anyone could relate to how I feel.

I'm a 22 year male who has been single all his life. I know, 22 years old, doesn't seem that old compared to some guys on this forum who are anywhere from mid to late 20's to early 40's or 50's. How they ever pulled that off, I will never know.

Anyways, the only time I really tried to date was in middle school and high school. Of course, most girls that age are very immature and overly dramatic, so in retrospect, it doesn't surprise me that I was rejected a lot. But after high school, I was so sick of rejection that I stopped trying for awhile and accepted being alone.

In desperation, I started doing online matchmaking sites, like Plenty of Fish, Yahoo Personals, Match.com, etc, which got me absolutely nowhere, and it was a waste of time and money. I tried to be friendly and casual, but no one seemed to want to talk, so I gave up what I considered a futile search.

It has been a while now since I have tried dating or anything, and my opinion of woman romantically isn't to the point of misogyny, but it is very resentful. I honestly have gotten to the point where I believe women don't care about me romantically, and I try to justify this by saying "Since they never cared or showed any interest to me, I won't show any interest in them!". I know it is faulty logic, an extremist view, but that's what I feel often, it is my attempt to rationalize the situation, and place myself in an illusion of control.

I see my female peers as possibilities for making good friends, good acquaintances, and I do find them physically attractive. I am very nice and pleasant around my female peers that are friends, family, and acquaintances. However, romantically, I GREATLY resent them, because I assume that ALL women my age have rejected me as not being worthwhile romantically and thus unfit for a possible relationship. Of course, not all women are the same, but you know, optimistic words can only carry you along for so long. If things do not go accordingly, it is very easy to sink into pessimism.

My feeling towards my female peers romantically are ones of great distrust, deep resentment, and anger. I know this all is very illogical, because NOT every single girl my age has rejected me, yet in my mind, I feel them have, and I resent this assumed rejection of how I am. Most guys, when they are rejected, become sad and disillusioned, wondering "What's wrong with me? Where did I go wrong?". I did that once or twice, but after the third or fourth rejection, I mentally thought "There is nothing wrong with me, I did nothing wrong. It is THEY who has something wrong, it is THEY who rejected me. It is THEY who never cared about me in the first place." Extremes once again, but these are the thoughts that go through my head.

Does this sound like any of you guys? Now, I know for females reading this, I know this makes me sound like a woman-hater. I'm not, I'm just resentful romantically towards women my own age, as friends or acquaintances, I like them just fine and get along with them. I have no resentment or anger towards people I have no inclination in romantically. However, in a humorously ironic twist, I resent women I'm attracted to because I'm already under the assumption that they have rejected me before I even start to try and get to know them, even if this is not the case.

Well that sums up my thoughts, I guess I'll leave it to the meticulous scrutiny of those who read this post.

Well I've noticed that the only women I got on with romantically were either older or younger - I had terrible success dating until at least 25 or so and never dated in High School at all - women my own age disdained me completely until well into my 30's.

And as a matter of fact I went thru the same stages as you, first thinking it was all my fault, then thinking it was all theirs. Believe me, with what I know now about Asperger's looking back I could have done much better after some counseling, reading books on body language, taking more chances (i.e., abandoning my comfort zone).

There is some unwritten stuff you need to absorb, perhaps nobody wants to share it but I will: women (more so younger ones than their older sisters) don't want to make YOU feel good, they want YOU to make them excited/protected. You need to get over what YOU want. It's not about you it's about THEM. Trust me on this once you get that it will all fall into place.

Also, by being friends with a lot of women (a trait I share too - I hardly ever had any "he-man" friends) you might get the friendzone treatment and/or possibly be considered gay or the "nice" guy. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO KISS THEIR A**.

The other unwritten thing is: you have to throw a lot of sh*t on the wall for any to stick. No sense in obsessing about that one chick you got to say hi - you gotta say hi to dozens of them and have that many say hi back for any real choices.

Another is: never show your fear of rejection - they can smell it a mile away - also they can spot condescending misogyny a mile away. That is not to say you should become a "libber-wannabee" as they will REALLY smell the phoniness of that a mile away - remember they can mostly read body language REALLY WELL.

And as perverse or illogical as this may sound, you have to NOT care if you get in their pants (sorry for being so blunt) - you almost have to make them think they have NO effect on your psychological well-being, that you are man enough to take anything that comes, be it a full-blown orgy with two women (I jest) all the way to a pleasant: "it was nice knowing you but we're mis-matched". You have to project the air of easy-come-easy-go, devil-may-care.

Mind you, I was also angry like you were, and this became so rampant in me I vowed to never interact with a woman as long as I lived and was furious with women in general and disdainful of their role in the emasculation of men since (insert your favorite historical era here) and then ... well life played a trick on me and I met someone quite by chance. But I honestly did not WANT her. In fact my mind I was thinking: "another flake". Just like the Buddhists say you have to remove all desire or it will own you. This is a paradox, that to get the object of your desire you have to not want it - not hate it, just not want it. Nature abhors a vacuum and especially disdains you for hating and refusing to play her game! She HAS to get you to play or she fails!! !

Two final thoughts: please try to smile!! ! Some nice woman out there is going to be lucky some day and it would be unfair to throw her out with the other (perceived) trash just because you stayed bitter. And as much as you might disdain this you need to develop your own personal sense of humor (not an anal-retentive stand-up routine 17 minutes long). I say this because nowadays my girlfriend (the one I mentioned in this story) and my piano students are constantly cracked up by my jokes and witticisms (me - the one who supposedly forswore all humor about the time I forswore all women).

Time to lighten up - you have sagely perceived the threat that a lack of a woman in your life COULD play out to be (like Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Future in A Christmas Carol) but it does not HAVE to be that way IRL.

All the best.
PMPP

Should I parse the post just to more or less agree with it? Sure. Could be fun. There are some good points I want to expand on a little.[

Abandoning your comfort zone is so hard but so important. I think it's a cost/benefit analysis. Which is more important? Staying in your comfort zone or meeting somebody?



So simple and yet so routinely ignored. Or perhaps that advice isn't ignored so much as actively discarded with the attitide of "why should I have to do anything special to get her attention? If she doesn't realize what a great guy I am, then eff her." That probably feels cathartic but unless you are a celebrity, an oil heir, or a model, women are unlikely to be wracking their brains wondering how they can make you feel better about yourself. Exception? Women in their late 30's whose biological clock is ticking. Ready to be a dad? Then you can land her. Otherwise, follow polymath's advice.



You won't be considered gay (I think a lot of women's gaydar is better than that). And being considered a nice guy is not the turn-off that men here seem to think it is. Women date nice guys all the time. Many men who get labled "jerks" here are just nice guys who got the girl. However, a trait that some may mistake as being "nice" is, as polymath says, "kissing their a****". That doesn't come across as nice. It comes across as desperate and needy. Women want to be wanted but not by a barnacle. Too much desperation and neediness can lead to "a*** Kissing" which reads as this : "I am nothing without you. I am a big empty hole. Fill me up with your love. And never stop filling. Never never never." It's just too much responsibility to literally be a man's everything. Too much baggage. But it feels fairly safe to be friends with such a man just so long as he's kept at arm's length.



True enough. Although I wouldn't call it sh*t. Saying "hi" to lots and lots of women (or people in general) is never wasted effort, even if only one or two say hi back.



Yes. The fear of rejection reads as a lose/lose dichotomy. It essentially gives a woman a choice between "you should take on the responsibility of being my everything because I deserve that" or "if you wwon't take on that responsibility it's because you are a heartless b**ch just like all women" (that's the condescending misogyny part). Who wants that kind of choice? No woman. So they just avoid any man who presents them with those two unspoken choices. (I had to bold that for anybody who wants to say "I would never say that to a woman". Of course you wouldn't. It's body language.)



Yes. This comes back to not presenting yourself as a bottomless pit that a woman should take on the responsibility of filling.



The zen paradox in action. Yay!

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Nicely said.

Polymath presented you with a nice cake and I just put a little frosting on it. I just wanted to say something about this paragraph.

You realize that you have set up a trap for yourself by giving yourself only two choices. Either "something is terribly wrong with me or else she would want me" versus "something is terribly wrong with her or else she would want me". You know for a fact that these are illogical extremes that you keep see-sawing between and you are trying to think your way out of it but can't because these are irrational feelings and therefore can't be rationalized away with logical thoughts. You can't think your way off this see-saw. You have to feel your way off. Polymath did just that which is why his advice is sound. He let the feelings go in a very zen-like way. If your area has a zen meditation center or classes, it might be a good idea to take that advice literally. The zen masters know what they are doing and can help you let go of the feelings.

My personal, female take on it is to open up that box labeled "heartless rejectors" you have put all women into and take them out of it one by one. As polymath said, if you make it all about you, women stay away. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on them. I'm not talking about obsessing on the life details and whereabouts of any particular woman (yikes! stalkerish- not that you ever said you were going there, I just want it clear that's not what I mean). Instead of seeing women soley in terms of whether they accept or reject you- which puts them in this box-try to see them as unique individuals and whether they want you or do not want you is irrelevent. Unpack the women you know and the women you meet from that box labled "heartless rejectors". Instead of focusing on whether they have rejected or might reject you as a potential date/boyfriend, try to see the things that make all of them unique as individuals. This one works for a vet- she's so kind to animals. That one is a Walmart clerk-she's bored at work. The other one had a fight with her Mom -you've been there. The other one is scared of the dark- that's understandable. Etc. etc. etc. You already have it in you to do that or you wouldn't have female friends. You don't put them in that box until you feel attraction. So you have it in you to take them out again. I really do recommend zen meditation with trained people to help with this.

Horror movies take our darkest fears and put them on screen. Sometimes these fears are actual (the fear of death) but sometimes these fears are metaphorical. There is a horror movie called "Boxing Helena" which was made by a woman. It takes literally the metaphorical fear women have of being put in a box. (A man turns a woman into his possession by cutting off her arms and legs and putting her literally in a box.) It was a woman who made this movie and I don't think that's a coincidence. She tapped into a very dark fear women have both of being seen as representative of all women (being put metaphorically in a box labeled "woman") and being seen as a thing to own rather than as a unique human. This is why I'm harping on the box metaphor so much. If you can see it as a literal box and understand why it's a movie-worthy horror for women, that might help you see the importance of unpacking individual women from that box. You already know- already stated- that you realize it's unhealthy yet feel helpless to change it. But I think you already have the capacity to see women as individuals or you wouldn't be friends with them. This feeling just gets triggered by the attraction. Follow polymath's advice (all of it) and maybe also look into zen meditation to help release you from this feeling.

This is a very important concept.

No matter how awesome you are, you're just gunna fail sometimes. And it can be for any reason no matter how obscure. You can't let it get you down. In fact, I'd take it as far as to state it's not even worth trying to figure out what went wrong. You'll just end up wracking your brain with more self-doubt, or even worse, spend valuable effort making changes that don't really help.

Desensitize yourself to rejection as much as possible. It's really no big deal. You make a move, it gets repelled, and it's over. No counterstrike. It can even be fun with the right mindset. It's not called the dating game for nothing.

When I'm in one of my cynical phases I tend to expect to be spoken to by women I find attractive in a rude and aloof fashion, and written off pretty much from the word go by the minority who are single. When I'm less cynical I internalise advice like that made in this thread (all of which I've already considered over the past few years) and think I'm doing something right and don't have to perform any magic tricks. The cynical/less cynical phases, I suspect, are determined by how good I feel my prospects are.

I am slightly younger at 21. Exactly the same, except that I never tried to date much in school because I went to boys school (waste of 5 years lol). I am not resentful at all of anybody, except probably myself for succumbing to my anxieties. I guess that would fall under being scared to venture outside of the bubble we call the comfort zone. I get muddled up a lot when I speak to girls, apparently its something to do with Dyspraxia or something, but it certainly doesn't help. I'm a lot better at dealing with it now, and I am content enough to not care too much. Is a little worrying to others who know me simply because they are all involved in relationships of some sort, but I am not worried.

And therein lies a huge part of the problem. It's not supposed to be about just one party - it's supposed to be equally about BOTH of them.
The pendulum swings both ways in a relationship. And until people understand that, the rate of breakups/divorces will only continue to increase.

I completely disagree that that's a large part of the problem. Polymathpoolplayer isn't giving advice on how to maintain an existing relationship. He's giving advice on how to meet somebody and open up the possibility of a relationship. If you meet somebody and expect them to be attracted to you when you keep the focus on what YOU want, you will fail. Unless of course you are a celebrity, oil heir or model. But nobody on this board is. So polymath's advice stands.

I think a large part of the problem is the dealbreakers. Women tend to identify dealbreakers very quickly, often without telling the man what they are. So you are screened out as relationship material from them because they believe they are not compatible with you (or vice versa).

True. And a fairly major deal breaker is a man's focus on what he wants from a woman he just met. Which polymath (and me running after him giving thumbs up) is trying to convey to others here. I hope that the men are listening.

It isn't all about the women if the women are the ones trying to attract the man in question. I am not talking about an established relationship. I (and polymath) am talking about trying to attract a woman. Any man who tries to attract a woman by focusing on how she would be right for him and all the ways she would be good for him will fail.

Epic fail

Fractal fail (tip of the hat to Shiggely elsewhere for that term)

Women will avoid a man who sends the message that he is looking for a woman who will fulfill a laundry list of needs and wants that he has. If a man wants a woman to even notice him, he can't! can't! can't! present himself as though they were equal partners in an already established relationship. There is no relationship as yet and there never will be with a man who wonders (in non-verbals) "what can you do for me?" The woman is not equally focused on him because there is no established relationship. You can't demand equitable romantic treatment from somebody you don't know!

Polymath's advice stands. Anybody who approaches the "meet and greet" stage as though it were the "my needs are important too in this equitable relationship" stage will.....FAIL

Neediness is unattractive period, from a woman as well. It should be two people enjoying THEMSELVES with the assistance of another's company. Any tokens of affection should be given freely, & not as part of some expectation.

I can't agree that the attraction process is about the man or woman. Both parties should be able to sustain themselves.

Based on gender roles in society, the man usually has to initiate, but that's it. If the woman is unresponsive, it's not up to the man to carry the entire interaction. That's what being "all about her" would imply, and it would actually express neediness on the man's part if he did that.

Uh oh. I think the "all about her" fragment of polymath's paragraph has been repeated alone enough times now that its context has fallen away. (Which is my fault in large part. Sorry.) In it's original form it said "women (more so younger ones than their older sisters) don't want to make YOU feel good, they want YOU to make them excited/protected. You need to get over what YOU want. It's not about you it's about THEM."

Restored to its' original context, it's advice intended to prevent men from telegraphing neediness.

So females' "neediness" is ok, but men's isn't?

Read this...

and then read this...



If you ignore your own needs in favor of fulfilling hers, doesn't that amount to "kissing her a**"?

I expect everyone who is looking for sex or a relationship to go into it with the idea that they are seeking someone to fulfill certain needs. OK, maybe quite some NTs go into relationships because they genuinely like the idea in and of itself... but even that looked at in another way is filling a need, just that spending lots of time with other people is a need of theirs.

It's one thing if these needs are one-sided and/or demeaning like "I need someone to cook for me and clean my house", but on the other hand "I want a sex partner with whom I can have discussions about literature" is not an unreasonable need to broadcast, in my opinion.



But this is what makes me hate a lot of women. They have this attitude that they need to make you play these games. I want a woman who doesn't have the foggiest idea why she would want anyone to play this game, or why anyone would want her to feel like she failed if she didn't.

And I know these things are somewhat based on biology, but biology almost certainly can't explain why women seem so similar in this way. Even biology fails much more than that.