Romantic relationships when you only like one on one.

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BrianWV38
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

Joined: 15 Dec 2025
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 60
Location: Falling Waters, West Virginia

25 Dec 2025, 12:40 pm

Hello, my name is Brian. My biggest struggle in life is trying to get into a romantic relationship. I am American and I am 38. I have still never been in a relationship. But I am still trying. I have not given up.

One of my many issues is that I simply cannot handle group events. I am pretty resounded to not doing group events ever again. But I still cherish one on one time with people I care about. Obviously, this makes it very difficult to get into a relationship though.

As far as dates go, I exclusively look online and on dating apps for a potential date. I am not really good with new or strange people. But I am very good one on one with people I know.

I know this is a huge hindrance to me getting into a relationship. But do people think it is still possible? To get into a relationship when you really only talk to people in a one-on-one setting. Thank you so very much in advance.



Carbonhalo
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Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Age: 64
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,059
Location: Musoria

25 Dec 2025, 7:51 pm

I seem to have 4 social operating modes.
A. One on one intimate.
Vastly preferred, comfortable, adopted with people I expect will not be offended by oversharing or flirting.
B. One on one public.
I'm still comfortable with this one. I only have to craft sentences for the person I'm addressing with the proviso I censor everything.
Flirtation becomes rather veiled.
C. Group.
My least competent mode. Tend to stay quiet because I can never catch whatever token everyone else passes around and I almost always interrupt. When I do say something I have to dumb things down to generic statements because I hate assuming other people's base knowledge and I can't work it out on the fly like I can one on one (usually). This reticence impedes verbal peacockery, so the larger audience isn't much help romantically.
D. Oration.
Generally a written speech, so it's more about masking anxiety and being... dramatic. Ad libbing is more of a problem unless the aim is to amuse and I get some laughter/feedback. If I had any stage confidence I'd be using this to generate romantic leads since you can flirt with lots of people at once.