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Doc,
How does one come to terms with the fact that there is no one on this planet that they are compatible with?
I know that’s a rather depressing outlook, but from my perspective it seems the only choice I’ve got is to seek an answer to that question in order to move on and accept the hand I’ve been dealt with in life.
I’m not going to pretend that you haven’t read this all before, either, as I’m yet another case of “on paper, ticks all the boxes”; a career-driven and physically healthy male with a heart of gold, perceived as charming by those around him, absolutely amazing with kids, and has no issues with talking with the opposite sex. I’m conventionally handsome, and even had a few people suggest my physical appearance is “intimidating” (I wouldn’t agree). Sure, it’s great I’ve got characteristics that allow me to live a relatively fulfilling life, but it all seems rather fruitless knowing that I have to go through it alone.
It’s like the universe has destined that I remain that way. I’ve done an awful lot of stuff in my time, and this has put me in contact with a whole range of people. However, it’s never been a demographic that would be suitable for me to date (which right now would be mid twenties to thirties). For instance, at the moment I do an arts class that is rife with middle aged, married women. The time before that was a hiking group, with a similar audience. There’s also been board games and music. I think the only time I was surrounded by the right crowd was at college, and I can confidently state no one showed an interest in me. I find it hard to reconcile with the “wasted” time of not being able to date back then (even seeing a picture of a young woman makes me feel like I “missed out”), and I find it despairing to know that I’m unlikely to meet someone going forward.
So, nowadays I spend many a night (and day) ruminating on what “could be”. If I’m not meeting anyone at regular places, then it feels the only option is to cold approach, a concept that feels completely alien and unauthentic to me. I literally cannot imagine being at a bar and having a woman approach me for conversation or smiling at me from across the room, and I myself would never make the attempt. I never got a match on dating apps when I did use them. Yet, I’ll pop online, go to Reddit and I’ll see people talking about how they met their future spouse in a park, at a concert, on a hike, or even just bumping to them on the street. How on Earth does this even happen?
I don’t know. I’m just want a glimmer of understanding.
Stuck In Solitary
OK I understand this is hyperbole, but as with a lot of cases like yours, SIS, this has the feel of “joking but not really”. That is: the words are deliberately over the top but reflect what you actually think. This is why one of my first responses to letters like this is “really? You have polled all 3.95 billion women (or at least the 3.55 billion who statistically are most likely to be attracted to men) in the world and not one of them is compatible with you?
I also find it somewhat difficult to believe that someone with all the qualities you say you have – you’re conventionally good looking, charming, great with kids, etc. – and yet mysteriously Saturday night is the loneliest time of the week for no reason other than you and you alone have been fucked by the fickle finger of fate.
Now, I say this because, quite honestly, I think the actual problem is revealed the rest of your letter. You talk a lot about the “lack of appropriate demographics” in the activities you pursue, but not what other steps you’re taking to find that “appropriate demographic”. You also talk about how you can’t imagine women coming up to you, nor your ever going to talk to them in cold approach situations.
(I’m leaving the dating apps out of this because the nature of the beast makes it a separate issue entirely).
In other words… you’re not actually doing anything. Going by your letter, you seem to expect that the way things should work is that you show up and the universe provides you with a potential date with minimal effort on your part. Well… how’s that working out for you so far?
There are two things that are really in play here. The first is how you feel about yourself. A lot of times, the belief that other people don’t or couldn’t like you comes down to your being able to see and respect your own worth and value and using other people as the yard stick you measure it by. Much like the “how can I think I’m attractive if other people don’t confirm it for me”, this mindset just externalizes your locus of control. It puts your self worth in the hands of others and guarantees that you will never feel secure in yourself. How could you, when random strangers have the final say in who you are and how you should see yourself? It only takes one person not liking you to wipe out any sense of your own value.
The second is that meeting people takes work. It takes effort, drive and, importantly, self-direction. Those people posting on Reddit about how they met their partners at random places? It’s not that they just showed up and their partner leapt into their arms and off they went into connubial bliss. These were cold approach situations. They had to go up to a stranger, strike up a conversation and see what happened.
This wasn’t just fortune dropping someone in their lap and saying “here ya go, son”. There was work involved. They had to be an active participant – going to the event, spotting the person, either initiating the conversation themselves or keeping things going, vibing, flirting and connecting with them and eventually making the move to get a number or their WhatsApp or what-have-you. They didn’t look around, not see anyone in the immediate vicinity who looked good to them and welp, too bad how sad guess this place was a bust.
If you’re not willing to take the steps necessary to find somebody, ones that go beyond just “I’m here, now everybody form an orderly queue”, then there’s nothing else to say. If you were to go to Starbucks and a gorgeous 30 year old is waiting for her morning latte, are you going to actually say anything? Or are you just going to stand there, hoping beyond hope that your mutant powers will finally kick in and you’ll be able to will her into approaching you? Are you going to put in more than the token effort to actually meet people, or just wait because God provides eventually?
This is why I talk about how the key to being lucky is to put yourself into fortune’s path so you can take full advantage of the opportunities when they arise. A lot of luck comes down to making your own luck, taking situations and finding ways to make them work for you, even if it’s not immediately what you want.
Case in point: going to these classes or groups and not recognizing that sometimes what you need is to think a couple steps past what’s right in front of you. OK, so there’re married, middle-aged women here… do you think none of them know single women in their 30s? Do you think none of them have daughters, nieces, cousins? Do you not interact with them and exhibit some of that charm you say you have, charm that would make them think “you know, I should maybe tell Gabriella about this lovely man in my art class”?
Nor, for that matter, do you talk about trying to find where the 20-to-30somethings who would be most right for you are hanging out. Clearly they’re not in the classes or groups you’re going to… so why aren’t you looking for those places instead? And if you do, are you actually going to go talk to them? Or are you going to sit there and hope that one of them will approach you, so that you don’t have to try to talk to someone else first?
Trust me, I get the frustration of being single when you don’t want to be. But getting out of that particular hole requires actually trying to climb out, not complaining that there are no natural hand-holds or that people with ladders aren’t walking by to give you an assist. You’ve gotta be the first and primary resource for getting yourself out. Otherwise you’re going to be stuck in that hole for a long, long time.
To put it another way: you say you’re career driven. Ok… so does that mean you just put in the minimum amount of effort and wait for your bosses to just move you up the ladder like a pawn in chess? Or did you have to seek out opportunities, find areas to make yourself valuable at work, chase down promotions and raises? Do you truly not see how that also translates to your personal life?
If you’ve got the ambition and drive to be climbing the ladder of your career, you can apply that same ambition and drive to both your own self worth and to meeting other people. But to do either, you have to stop making yourself out to be a helpless naif and start putting the same skills that let you succeed in your career to work to succeed in your social life.
Yeah, it’s not always easy. Yeah, some people get the luck of the draw. That doesn’t mean that’s how it is for everyone or that this is the only way to do it. Sometimes you’ve gotta spit in your hands, grit your teeth and get ready to do the grunt work for a while until things pay off. And yes, sometimes it takes longer than you’d prefer. Sometimes you might decide you need to take a break from the grind. But not doing the work just means that you’re going to be waiting far, far longer, and the odds of success are much, much lower.
You’re the captain of your own life, SS. The question you need to answer is whether or not you’re actually going to steer it in the direction you want or just hope you get there before you sink.
Good luck.
Dear Dr. NerdLove,
I’m a 22-year-old, straight single woman. I’m still a virgin because I was raised in a religious family and because, in order to save money, I’ve been living at home while attending college close by. However, I’m graduating this spring and, since I’ve spent the past 6-7 years secretly developing more progressive beliefs, I’m looking forward to moving to a larger, “bluer” city and starting my own life – which will hopefully include dating.
My goal is a committed relationship leading to marriage and family. But I won’t consider it a tragedy if I have to date several men before finding “the one.” I even think it’s great that I’ll be able to be sure my husband and I are sexually compatible before we get married. The problem is, I’ve read some stuff online suggesting I might be even more old-fashioned and out of the loop than I thought. Is it really true that open relationships are more the default these days than exclusive ones, especially in the early stages? And that when you first start dating someone, you should assume they are also dating other people, until you reach a point where you decide to be exclusive?
This fills me with sorrow and panic. I absolutely do not want to have sexual relationships with more than one man at a time, or with a man who is simultaneously having sexual relationships with other women. Does this mean no one will want to date me? Or that I’ll be limited to religious or conservative men I’m not politically or intellectually compatible with? I’m not bad-looking, but not beautiful enough that I feel like men would jump through hoops to date me if they have plenty of other options who won’t make the same demands. How badly should I expect this to affect my dating life, and what can I do about it?
Exclusively Exclusive
One of the truths about dating is that any preference is going to limit the number of potential dates in your particular pool. Unless you’re literally considering all and sundry, you’re going to be narrowing down the number of people you might connect with. This is part of the price of entry to the dating market. The key is understanding that this sort of filtering is inherently a good thing; you’re filtering out the people who aren’t right for you.
The flipside of this, however, is understanding that some preferences will narrow your options far more significantly than others. You have to decide for yourself which preferences – and the accompanying reduction in potential choices – are important to you, and which are ones you could do without.
Now, despite the current cultural moment that polyamory and ethical non-monogamy is having (and the thousands of think-pieces about it), most people are going to be some flavor of monogamous. You’re going to find more people who want a more traditionally closed relationship than folks who want an open or poly one. You’re going to be pretty safe on that score.
However, most people aren’t going to want to be exclusive on the first or second date, and they’re not likely to agree to that if asked. And honestly, it’s going to be hard to find someone who would.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who prefer to date sequentially rather than in parallel. Some folks do indeed go on dates with one person before deciding to pursue someone else. There isn’t a reliable metric to measure how many people are like this or how to identify them; it can often be a question of timing and where they are in their lives at that moment as a general preference. Someone who was a sequential dater may find themselves in circumstances where they have multiple dates with different people and vice versa.
The problem is when somebody who expects exclusivity doesn’t say so, and then proceeds to get angry that the other person didn’t live up to the agreement that they were never asked to participate in. This is part of why I think the best practice is to assume that you’re not exclusive until you and your date have both opted in. To do otherwise isn’t fair to either party.
If it’s going to be important to you that the person you go on a second or third date with is only seeing you at the moment, you’re going to have to say so early on, and you’re going to have to accept that this may make it harder to find people who are of the same mindset as you are. That doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong choice; it just means that you’ll be narrowing your options further than you might otherwise – including filtering out the overly conservative and/or religious men who meet that standard. Especially since you’ll need to state it, clearly and out loud, rather than assuming or implying it. Otherwise you may be finding yourself having a lot of unexpected and unpleasant conversations that you’d rather not have.
Now, it may be worth exploring a little deeper about why you’d be uncomfortable dating a man who might be seeing other people. If, as it sounds in your letter, it’s a matter of fearing that his having other options makes him less likely to choose you… well, to be honest, then that implied exclusivity isn’t going to actually help. I understand the anxiety underneath; it’s the same anxiety some monogamous people feel about non-monogamy. If they are out dating or sleeping with other people, then they might meet someone else and leave their partner. But here’s the thing: they might still do that even if they’re monogamous. Monogamy or exclusivity aren’t magical talismans against being dumped or cheated on; people cheat and leave their partners all the time without non-monogamous arrangements. The idea that exclusivity can prevent or mitigate this is like my carrying around a half-dollar in my pocket to keep the tigers away.
In any relationship, monogamous or non, you have to have a certain level of belief in your own value and in the connection you have with the other person. You don’t need someone to “jump through hoops” to date you and honestly, the idea that their willingness to do so is a feature is kinda off-putting. The best relationships, in my experience, are ones where both people feel like they’re getting the best out of the equation, not “I’m willing to move mountains in order to drink her bathwater.” You don’t want someone who feels like they have to “earn” your love, any more than you would want to feel the same about them.
Nor would dating someone who feels that way make the relationship any stronger or more secure. If anything, it would be far more likely to create a sort of relationship imposter-syndrome, where you worry that some day they’re going to wake up and realize that you’re not the goddess they thought and move on… which brings us right back to the anxiety problem we started off with.
If you don’t believe that you’re awesome enough in your own right that your matches would be fools not to want to be with you and/or you don’t trust what you have with the other person to be so good that they would choose you over someone else, then you’re going to spend a lot more time trying to manage your anxieties than you are enjoying the relationship. Similarly, if you can’t trust the other person to pick you out of all the other people or to be sincere when they do? Well… good luck ever feeling secure in that relationship.
Yeah, our partners have a role to play in this. It’s always good when they remind us that they have chosen us, specifically, and why. But you have to be the one leading that particular charge for yourself, to be your own cheerleader and hype-person. If you’re not your own biggest fan, then how would you believe someone else who says that they are? It’s a lot harder to accept love when you can’t feel it for yourself; you’ll always worry that the sword of Damocles is hanging overhead and the thread is starting to fray.
Every relationship comes with the risk of heartache baked in. The key is to avoid unnecessary heartache. And part of that starts by learning to love and appreciate yourself, to recognize your worth and to value yourself, so that you can believe others when they recognize and value you, too.
Good luck.
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