Why Don’t The Women I Like Seem To Like Me Back?

Hi Doc! I would like to get to the bottom of my problem in that I’m struggling with attracting “my type.” Now I understand the topic of “types” may have been beaten to death, but I really feel my type is something realistic for me and not some “manic pixie dream girl” or standard-societal-model-of-what-I-should-be-attracted-to thing.

My own characteristics are that I’m a neurodivergent male (ADHD and well-masked Autism), early 30-something year old, nerdy, straight but not heteronormative, kind, good conversationalist, hyper aware and empathetic about consent culture, like to dress in fun/cute stylish clothes, lots of creative and pro-social interests in science and psych topics, leftist beliefs, etc, etc.

The women I am attracted to are very much the same in personality, beliefs, with physical traits including more nerdy, alternative, and pastel styles such as coloured hair, tattoos, piercings, body-positive “fat babes” of all sizes whether curvy or significantly bigger. Now, these sound like lovely folks that would be a great match, and lots of friends have said “wow you really have a type!”. But the problem I’m having is that I seem to only be attracted to those types and can’t feel attraction towards other people with different physical traits. I can’t feel sexual with slim or average women and I’ve talked to a few therapists over the years that assured me that I’m not fetishizing my type (which I had chronic anxiety and worried that I was a shitty dude who was obsessed with the physical aspect). I wish I had more of a variety of people I’m attracted to because I really struggle with attracting my “type”.

I get lots of likes on dating apps so I’m doing a lot of things right with my profile and etc, but they aren’t the matches I’m really attracted to. When I like or swipe right on my types, they don’t match back and I’m wondering if I’m just not what they’re looking for? Do I need to be more alternative or edgy looking with my aesthetic/pictures and get tattoos or piercings? I appreciate those aesthetics on other people but don’t have ideas on what I would get for those “accessories,” and I have a high sensitivity to piercing/needle-type pain and etc. so I’m afraid to venture into that at the moment, and I would feel inauthentic to significantly change my looks just to attract people.

As for meeting in real life, I struggle with cold approaching people and prefer getting to know potential dates via social circles or common interest groups as “warm approaches”. I like connecting as friends first with expressing my honesty that I am also interested in going on a date (and later asking if they would like to proceed with more intimate activities). This is where I get stuck, and they don’t feel reciprocal sexual interest (not going to use the word friend-zoned because I don’t want to venture into entitlement territory). Lots of my friends say that I’m very attractive and have a wonderful personality, and feedback on my “mechanical” aspects of dating skills are positive, but I think deep down I don’t feel like I’m “allowed” or “worthy enough” to find a satisfying dating/sexual connection with the people I’m really attracted to? I’ve been through so much therapy over the years and wondering if things just aren’t clicking for me yet and that one day they might, or if I have to settle for perhaps emotionally connected friendships or relationships with asexual folks (which I’ve had in the past)? It feels like I should just be grateful that I can find friends at all and that asking for the sexual connection that I want is greedy or selfish as a person on the spectrum of learning disabilities/neurodivergence.

Sincerely,

StuckInTheMiddleWithTypes

Let’s talk about types for a second. This is a subject that gets talked around a lot – often with a decent helping of criticism – but we don’t really talk about why we have types and what draws us to them.

When I work with people who have a hard time meeting people that they like or click with, one of my first questions is to establish precisely what they’re looking for. The way I like to frame it is, if “if you had a genie who could build you the perfect partner from the ground up, what would that person look and be like?” I generally like to zero in on personality and interests more than the ideal partner’s physical features, but all of the information gathered can be useful… in no small part because of what it tells me about the person in front of me.

See, one of the things that I’ve found over the years is that many times the sorts of people we wishcast as our partners are less people we want to date and more people we wish we could be. Many times, the traits, personality or interests that we find appealing in our prospective partners are, in fact, personality traits or behaviors that we wish we had. By finding a partner who has these traits, we hope that those traits will somehow either balance us out or else will somehow impart those traits on us. This is part of the appeal of The Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy; it’s someone who will dance into our lives and impart those attitudes, behaviors or mindsets that we feel like we lack or wish we had. Somehow, she will draw out this secret side of us that we were sure was always there but that we just couldn’t access for some reason.

Plus blowjobs. Because what kind of self-improvement plan is it if it doesn’t also come with a side-serving of orgasms?

The problem with this attitude, however is that it always ignores the question of “what’s in it for them?” One of the truths that we tend to ignore is that – despite what late-80s pop divas tell us – opposites don’t attract; we actually prefer people who are similar to us. We click most readily with people who share backgrounds, interests, experiences and values with us, and get frustrated with our opposites. So that devil-may-care free spirit you dream of teaching you how to be less rigid and more impulsive and in the moment is going to have relatively little interest in you in the first place and even less in somehow crafting you into being her ideal partner.

Our physical types can cause issues too, in part because we often don’t think about why we’re into them… or worse, try to ignore what our type really is. The fixation on, say, southeast Asian women, for example, often has nothing to do with a deep and abiding appreciation for the richness of the richness of the history and culture of their countries of origin or formative experiences with individuals and far more to do with someone else’s constructed image of them. This ranges anywhere from the (mistaken, racist) belief that southeast Asian women are naturally or culturally more demure or “feminine” (and so more willing to put up with one’s bullshit without complaint) to functionally being a trophy for the other person being the “best” at that culture, despite being an outsider.

Other times, our professed type is often about what other people think about our partners, rather than who we actually are attracted to. Lots of people – men, women and non-binary folks – will actively pursue partners because they match their friends’ values or what they were told they should want, rather than what they’re actually attracted to. They chase after partners who ultimately serve as a form of clout, rather than genuine desire. To make matters worse, many will treat their actual desires as a mark of shame; more willing to treat someone they’re into as a dirty little secret that they fuck on the side, rather than openly proclaiming that this is who they’re into and fuck all of y’all if you don’t like it.

Needless to say, this is a prime recipe for making people miserable. And it’s why it’s a good idea to really interrogate just what you want and why. Are you (the general you, not you specifically, SIMWT) into athletic women because you want a partner who fits into your own active and athletic lifestyle? Or are you worried about what other people might say – or how you might feel about your worth and status –  if you were to date someone who doesn’t have a supermodel physique?

However that doesn’t mean that people who have a type or preferences are automatically fetishizing someone or are compensating for something or looking for peer approval. We all, as individuals, have things that appeal to us more than others in a person, occasionally to the point of exclusion. Sometimes your type really is just “this is who I’m authentically attracted to, I’m just not attracted to X or Y build/hair color/culture/etc.” and that’s fine. It’s just good to try and dig in to know yourself and why you’re into what you’re into, as best as anyone can.

Now that having been said, let’s dive into your question here, SITMWT. You’re into big women and fat women, and particularly women who tend to have alternative look. Similarly, your ideal partner – if we were to go back to the genie exercise – would be someone who had similar interests in social issues and social justice as your own. And it seems that you’ve been pretty thorough in exploring what draws you to someone and wanting to make sure that you aren’t interested in partners for reasons other than genuine attraction and compatibility. That’s good. It also seems like you’ve got your presentation, style and grooming on lock and you’re generally presenting your best self in dating spaces. You’re getting positive attention from lots of women on dating apps – which a lot of folks struggle with for a multitude of reasons – but, it seems, not from the people you’re the most attracted to.

So where’s the disconnect coming from?

Well, I think the first problem is that you’re attracted to women that our culture treats as undesirable. Anti-fat bias is a very real thing and the general cultural acceptance of this bias leads folks to treat fat people in general and fat women in particular as societal punching bags. Because fat people are often seen as being fat first, rather than people, they are treated as lesser and suspect at best, active living punchlines at worst. This is especially true in dating; the idea of a fat person, particularly a fat woman being seen as a desirable partner or wanting to date someone who’s conventionally good looking is treated as comedy fodder.

However, there’re a lot of men out there – including people who are very conventionally good looking – who will eagerly sleep with fat women. The problem is that they’ll fuck them… but they won’t date them. The reasoning for this ranges from “dude who isn’t mature enough to own his interests despite what his bros might say” to “shitty guys who think that fat women are desperate/ better at sex because they need to be/ will put up with shitty treatment because they have so few options”. Many women have experienced this and are, understandably gun-shy because of it. If you’re someone who’s generally conventionally attractive, it’s understandable that the women who you are into may feel as though this could be a trick or a trap and aren’t willing to take that risk. Like many other challenges in dating, you’re having to deal with the aftermath of shitty behavior from shitty guys.

The second problem may be how you’re presenting yourself on dating apps. Remember what I said about how we’re attracted to people who are similar to us? This can be an issue, especially when there’s relatively limited information for people to go on. On dating apps, the first thing people will check out are your pictures, then your profile.  If your general style and archetype is fairly clean-cut or even a bit bro-y, then you may have a problem catching the eye or matching the energy of women who have more alternative looks or who are active in progressive and activist spaces. If that seems a bit shallow… well, it can be. However, our outward presentation is often a visual shorthand of who we are; we literally wear our identity on our sleeves. This can often create some amusing disconnects for folks; the gag of the dude who looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch-wearing frat bro turning out to be a devoted fan of Robyn and Keeping Up With The Kardashians is a common one. However, on dating apps, especially ones with a swipe mechanic that encourages an almost immediate “fuck yes or fuck no” approach, most people are gonna go with their immediate first impression… which could well be “nah.”

It also doesn’t help that guys on Tinder and other swipe apps still try to maximize matches by swiping right on as many women as possible and then winnowing out the ones they match with. Many of the women you’re trying to match with may well have had the experience of matching with a guy they genuinely liked, only to find out that he wasn’t into her in the first place and was just trying to work the algorithm.

The third problem is, well, dating apps. They kinda suck that way, especially if you’re someone who has a lot of hidden depths or who may not present in a particular way. 500 characters ain’t a lot of room to draw a full portrait of yourself as an individual. This is one of the reasons why I keep telling people that dating apps are best used as a supplement to meeting people, not the primary method.

So what do you do about all of this? Well, if we start with the obvious, having a style that is a bit more reflective of your personality and interests can be helpful. This isn’t to say that you need to dye your hair, get piercings for the sake of having piercings or tattoos just to get dates; if those aren’t authentic to you, then you’re just adding extra layers of difficulties. However, looking a little less clean-cut or a little more in line with the women you’re most interested in can be helpful. One of the ways you can achieve this is to be less conservative in your personal style, especially in your dating app photos. Being willing to, say, experiment with more colors, textures and patterns in your clothes than the average straight cis man could help; a bolder, more colorful look might help break through the intial reserve and hint that you’re not another bog-standard straight dude who’s afraid of colors that aren’t black or grey.

Similarly, letting those interests be more visible in your profile can be helpful. I often talk about having good “dating app SEO” – that is, having things in your profile that your ideal partners would be looking for. Even in apps where people can’t search by interests or specific words, having those interests being front and center – in a “ah, I see, you’re into this too” sort of way, rather than just listing words and hoping for the best. You want a profile that says “I walk the walk, not just talk the talk”, in a way that folks could recognize as authentic.

But the single biggest suggestion I could give you would be to find where your ideal partners are most likely going to hang out and go spend time there. As I said, online dating has it’s drawbacks, and one of the biggest is that it encourages people to stick to somewhat narrow parameters. It’s easy to stick to the folks who seem like good matches on paper and, as a result, miss out on the possibility of serendipity. There are often people who, if we were to write everything out on paper would seem like the opposite of what we want. However, if we were to meet them in person, with relatively few preconceptions, we may discover that those same people are sex on toast.

Spending time in the places where your ideal partners are wont to hang, becoming a known quantity and building relationships within those communities helps you meet and connect with the people you like. That, in turn, helps build attraction and interest over time, rather than focusing on an instantaneous attraction.

However, this is also going to require your being willing to own your interest and be willing to express it in ways that signal that you see them as more than a potential FWB. The way you phrased things in your letter – I like connecting as friends first with expressing my honesty that I am also interested in going on a date (and later asking if they would like to proceed with more intimate activities). – comes across as kind of wishy-washy or mechanical. If that’s the first time you’ve ever expressed any sort of sexual or romantic interest in someone then it’s not that much of a surprise that you aren’t getting reciprocal interest. You want it to be clear that you find them attractive and desirable, and in these cases, you want deeds,  not words. If you aren’t flirting or expressing appreciation or otherwise signaling that you’re into them, then it’s understandable that they might not return your interest. They may not realize you’re interested in them at all and let any potential interest fade.

And incidentally, this is a point where clarity of intent (“I like you as a friend AND I would like to date you”) is going to be more important and meaningful than word choice. I’ve seen a lot of folks use a lot of social justice language or therapized ways of speaking to try to express interest in ways that tag all the bases and it comes off as stiff and unwieldy at best, distancing and inauthentic at worst. While I can understand not wanting to be misunderstood, especially as someone who’s neurodivergent, sometimes the somewhat messy natural way of speaking gets the point across far more effectively and authentically.

Good luck.