Where do you struggle with dating?

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Do you at least live in a major metro area with a reasonable-sized LGBTQ+ subculture?

Columbus-ish Ohio ( ) area so I guess but making an effort to plan things and go to those meetups is hard

I think that my problem with 'dating' is that it is a concept that I cannot relate to. While I have been on dates with women. I never was conscious of 'dating' them. Relationships, few though they have been, for me have always evolved organically and, until I became engaged, I could not put a name to the process that was meaningful to me. I have always found the labels, 'girlfriend' and 'boyfriend' repulsive and a bit nauseating.

My own current and longest-lived romantic relationship evolved organically too. I think organically-evolved relationships are the best kind.


Hmmm, I don't share your aversion to these terms, but I am repulsed by various aspects of today's standard dating customs.

hey at least men don't court women anymore while the stern father watches on like some kind of twisted humanized peacock display

Hopefully you're already aware of Stonewall Columbus, where many different kinds of events are held? (But I thought I should bring it to your attention anyway, just in case, because not all LGBTQ+ people are fully aware of the organized LGBTQ+ community.)

I am, but it is like 30 minutes away from me and I hate to drive and unfortunately still don't have a license since I haven't need one so unless I ask someone else it's kind of a no-go. eventually I will go to things like that but right now it's just not in the cards

Dating tip for the introverts:

Why do you hate to drive? Do you have attention issues that make you fear that you will never be able to become a safe driver? Or do you hate it for some other reason?

(Attention issues are why I don't drive. Luckily I live in a place with decent public transportation. Unfortunately, very few other places in the U.S.A. have decent public transportation.)

I hate being in control of heavy machinery like that. It's not that it's hard, just the ease of killing someone makes me nervous. Someone on tumblr put it best: "I hate driving because you have to do everything perfectly as fast as possible or everyone around you will announce their displeasure with airhorns. Oh and if you mess up you die and kill a bunch of people at the same time. LITERALLY like disarming a bomb except there's a peanut gallery watching you and they've each got an airhorn and also another bomb"

Feelings are rarely mutual. It's always either I like him but he doesn't like me, or he likes me but I didn't like him.

I just want to meet someone whom I like who also returns back my feelings. But I just can't seem to find this person.

Or maybe my soulmate is already dead hence I'm unable to meet him in this world. Idk.

I don't date.
Its just not me.
I can enjoy a meal and talk and pretend like I am super interested in words people say, but honestly it really depends.
I was told being authentic is the way to go, so I cannot date.
I also think my theory is that if I cannot find common ground in communication that is a strike out.
That would mean we are incompatible.

I think my biggest struggle with dating is that I'm afraid of intimacy. Especially emotional intimacy. I mean, I can yammer on about how certain things I do are off putting to people or how I'm attracted to dysfunctional people who screw me over. And while those are obviously problems, I think the bigger problem, the root problem is that people scare the hell out of me. I get to pushing people away because I like them or failing to meet certain expected bench marks and keeping everyone at arms length.. and that's a huge problem. I can get a date. I can get casual stuff. I fail miserably at that whole functional/meaningful relationship thing though and that's a problem. A problem that I have created and seem either unable or unwilling to deal with and solve. My relationship issues will continue until I get my own crap in order. And I know it.

I struggle to find any girls who would be interested in a date or visible to me to begin with.

For me, it's finding someone with the same interests.

A rather daunting task in Houston.

It's been a long time since I've really taken a shot at it (late 00's, early 2010's).

My biggest obstacles:

1) Meeting a lot of people, EHarmony being the primary example, where I respected them but my attraction level was maybe 50%. That brings up two problems - first that if I'm not attracted enough there isn't really a good basis to start with, second it's really a blush and I feel awful when I'm the one whose pulling away - it happened often and for anyone whose done the rejecting trust me it's miserable (especially when it's someone you intellectually and socially respect - you feel like less of a POS being rejected).

2) There's a really sharp looks / ego gradient where you can easily feel feel like most people you'd be attracted to can just about point a gun at the ground at your feet and tell you dance. What really sucked - those rare one or two times where I met someone who I found attractive and they found me attractive (both physically and intellectually / creatively) there was a hard mismatch, most notable case where I was living in a relative party house and she was in Alcoholics Anonymous.

It seems like the statistical odds of finding a proper match are just miserable. Lowering your standards doesn't work because I can about as easily do that as jump off a cliff (and this is where when I hear about women who've gotten masters degrees or more, making 100K+ not being able to find a guy I really don't think it's all in their heads - I'd imagine its how I experience things). It's one of those cases where breaking certain boundaries like taking up someone's time for attention that you're not attracted to feels morally wrong, making a move even worse, and even worse still - as mentioned earlier - when you have a lot of respect for who they are as a person.

I remember listening to Stephen J Shaw on Chris Williamson's channel where he was talking about the dating and mating demographic crisis and he mentioned that 80% of both men and women who were single actually wanted to be married with children but couldn't find the right person or just had too many interferences with life. When there's no steady physical world places to meet people, where the social sphere has virtualized online as well as the move to dating apps, and then the workplace is ruled out as an inappropriate place to meet someone - that really shrinks everyone's options.


The other part - I'm living at home with my parents so I don't feel right with that part as well. Making okay-ish money (> 40K, < 50K) but it's really not enough to progress, other than that I'm investing a lot right now, figuring out how that goes, and so far with the test cases I've worked with so far it's going pretty well, I just have to hope that I catch better breaks on my finances and income or can really build a good war chest with my investing (I work from home so I can both program and swing-trade).