Slys dating site advice help thread.

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By “Brits” I was refering to a mega-culture: British and Americans/Australians/NZ(of British origin).

Also, no one has told you to remain single. Nearly everyone has told you to become happy first & then seek a gf. The number of women who would list "extremely unhappy, clinically depressed, or suicidal," as things they are attracted to in a man is approximately zero. Deal with your depression first and you'll set yourself up for better dating success later.

Doing it your way hasn't gotten you the results you want over the last ~5 years & that's why you've posted this thread titled "Slys Dating Site Advice Help Thread." and people have posted tons of advice, all of it very similar for good reason. Now it's up to you to follow it and see if it works out better for you. I guarantee if you get your depression under control & put those dark days behind you you'll have a brighter dating future.

What???

Oh wait...amateurs.

I’ve been busy working on a project among other things and don’t have the time for WP as I’d like to, so I can’t really read and respond to much right now. But even just lurking here and thinking I might write something, everything I read is either something like what I’d say or it’s advice that is likely functionally just as good. I like this post and agree much.

Sound scary. Maybe I'd be better off being single.

The grass is always greener..

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a close friend a few years back when I was bitching about being single my entire life and his response was "relationships are a LOT OF WORK!" in a kind of "be careful what you wish for," sort of way. He has a point. I'm sure there are many in long term relationships who envy my freedom to go to the beach after work, or go kiteboarding on weekends in the Summer, or spend my time & money however I see fit w/o having to consider someone else, or to have as wild of a single guy sex life as I feel like at any given moment.

Pros and cons to everything.

I've recently been thinking that it'd be just my luck to meet someone in the not so distant future that I truly click with and then boom a relationship forms at the time I DIDN'T want one and then it could ruin everything!! ! In terms of my plans to pursue another academic path over the next ~decade. But then again, maybe if I were in a relationship it'd make things easier because I wouldn't be pursuing hookups late on weekend nights & instead have a proper date and time with a SO and then get some rest to work or study lol. Hmmm, pros & cons, and the grass is always greener kinda thing applies. Maybe a relationship with one person might be a hinderance to my goals, but with another could actually serve to benefit them if they helped keep me focused? No idea. It's all so speculative as well as individual depending on the other person involved. Only way to find out is to just keep living life and see what happens, really.

In my experience having a relationship doesn't help one focus. Quite the opposite.

My relationships usually go like this

1. Things are going well. Can't concentrate. Thinking about how great SO is.

2. Things are going badly. Can't concentrate. Thinking about how SO could soon leave me.

3. Relationship is over. Can't concentrate. Thinking about how much I hate SO for leaving me.

Even if you stay in phase 1 it could still impair your focus.

There is an emotional component and unemotional component to relationships. You should enjoy being in a relationship, of course. You should have feelings for your SO. There is no argument here to the contrary.

But I think you have to balance how you feel with what is actually best. And that’s where looking at the relationship as an outsider beyond the emotional bonds is helpful. Maybe even essential. When I finished school, I was faced with waiting for my gf to graduate, move her home with me, and have a life together; OR I could accept that it would be more stressful on her to make so many adjustments in a place where she’d be unhappy. It would have been unfair, and I didn’t really have any better prospects had I stayed. And this was someone I was crazy in love with.

In the end, I reunited with my best friend who waited for me in spite of my doubts, quirks, and tendency to wander from girl to girl. Yes, I have feelings for her, more than anyone else before. But it wasn’t my feeeeeeelings drawing me to her on a whim. It was thinking, “I love this girl, she’s never left me, and messing someone over who is better than I deserve but wants me anyway is just STUPID.”

Is it possible to find someone or choose only to date people meet that standard of being a good person for you as well as sharing deep and often chaotic emotional ties with? I think so.

And I think the more you look at the unemotional side, the less prone you are to those emotional rollercoasters.

In your case, it’s anticipating the relationship NOT working out that puts you in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy tailspin. If you’re having trouble concentrating, I’d say your emotional investment might be overshadowing what could otherwise be obvious danger signs. I don’t think that’s something you can fix; problems in a relationship are due to an incompatibility on some level. But you can see it coming and head it off, leaving yourself emotionally capable of initiating a breakup before you pass the LTR expiration date. There’s nothing in my experience more unpleasant than the girl stealing the initiative and dumping me. It seems to me that whoever maintains that level of control is hurt less than someone who feels a total loss of leverage (which is why I feel strongly about HOW you should break up, but that’s another topic—point being you have the power to moderate just how much loss of control a person feels when you do have to start “the talk”). I despise breakups. Being the one dumped by far is worse. I don’t regret dumping any one single girl. Maybe the circumstances, but never the breakup. TO THIS DAY I cannot get any girl who dumped me out of my head. My SO is the exception, but she always had a sneaky way of luring me back, too. It was underhanded, slimy...but I’m still glad I’m with her! lol

Possible for you maybe. Maybe none of my girlfriends meet the standard of being a good person and maybe I don't meet that standard either. The trouble with my relationships is that we usually make unreasonable demands on eachother. I'm no less guilty in that than my girlfriends have been.

Perhaps my current relationship will end and perhaps I'm not relationship material. Perhaps she's not either. In that case I will be content to be single. Being single isn't really that bad anyway. Me and girlfriend have already agreed that if our relationship ends we will remain lifelong friends.

I think that my former grief at being single was due to the social stigma associated with being single and due to me worrying too much about what other people think of me. If I look at the single lifestyle without consideration for what other people think of me, I realise that it's not a bad lifestyle.

I hope Sly doesn't really dislike RetroGamer.

It's unfortunate. We were so similar a few years ago. I could really relate to him then.

I’m sure he really likes you.

Just today a girl I work with was talking about how you're better off being single, something she's learnt from her past relationships.

She said this while she's actively dating and planning to get into a relationship with a guy she met a mere month after her previous relationship.

Relationship > Being single.

By far.

Why else a lot of people rush to have one?

People simply have a short memory it seems.

As for “being single is better than being with the wrong person” thing that we got so tired hearing, is a matter of a stupid choice, your stupid choice. You (those who say this silly line) can simply quit and become single if it’s that bad.

This.

That's one way to avoid a weding