Trying to understand dating. Is this the basic guideline?

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Currently I am at the final months of my 29 year existence and still have no real understanding of relationships. I feel extremely stupid asking, and rarely post on here because most people on this site are a lot more advanced in regards to answering questions and acknowleding their viewpoints. Basically I feel like a moron in comparison.

Anyways, the most advanced I have been when it comes to love and relationships is getting my first kiss at 19, and having a girl want to go out with me at 26. I know how bad it sounds, I live it.

The way I would go about dating, even if it is the first date, is that I would personally only go out with one person at a time. From my understanding, both parties are aloud to date as many people as they want to at the same time until they both agree to be exclusive?

While both parties can be dating multiple people at once, is it assumed that each person could be having sex with multiple people until they narrow down who they like best?

I think I may be strange that I would only date one person at a time, and only have sex after we became exclusive. I am a one women man (if a women actually liked me)

Then I see everywhere that men have to ask their wives before they can buy or do something? Both my dad and grandfather have never had this type of relationship. Husbands did what they wanted and their wives did what they wanted without having to ask their permission. My uncles on the other hand are whipped big time. They basically have to ask permission to use the bathroom, even though they are the bread winners, and have no kids and do extremely well for themselves.

I have multiple customers every year ask me if I am married, and when I say no, they always comment on how smart I am and complain about the headaches they deal with. I have a neighbor even advise me to never get married, that its not worth it.

I love my freedom and the ability to not have to ask permission for anything, but I don't want to be alone, it kills me more and more as life flies by, thinking of missing out on finding out and learning about love when I was young like so many have done, the excitement etc.

I don't want to have to ask permission for things, and I don't want a women to feel the need to ask me for permission for anything.

I know guys that have had their wives make them get rid of things that they loved because they didn't like them, but a guy can't do the same back. I am a hardcore car guy and I will never give up my hobby for anyone, unless I was flat broke and family was sick and I absolutely needed the money to help them out. I am set in my ways that if there is no good reason to eliminate what I love and my girl would want me to sell them off, she would be the one to go first.

Thoughts?

I don't think there is a formula or basic outline for dating. Everyone is different.

Yes, of course they are "allowed" to, when no boundaries have been set yet. There are no hard and fast rules about this.


I think your method is the most common (though I could be wrong). Something I often hear is "once sex comes into it, that changes the game". Basically, if you are sleeping with someone, it is generally considered the ethical thing to do, to declare if you are sleeping with someone else. I don't think it's particularly common to sleep with more than one person. Date, yes. Sex, not so much.


You don't have be married to not be alone.


My relationships have never involved asking permission for things. They don't have to work that way.

I wouldn't date anybody that wasn't exclusive from the start. That's a big-time sign of an unreliable person that will try to get away with as much as possible. Being exclusive is not some exchange of words for me. It's something that needs to be demonstrated.



Same as above.



I think that is up to people themselves. I don't live like that.

The advice I tend to throw out there is generally aimed at people who both find socializing and getting dates difficult, because the two go hand-in-hand. I tend to advise a broad-spectrum approach aimed at playing the odds. Failure with multiple women is assumed because, after all, your goal is ONE exclusive relationship. That's going to mean if you go out with 100 women, 99 of those will ultimately end in failure. It's understanding and accepting this principle that matters, and I think by doing that you make it a lot less demoralizing. I mean, that's the problem most of us have?it's such a frustrating thing and we really lack the patience to make it work. So I think a better approach is ASSUMING this from the outset so it doesn't sting so much when it happens. It's just part of the "game," and by acknowledging that as a general RULE rather than this bombshell exception, the whole thing makes more sense and it's easier to move forward.

To summarize: If you meet 10 new women and only get ONE date, the odds don't look too good. However, if you meet 20 new women and get TWO dates, you're doing twice as well as you did with just asking out 10 women. Ask out 100 women, you do TEN times as well.

And even if you get rejected 99 times out of 100, it's extremely unlikely, IMO, that out of 100 women you can't get ONE date.

That in a nutshell is my thinking as to how to approach dating with a proper, reasonable, and realistic attitude. There has to be something radically wrong if this doesn't work. And by radically wrong, I don't mean something necessarily unfixable. It's most likely something you can fix and probably not even that big a deal. But I sincerely doubt anyone is THAT bad.

Exactly. A date is a date. It doesn't obligate either party to ANYTHING.

Here's the thing: If you don't meet a lot of women, get to know a lot of women, and go out with a lot of women, how can you actually expect to meet someone with LTR potential?


Um?I'd say NO. Not NO meaning it can't be done. Just NO meaning you shouldn't do it. Sex means risk of disease/pregnancy. Sex means emotional involvement.

Two things I don't believe in: Casual sex, and sex before marriage. Am I guilty of those two things? Yep. Is/was it a good thing? No. And part of the problem in our thinking is that sex is necessarily involved here. A date is a date is a date. Do NOT obligate someone to having sex with you just because she has the audacity to go out with you ONE TIME.

Having said that, it's hypothetically possible that everyone is screwing each other's brains out. But just because it's hypothetically possible doesn't mean it's happening in reality. And as I've already mentioned, it's just a bad idea.

Your first step in dating is to get dates. Free your mind of getting sex as your goal. There will be sex down the road if that's what you want. What YOU need is to start getting to know women and get dates. Keeping a clear, calm head and an unattached heart is the best way you can accomplish this.


It's not strange. It's actually normal. How is "normal" working out for you?

You are on the right track with intimacy being reserved for an exclusive relationship. It's the dating one person at a time thing that I don't think works so well.

You SHOULD be a one-woman man. That's a good thing. But it's a goal. It's an end unto itself. We're worried about the means to that end, how to get there.


You're jumping WAY ahead here. Let's just worry about you getting to know women for now! lol

To answer your question, let me ask one: What is marriage? For me/us, it's a partnership. There is no mine/yours. Everything is "ours." My wife is better at handling money. I'm better at setting goals and standing on principle. I set the course, she steers the ship, so to speak. I know where to go, she knows the best way to get there. We work together according to our strengths. So I never see my paycheck. I don't get one penny back unless she gives it to me for a specific purpose. We get together once every week to talk about how things are going and once a month to discuss long-range plans. We get together once a year to rehash things and see what our plan for the next year needs to be. I don't have to "ask her permission" because all I'm going to ask for are basic survival needs. I need fuel for the van and food staples. I run her errands, pay the bills. In turn, my wife doesn't get any "retail therapy." We buy clothes AS NEEDED, and we've been wearing the same clothes we've had for the last several years. Her workplace actually provides custom logo shirts that are super nice. I might get two or three new shirts and a new pair of jeans maybe once a year, and new shoes every 2-3 years. I'm using the same laptop I've had since 2008. We are very comfortable the way we live and have no credit card debt, no car debt, no house debt. It makes for a pretty strong marriage.


Let's assume that it's about asking for permission? What matters more? Not asking for permission? Or not being alone?


*Sigh*

You're not ready for a relationship. And I'll explain why, just bear with me?

First of all, don't EVER let anyone fool you into thinking marriage is about compromise. That's a lie romanticized in women's magazines and chick flicks?and anything John Cusack starred in. We need to eliminate compromise from our vocabulary. Why? Compromise means BOTH parties make sacrifices in order to move forward. It means you both lose ground, you both give up something you want for the sake of keeping the peace. It's not going to make you happy. And a lot of times, you don't even really get a compromise.

Stephen Covey described it this way (7 Habits): Lose/Lose, Lose/Win, Win/Lose, Win/Win. Lose/Lose is compromise--you both give up something you don't want to give up. Lose/Win means you give up something and she gets everything she wants. Win/Lose means you get everything and she loses. Win/win means you both get what you want. In compromise, you settle for less than what you both want, so you're both unhappy. In Lose/Win and Win/Lose, one person will be unhappy. The reality of a LTR/marriage is that if one person is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. Sooner or later that dissatisfaction is going to play out in other areas of the relationship. Compromise and one-sidedness don't work. Win/Win means you come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Now, that might involve work, which looks a lot like compromise. The difference is that you don't actually mind the work. In fact, the work is something you enjoy doing, so you win because you get to do what you enjoy doing to make someone feel happy. The other person wins because she gets what she wants. She's happy, you're happy, everyone wins.

If you're going to lose in a relationship, here's how you do it: You either come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, i.e. we both get something positive out of this without compromise, or No Deal. If we can't both win at this, then just forget it. It's not worth everyone being unhappy or one person feeling left out.

Having said that, let me explain why you aren't ready for a relationship:

In a relationship, you have to have a vested interest in the other person. Your happiness is derived from being there for someone else. I don't mean you have to be codependent. That's not what I'm saying, because codependency is unhealthy. It's a condition in which you are slaves to each other. It's a condition that says "you owe me because I picked up a stray." It says "I'm threatened because I give you everything and you dare to depend on something/someone other than me." That's where all this "asking for permission" garbage comes into play, and I'd suggest maybe the examples you've seen aren't the strongest relationships. They are built on compromise and are unhappy.

In a marriage, you give yourselves to each other unconditionally. You bring your individual strengths to the table to work towards common goals. Your possessions are now her possessions ALSO. Her possessions are now your possessions ALSO. You are together ONE PERSON and have to act like it.

Marriage is about interdependency, not codependency. You share for the benefit of both. You celebrate each other's victories. You grieve each other's losses. You do for the other person what the other person cannot do, and vice versa.

What you do NOT do exist for the sake of your own self-interest. You exist for the purpose of fulfilling the other person's self-interest. You don't get to ask for anything in return. You might say, well, isn't that person just being selfish? Well, yeah, but we're all being selfish. You will have a strong marriage when your self-interest IS meeting someone else's needs. You have to make that your chief occupation, your obsession, your "special interest." You have to adopt the attitude that the other person you talk to is more interesting than yourself. You have to have a deep fascination for other people and what they like.

If women don't fascinate you, if uncovering their likes/dislikes isn't a totally mind-blowing experience, and if getting to know people doesn't make you experience the greatest joy, YOU ARE NOT READY.

You have to follow the Golden Rule and give yourself completely over to it if you want to be ready for a relationship. You will not find success otherwise.

It's not a problem I used to have. I had a very high success-rate once I got past the initial flirting stage. OTOH, I didn't have anything even remotely close to 100 women that I could have "dated". More like less than 10.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. When it comes to dating a stranger (eg guy a colleague set me up with, internet date) or near-stranger (guy I chatted with at a bar/party who asked for my number), I would NEVER date them exclusively from the get go. Because I don't / barely know them! I'm of the view that if I've had fun on a date, and he asks me out again, I'll say yes and carry on. If after a bunch of dates, if we're still having fun, well, it's time to discuss dating exclusively.

Far as I'm concerned, until you've had the exclusive conversation, and the other person has agreed to date you exclusively, you aren't officially "boyfriend - girlfriend".

People who say they have to ask their wives for permission to buy stuff, for instance, are usually joking.

And that's assuming the couple - married or not - share a bank account. If they don't, there's no reason for asking permission.

In other words, I don't think you should take it so seriously. As for the other stuff, there aren't really any rules across the board. It depends mostly on who you're dating. Some people do things one way, some people another.

Anyway, good luck.

Right. And to be honest, my life story is more like yours. If you don't have a problem, then it isn't applicable. The problem as I see it has more to do with just meeting members of the opposite sex. It's not difficult at all. It's just beyond the comfort zone for many of us. For someone who doesn't have many friends, much less female acquaintances, how do you establish a pattern of meeting people, making friends, and get into a socializing pattern that leads to romantic involvement? If bait and a hook aren't working for you, get a net. After all, what would you say to those who have problems with communication issues that are totally lost to flirting?

I see no reason why knowing a girl has any relevance. I learn to know their character over time in the flirting stage. If they have poor determination, give up too easily or becomes interested in somebody else, it will never pass that stage, and these are qualities I require from a girl. Typically, this process will at least last several months, sometimes half a year. Take that in relation to maybe 10 real such happenings in 35 years, and this exclusiveness is no problem. Of course, if you want to date 100s of girls / guys in just a few years it becomes a problem, but then you are favoring quantity over quality. Nothing says that you end up with a higher quality mate just because you do this kind of quantity-dating. I think it is far better to concentrate on a few that you really are compatible with.

Also, in the partly imaginary case, I can form an attachment and imaginary relationship without knowing anything about the real girl. IOW, I'm not at all dependent on knowing things about a girl, but I do require some flirting feedback even in the imaginary scenario.



I relation to that I then claim that I've been married for 22 years but have no gf. Unless getting engaged and married counts as an exclusive conversation.

Right. It was easy as long as I was still in school, but after that it became a problem. Until I found my niche (dancing), where I could easily meet a lot of potentially interesting girls.



I never had a lot of friends, and much less female friends. At least not until my late 20s.



Agree, but then I think many people that don't think they can handle the neurodiverse variant of flirting actually do this naturally. They just need to be convinced that it works and that they should stop imitating so much. That applies to both genders. Then there probably also is a group that cannot handle this, and they might be better off with the method you describe.

Well it sounds to me that I am not completely a lost cause. I cannot quite things here due to typing everything on an iPod, so this may look in diss array.

When I first spoke about being "allowed" (nice correction ). I meant pertaining to these "rules" that I accepted. It was a poor choice of words.

As for dating multiple people at once, I would still only date exclusively even if its the first date. For me I feel that it's like cheating even though I know it isn't. Plus there is no chance that more than one girl would be interested in me at any given time anyways.

It is very tough for me to meet anyone, even though I actually meet a lot of people. I have very few friends, non that you can 100% count on. The few that I do have are actually extremely outgoing hard partying NTs. The women that they hang out with are not ones that are deep connection, girlfriend wife material. They are into sleeping around, drugs and alcohol. I have these few friends because they were the type of people that accepted me. I did enough booze and weed from 19-25 for multiple lifetimes to the point of having health problems. This all started from depression and loneliness. I quit 3 years ago cold turkey and never looked back, eliminated the worthless people from my life and have been really alone since then. But I will admit, it was the best time of my life to actually feel free and have friends and experience being an NT.

Now I don't know a single girl and absolutely none as a friend. I co-own and operate a business and have a ton of customers, so dealing with many people daily has helped me socially a lot. But that also eliminates potential relationships since they are my customers. I usually work 40-90 hours a week, mostly 7 days a week. Very few days off. I get home and I am dead. This doesn't leave me a lot of time and I have missed out on a lot of life.

When it comes to sex, I would only be with someone that is exclusive. And sex really doesn't enter my mind when it comes to a relationship. After 29 years of nothing, it is no big deal to wait for me. I am like a freakin camel. So that doesn't cloud my judgement. Don't get me wrong, it would be the most exciting experience of my life and I would probably die of a heart attack, but I would be ok with holding hands or even a hug. I haven't even had a hug in years. No simple human contact like that hurts. I am not driven by sex. I would not wait for marriage, I would just make certain that it feels right.

I know it sounds petty or materialistic, but after being alone my whole life, my hobby is who I am, what made me who I am today. Take away what I love, I honestly don't know what I would do. I have no problem giving myself completely emotionally, working hard Ina relationship, being there for them, listening and helping. It's what I have always done. But have to give up my passion in life, can't do that. I would never do that to someone either. I could never live with myself to drive someone to do that.

I have always wanted to be "normal" but it will never happen. I always wanted to have kids since I m very good with them and have a lot of love to give, but I have eliminated that dream because I could never afford to raise a family. I mean I could, but I would be working non stop and never see them or spend time with them. Never be that father that I know I could be if I was more successful. I wouldn't want a kid to not have it all.

Yes I know that I think way too far into the possible future. I try to learn as much as I can so that I can be better prepared for things that may happen in life. I don't even know the first steps that I should have learned as a kid. I am so far behind in life and appear to have a pretty warped perspective on life, I guess i really am not ready for a relationship. I hate how my mind works and wish I wasn't who I am, them maybe I could be happy. I wish my mind was like a computer and I could just delete the "love" file in my brain and eliminate these problems with me, lose the desire to love and be loved be take care of others. But it is just stuck, now I feel like crap

My quotation marks weren't there as means of correcting you I use quotation marks a lot, in this case, I was kind of aware that the word "allowed" wasn't quite what you meant, but I responded in my literal-minded way.


You really are not alone at all in this. It's a very common way of seeing it. I've said for the past few years that I don't have any inherent problem with dating more than one person in the early stages, before it becomes a relationship or before sex is involved, but then earlier this year I ended up in that situation due to circumstances somewhat beyond my control (yes I realise how ridiculous that sounds), and it felt terrible. I still don't see it as wrong, but I know for sure that I can't handle doing it myself.

I bet I could go zero for 100.

I don't doubt it. lol

If that's what you WANT to do, if that's what you're TRYING to do, then anybody could. My whole "scheme" for dating is a little bit more purposeful than just asking 100 random women out. I'm suggesting people build up a dating pool of 100 people drawn from those they already see regularly and know fairly well. It doesn't take a whole lot, either?just dashing off a quick text message to #77 to say "Hey, I remember you telling me you had a meeting with _____. How did that go?" Or #28 "How was that job interview? Oh, if you're interested, ____ is looking for someone?"

You don't have to be dating someone to get there. You just have to show interest. If you have 100 regular contacts, you're GOING to get a date. I know how bad this sounds, but some people will go out with others if they get pestered enough about it. I'm not passing any judgment on methods, I'm just looking at results (I don't mean ends-justify-means, I just mean that's beside the point right now. You follow your own conscience). There's going to be SOMEONE who will go out with you.

Most people that I know are already paired up and/or married, so if I legitimately try to go for 100 different girls, and not just cold approach but actually put effort into it, I bet I could still go 0/100. I'm enough of an outlier that it's entirely possible. If not, that someone probably lives in another galaxy.