Have I exhausted all options?

Post Reply New Topic

These are the things I've tried to get out of my dating rut.

Internet dating: Complete dead end. No responses from anyone I was interested in, spam messages, and large number of hours wasted.

Speed dating: Talked to a bunch of people and the conversations went nowhere. I was given only five minutes per talk and the host always held the meetings at a loud club.

Dating agency: I struck out because I work only part time.

Bar: No one approaches me and if I try to make an approach, I get "f**k off" signals.

School: Same as above.

Church: Same as above, even when I attended a bible study group for half a summer.

Meet up groups: People there generally are already talking with others there and the conversation won't last long when I try.

Cold approaching: Either get "I am too busy." or "My boyfriend wouldn't like that."

When you DO meet girls, what do you talk about?

It's variable depending on the situation. But it doesn't matter because I can't seem to make a conversation go beyond a few short exchanges.

I'd say you've tried all options, but not exhausted them.
It would be more accurate to say that you are personally exhausted with them.
You've approached each with the wrong attitude.

Helping out single moms. Busy single moms often need assistance and may make hints that that could use some. This is the chance for valuable social training. And, even if you don't learn squat at least you have done some good.

Diamonds in the rough. Most people become awkward and make mistakes in the presence of someone they are attracted to. Don't be too quick to dismiss a potential partner.

When you DO meet girls, what do you talk about?

The only option he hasn't tried is taking an extended break from it. But then again, I doubt he'll even take that route. Sometimes all you have to do is take a step back and breath for a little while. You don't have to completely give up on dating, just take a hiatus for now until you feel confident again.

To me, it is pretty obvious that you haven't tried ND "dating". You keep approaching and making contact with girls, even if you are not good at keeping conversations going, much less is able to direct them in specific ways. With NT girls, you simply look odd and strange. With ND girls, you either are dismissed by the same NT standards they have learned to use, or you scare them away by your too direct approach. So stop trying to make contact with random girls, stop asking them out, and train yourself to identify interest by only using eye contact. Once you find a girl that is "into" that, she is much more likely to be compatible, but don't spoil it with crude "asking out"!

I think that may be the best option, seems like he's kind of neglecting every other aspect of life aside from finding a girlfriend, which actually is detrimental to that goal.

Also online dating can take over a year...there is no set, 'if you don't find a relationship by this deadline online won't work.' It took me at least two years to find a relationship that way...

In addition to having Aspergers, I have clinical depression, specifically dysthymia, and I literally can not stop thinking about my singlehood. A lot of it is because I was socially isolated in my developmental years and it seemed like everyone around me was in a relationship.

My mother is also on her fourth marriage, my father has been married three times (Divorced recently), my older brother has been married twice, my younger brother is engaged, and most of my cousins are either in relationships/engaged/are married. I know it's not accurate because I've seen relationship drama but my mind keeps getting the message that relationships are divine and I am missing out.



My first and only real girlfriend was an aspie. I've also only tried the "asking out" three times total in my life because I tend to suffer from crippling shyness and anxiety. I partly did it because that's what a lot of guys in my culture told me to do and from what I saw it seemed to be the only way.



I struggle with other things in my life and I get exasperated that I can't excel at the things I wish I was good at. I also don't get any encouragement to follow my passions or expand my knowledge.

The longest I tried was a full summer and I was also going through summer school. The dual stress made me burned out to the point I got sick and didn't want to get out of bed. Someone who stabbed me in the back got on pof.com and immediately had a boyfriend though it didn't last very long.

Agreed.

I had two obsessions in life. The first one was girls. I absorbed any/all knowledge I could and put all that into practice every chance I got. The piece of the puzzle it took well into adulthood to find was how to properly moderate my expectations of others. You can do everything perfectly right, but if a girl isn't into you, it's just not going to happen. So the question became how do I get a girl into me, and how do I keep her around? I discovered I make the focus of the conversation about myself. Things started to turn around for me once I made conversation about heaping attention on a girl. Unfortunately, I only got a handle on this a year or two before I got married. I don't regret getting married when I did. I just wish I hadn't wasted so many years beforehand.

My other obsession is music. Guys who can make sweet love to a guitar or piano, write songs, AND sing are by their nature able to quickly connect with girls and their interests. Even if you're perpetually broke, they may not even care as long as you make an effort. So even if I'm a terrible singer, I have some advantage of drawing positive attention to myself. Working on personal attractiveness, e.g. hair style/grooming, working out/losing weight, hygeine, and independence (job/career) also help. Personality is another superficial quality you can work on which often trumps everything else. Downside of personality is someone can still be a fake. Upside is keeping an act up is difficult to do long term, so it can be a good indicator of personal character.

Speaking of character, whiny babies are difficult to live with. An open disdain or disrespect for your local culture, even if you really think that they do suck, shows a lack of appreciation, tolerance, or acceptance for them as human beings. My views on LGBT are no secret. I avoid the subject unless a gay friend engages me directly, and I'll lead off with "don't ask the question if you don't want the answer." I won't change my mind. I'll openly disagree if anyone asks. But I WON'T hate on my friends and I'll respectfully LISTEN to their views--which is all they usually want from me, anyway. They know I value them no matter what.

Another example:
I'm not Catholic, but I do have a job with an archdiocese. Consequently, I have a LOT of Catholic friends. These particular Catholics drink...HEAVILY. So whenever I happen to be out with them (social events, fundraisers), I usually get the side eye for not getting drunk. Truth is, if I'm seen in public getting trashed, I could get fired from my other job. So I simply say I'm not better than you, that's just not for me. Staying straight is a big deal for some people I work with and for. I manage to balance my lifestyle in such a way that people, even if they disagree with me, can't really attack my character. They like my consistency in that area.

You can disagree with culture or society. You don't have to like what they do. Personal attractiveness, even if you lack the looks and personality, is perhaps most enhanced by how you value other people and SHOW them they are valued. My earliest mistakes in dating were more about how I really wanted a girl to have a girl, really to just not be lonely. I found that how much I want a girl to be with me matters less to her than how she feels about herself. I began to see making a girl smile as equally as important as getting her in bed, whether I got more than a smile or not, and even if I never saw her again. Even if I got rejected. The right motivations will normally produce the right deeds. By aggressively getting straight to the point and trying to get a gf right away, I tended to appear creepy. Lavishing attention on a girl with no expectation or pressure for any reciprocation at all? It's the difference between night and day.

Oh, and one final note on that... Lavishing attention on a girl will always appear creepish because we don't live in the kind of world that affords people much trust. It takes time for that to pay off. Once someone gets used to it, they'll seek you out wanting more. It won't always happen with everyone. I just believe in casting a wide net and repeating often. Out of 100 female friends and acquaintances, surely there's ONE (1) out there who will go out with you AT LEAST once. Treat everyone the same, make them feel important and special, whatever that means to each individual, try to stay in regular contact. Focus the conversation on HER interests. Make it a habit. It ALWAYS works if you do it that way.

The paradox here is it means NOT seeking a gf. Not in the short term. It leads to LTR eventually, stress on EVENTUALLY. But that's entirely circumstantial, a consequence of habitually maintaining casual contacts and ongoing friendships. Looking for a gf won't work. Let her find you. When she finds you, do NOT reject her. Let the relationship play out for a while before you decide to dump her. Most likely you won't have that problem. Women tend to do all the leaving these days and typically blindside us when they do. Ignore it and move on as quickly as you can.

I feel like because I didn't date and missed out on the psychosocial moratorium in my developmental years that I am perpetually behind my peers. It's like I was given tests and I flunked them. Because of that, I was pushed into adulthood without being ready so I am still a lost child but I don't get the same support a child would.

Another thing I tried was a "fling" site. Complete and utter rip off.

AngelRho, seem to get protective about the Bible Belt whenever I criticize it like it's some sort of Shangri-La in disguise.

What you have is an obsession, which isn't healthy. You shouldn't be on here asking people how you can fulfill that obsession, you should be asking how to kick it. And if someone gives you decent advice, don't hide behind all of your problems and issues and make excuses for why you can't follow their advice. The only thing that does is make you sound like a victim. I know I'm being harsh, but when you turn down every answer that people give you and hide behind lame excuses, it shows that a lot of people here are putting in a lot of wasted effort to try and help you. Either accept an answer and follow through with it or be content with your life the way it is. You're only hurting yourself by not trying EVERY possibility at least once. People aren't giving you the answers you want to hear, they are telling you what you need to hear, because what you want just isn't possible at the moment. No one has said that breaking your obsession will be easy, they have just explained that it is necessary for you to reach your goal.

Ok...time to go with a different angle on this one...

First off, what's with your obsession with Erickson's stage theory (yes, I paid attention in college. I teach preteens and teens for a little extra cash)?

If you're concerned about some identity crisis, most current psychologists will agree or admit that developmental stages are fluid. If you want to go back to elementary school, you can do that (figuratively) and work your way forward and experiment with identity formation right now. Just from reading your posts, I don't think you missed the moratorium. I think you reverted back to the identity stage and got stuck there. Erickson believed you moved to the next stage once you got it figured out. You are experiencing your moratorium right now, so all you have to do is work through it just like teenagers do. Your advanced age will put you ahead of the learning curve, so don't stress about it. Just make a conscience effort of resolving the crisis. A part of that is going to be finding harmony with what society expects from you. You don't have to agree with them. Just stop having contempt for them. Admit that they may be right about SOME things. Take the good with the bad, make up your own mind. I'm not sharing magical secret that make you fit in. I'm just suggesting a possible path to help ease the transition once you're ready.

Carving out time for mindfulness or meditation will go a long way to helping you here. Teenagers struggle at looking for the best in everything. Try that and I think that might help ease your identity issues.

I'm approaching 40 and am feeling a bit of an identity crisis myself. Mostly with my career path. This isn't as simple as just saying "midlife crisis." I'm feeling a little of that, too, but that's an all-in-your-head thing that I can already deal with. For me, it's feeling that musically I've wasted my life, so how do I turn this ship around and make a meaningful mark? I'm confident that I can do it. I just can't get my life balanced just right to make things happen. As with everything positive that I HAVE accomplished, I know it's going to work out ok. It just sucks being HERE right now for however long it takes. I might be dead before I can get there, but I'm still going to try. As long as I still breathe, there's still a chance.

I think you'll find in practice Erickson moves back and forth and there's a lot of overlap. My advice is don't get so stuck on Erickson. Where you are with girls right now is where I was in early elementary school. So guess how painful and awkward things were for me by adolescence? It was rough, and I made my hs relationship a significant part of my identity. I had no identity without a partner. And that made for a miserable relationship with a similarly-minded middle-school girl. That lasted all the way into college, about halfway through. Trust me, you're better off the rest of your life alone and never dealing with that than spending 6 years with a miserable person. I $#¡+ you not. But what's done is done and we have all moved on.

I think what's going on with you is you are defining yourself, your identity, as IAR, without which you are nobody. If you are contemptuous towards your culture NOW, what does it mean that you are so eager to rise to their expectations of you to have a gf?

The real world doesn't work that way, and that's part of why Erickson has so much explanatory power. In the real world, you resolve the identity crisis however works best for you and find your role in society. You decide that girls are a part of that identity, i.e. they are in the picture. What you discover in resolving the identity crisis is that they aren't THE picture. So in identifying the role you play in society, you simply "let nature take its course." I'm unable to do this unconsciously, and apparently you are in the boat I used to be in. You have to actually think things through. It's easy to obsess about it at this stage. But the way things work in the real world, you establish your identity and resolve the crisis by standing ALONE. Girls do not define you. Not only that, but girls who have resolved the identity crisis do not wish to be dragged back into such a crisis with another person. They don't enjoy being what defines another human being, especially not a man who has no idea what to do with his life.

Your identity, to take Erickson's theories, cannot include another person. Seriously, this happened to me halfway through my undergrad years. It was wild. This girl I had some history with showed up out of the blue. I'd gotten a cold and spent the weekend doped up on Sudafed and it was like a bomb went off in my brain. Whether I ended up with this other girl long term DID NOT MATTER anymore. What mattered was I COULD NOT MARRY the girl I was engaged to. I "found myself" in that moment. I IMMEDIATELY ended the relationship and holy crow I didn't recognize my own face in the mirror. For a brief moment I felt GREAT--then I realized I had a lot of work to catch up on. But that was OK. I dated this other girl, it ended horribly, but it was OK. I had mini-micro-flings with a couple of girls still in bad relationships and IT WAS OK. Stole a girl from an alpha-type frat bro who threatened to kill me, and I'm like, I wish you WOULD, because this is AWESOME and I can't think of a better way to go right now. Ex bragged about having sex with another guy, and I'm like, snort, DON'T CARE! I went freakin loony tunes back then because all of a sudden everything made sense.

By far, stage 5 isn't the last stage or the last crisis you'll ever have to resolve. But it's a BIG one. Personally, I'd move on, tackle something else, and THEN try to hash it out because, in practice, identity resolution doesn't NECESSARILY impact the next stage. For some, I think they are intertwined, i.e. working the next stage might actually by elemental to identity formation. Obviously getting a gf right now is not helpful to identity formation.

Oh, and to illustrate how strongly I believe this: we WILL NOT ALLOW our children to date exclusively before they become independent. We will not give them cars, will not pay for college, will not let them live at home, will not pay insurance if they elect to focus on their social lives. We WILL allow courtships that WE approve of and WILL allow CHAPERONES. If they insist on living independently from our rules, they must provide their own way. We cannot afford to be made responsible for their mistakes--and, come on, tell me how many kids make mistakes? We can't protect them from everything, but THIS we can do. It is not impossible to resolve a sexual identity crisis this way. All we can do is provide what we believe to be the best path through an identity crisis and HOPEFULLY make it easier for them than it was for us.

Erickson seems to suggest that teenage rebellion is a part of that process. I don't disagree. But I don't believe a radical reaction is a NECESSARY one, else every teenager you ever knew would be a nasty, bitter @$$hole. Such is not reflected in reality, though this was frequently displayed by baby boomers and Gen-Xers such as myself (hello, Kurt Cobain). So ask yourself who it is generationally who emphatically puts Erickson into practice in teaching and raising kids? Hint: not MY grandparents!! ! As a teacher, I've enjoyed SOME usefulness from Erickson. But as with all theories, especially stage theories, take them with a grain of salt.

They are only there to attempt to explain behavior and suggest strategies for modifying it. They are NOT there to shackle us into certain unproductive patterns.

What possibilities have I not tried? I listed many and a lot of them were ones I was suggested. Did you even read the list I gave?

You also seem to be telling me my emotions are jack s**t. If you had to grow up with an older brother who was both mentally and physically abusive and got sexually harassed by bullies at school despite how they claim to be straight and you are the gay one, I doubt you'd be able to push all that aside easily.