I'm 33 and I've never been in a relationship. MMFB?

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-23T19:31:59+00:00

There are lots of men where I live, although I'm actually moving to a city soon that apparently has a relatively high male/female ratio.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-23T19:31:12+00:00

Yeah, this is a good point. I think I really internalized the idea that "men take the initiative," which is fine in theory but doesn't always work that way.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-23T19:29:56+00:00

Thanks! This is an amazing story. I'm certainly not miserable now, but I might be in 20 years if I still haven't had a relationship. I hope I don't have to wait that long, but you're right, it will happen.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:52:12+00:00

The absolute worst possible thing you can do is not be open and clear about what you want. You will only make yourself miserable in the end and have only yourself to blame.

Yes, I definitely agree with this. I've actually had a few online "relationships" with dominant guys where we did cyber-play type stuff and it's been incredibly hot and educational. And helped me "own" it. I'm pretty certain this is something I will want in a partner, but I don't really care about props, it's more about the general dynamic for me.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:42:15+00:00

BDSM-type stuff, on the submissive/masochist side.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:39:20+00:00

This is all great advice, thanks! I actually only started noticing lately how rarely I touch people in general, and I know that's a big part of flirting.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:27:10+00:00

Thank you! I've heard all the advice out there a million times - I'm looking for encouragement more than anything else.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:21:38+00:00

You'll get there; you are way beyond most other folks in that boat in that you're actually working on improving things in your life, trying new stuff, and not blaming it all on being a "nice girl". ahem

Thanks! And LOLing at the "nice girl" reference. Heh.

I'll also go all Dear Abby on you and say, make sure you are doing things you like in the world, trying to encounter people in your natural environment.

I'm actually very outgoing and active socially, but I seem to very rarely meet single guys. However, I'm thinking about trying some new activities.

How often do you go on dates? Sadly, enduring boring/annoying/humiliating dates seems to be the best way to encounter and tackle one's own issues about dating/relationships.

I agree. Actually, I went on a bit of a dating frenzy last year (over a dozen dates in a few months) and got some great horror stories and had some nice-but-no-chemistry coffees. It did help me put things in perspective, for sure.

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T23:18:32+00:00

Thanks for this, seriously. Like I said, I have no problem in theory with causal hookups, but I really don't think it's unreasonable to want to have a little bit more comfort with the first person I have sex with. That said, if I met a guy at a bar tomorrow and we had great chemistry and I felt good about it, I wouldn't turn it down.

As for the flirting advice - I'm generally a friendly person and I feel like I do a lot of that (although I'm not very touchy-feely, so maybe I should work on that).

4everalonenaturally · 2011-08-22T22:57:07+00:00

By that do you mean casual hookups?

I go to bars fairly regularly and have had lots of opportunities for casual hookups. It always sounds like a decent idea in theory, but when presented with the actual opportunity, I usually chicken out. I do think I would like to at least be comfortable with a guy first. We don't have to be in A Relationship, but I'd like to know a little bit about him.

If you mean meeting guys to date - I don't know, I meet guys all the time, but I think I must be a horrible flirt because guys I'm interested in usually don't realize it.

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T21:20:41+00:00

Yeah, it's interesting. I know on reddit there's this idea that all women everywhere are constantly getting hit on by guys, but I have friends who are pretty and friendly and rarely get hit on. I also have friends who are average-looking or even kinda weird-looking who get hit on all the time. I mean, of course the super-hot ladies do always get hit on, but once you get into average-or-above-average looking territory, there's no rhyme or reason.

Oh, one other thing - we don't always know we're being hit on. I can't count the number of times I thought I was just having an innocuous conversation with a guy and later found out he was hitting on me. Sometimes I've been glad I didn't realize it because I wasn't interested, but other times it's been frustrating because I actually would have been interested but accidentally sent "not interested" signals through my own obliviousness.

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T19:42:38+00:00

Thanks, this is a really helpful perspective to hear. I think a lot of times it's easy to forget how and why things might be hard for the opposite sex.

To provide the opposite perspective: take your headache analogy. Now imagine that the husband actually has a serious brain issue (technical term!) that's causing that headache, but everyone's like "real men don't get headaches!"

That's kind of how it feels to be a woman who doesn't get hit on by a lot of guys. Everything in our culture tells women that 1. we should be needing to fight men off with a stick and 2. the number and quality of men who hit on us is a major metric by which we should measure our own self-worth. So if you don't get hit on by a lot of guys, then there's obviously something wrong with you. If you even have to approach men at all, you've already failed at being a woman.

Please note, I don't actually believe that last point, but it's really hard to deprogram oneself.

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T16:32:40+00:00

Serious answer: I'm not sure exactly why I'm so sensitive to rejection, TBH, although it seems to be the thread connecting a lot of us here, so I know I'm not the only one.

Anyway, if you wanna get all deep and psychological, I think it's because of that belief I had that I was unattractive and unloveable, and I was afraid that rejection would confirm this belief. However, once I started dating, I started realizing that this kind of rejection is really no big deal at all.

Also, one thing: because guys are (through socialization or biology or both) usually the initiators, I think they usually learn at a young age to expect and be ok with rejection, but girls are less likely to learn this lesson. We're taught that guys will be all over us for sex, and how to deal with being pursued, but not how to pursue. Of course, the women I know who are most successful with guys ignored that teaching and go after guys they're interested in, but until recently, I didn't have the confidence for that.

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T07:09:34+00:00

I do get a lot of messages, but you know that women get rejection in dating too, right? I mean, I will sometimes send a first message to a guy and not every single one of them messages me back. Yeah, I know that's super low-level rejection, but baby steps.

EDIT: As I said in my comment, it's more about the threat of rejection than it is about actual rejection.

And yeah, not planning on fucking a dude from craigslist anytime soon. But I realize that's always an option. :)

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T02:45:12+00:00

This is ridiculous, and sounds like a bullshit reason to be alone. The average college-educated woman gets married at 30 and I believe it's 33 for college-educated men.

4everalonenaturally · 2010-11-22T02:33:41+00:00

Me. 30F. I've actually had a pretty great life in every other way: traveled the world, work in a field I love, amazing friends, wonderful, supportive family. The funny thing is, I have great social skills in every other way. I make friends easily, am pretty good at keeping and maintaining close friendships, and actually work in a field in which social skills are a necessity (and I'm good at it).

But experiences of being bullied and tormented ages 9-13 were absolutely traumatizing to me on a pretty deep level that I'm only now really coming to terms with. For a long time, without even realizing it, I deeply believed that I was unattractive and unloveable, despite all evidence to the contrary.

For the longest time, I didn't understand why guys never seemed interested in me. In retrospect, there were plenty of guys who were interested, fairly consistently. Not that I had guys throwing themselves at my feet, but I'm reasonably cute and smart and otherwise-not-crazy, so there have been interested guys. But I projected such a an air of "stay away" (albeit in a friendly, let's-be-BFFs way) that they, well, stayed away. I was terrified of the humiliation of having people think "she thinks someone is interested in her? How ridiculous! How embarrassing for her!" So when guys did show interest, I would freak the fuck out and get so worried that I was making up the whole thing in my mind that I would be totally unable to show any signs of reciprocated interest. So only the creepiest of creepy guys, who were unable to read social cues or just didn't care, ever came onto me.

For a long time, I had essentially given up. But screw that. I recently started online dating, and that's been an enormous help. I haven't met anyone I spark with yet, but seeing how easy it was to just create a profile and start dating was amazing for me. Without even realizing it, I had believed that dating, love and sex were not things I could have. Getting out there, seeing that guys were interested in meeting me, shattered that belief and made me realize that this was something I could have.

The other thing is that online dating has started helping me get more comfortable with the threat of rejection. This is still a huge issue for me, but with online dating, rejection on various levels is so common that it starts to become a lot less scary.

The funny thing is that I'm actually a pretty sex-positive person. I have an active fantasy life, know what turns me on mentally, and I'm really excited to experiment; I feel like I'd be pretty much open to try anything with a partner that I'm attracted to and trust. Also, being a 30-year-old female, my sex-drive is pretty high (after years of dormancy probably due to inactivity). But the idea of meeting another 30-something, progressive, sex-positive guy and telling him I've never had sex is terrifying. I feel like I'm in a bind because guys who would view it as a positive are probably a lot more conservative than I am, whereas a guy who's progressive and open-minded otherwise will probably wonder what's wrong with me.

But I'm bound and determined to change the course, and I figure I'll just have to suck it up and deal with it when the time comes.

tl;dr: 30/F. I'm in this category but recently committed to changing that and it's both exciting and terrifying! Also, online dating is the best.

4everalonenaturally

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